clear sprays...tamiya or testors wet look...whats the best...

[AC Norton]

I have always used Tamiya clear and their pearl clear and like the shine and quality....but I wanted to ask the crowd what they think of the testors wet look clear. I am starting a car that I will be spraying testors diamond dust silver, and need opinions on this....thanks boys, the ace....

[Snake45]

TWLC is amazing stuff. But compared to other clears I've used, it seems to be a little thicker. It's also VERY hard. I had to give up on polishing it with my normal stuff and went and got some "real car" heavy duty polish (rust-red stuff), which cut it nicely, and then used my Wright's for the final buff.

Do a spoon test and see how you like it. I won't use it on everything, but on some jobs, I wouldn't use anything else.

[aurfalien]

Hi,

Not that I have much experiance but I use Mr Super Clear and its very cool. You can control the amount of gloss by how much you layer and it polishes super nice.

[Tom Geiger]

I had a problem with the Testors Wet Look... see above. This is a Lindberg Dodge Caravan, molded in red plastic. Duplicolor automotive primer, Duplicolor blue. Sprayed it with the Testors, and somehow it pulled the red dye all the way through those many coats of Duplicolor. It didn't do it on the side glass areas, because that started as the clear parts. And it didn't mess up or go through the decals. You can see the lighter color under those. It also liquified anything I used a black Sharpie for outlining things and in the panel cracks.

so into the drink it went!

[Snake45]

...and somehow it pulled the red dye all the way through those many coats of Duplicolor.

I'm sorry, Tom, but I simply don't believe that. I've never seen ANY chemical that's able to pull the "dye" out of the plastic. If that were possible, you could simply soak the whole body in that chemical before painting it and "bleach" red, orange, etc. dyes out of it. If there IS such a chemical, I'd like to hear about it.

Was your body any less red after you stripped it? I'll bet not.

OTOH, I completely believe you about the Sharpie. But that's not necessarily the TWLC. I've seen other guys had that same thing happen on model airplanes where TWLC wasn't used at all--the Sharpie eventually leeched up through solid paints, sometimes weeks, months, or years after painting.

Nowadays I'm very careful to remove ALL Sharpie marks with rubbing alcohol from a body before painting.

[High octane]

I hafta agree with you Snake45 'bout the red dye not coming through the Dupli-Color primer and color coats. When spraying over a colored plastic body, I spray silver, then primer, and then my color coats and clear coats with NO problems.

[BIGTRUCK]

Red or yellow plastic has a tendency to bleed through the paint and not necessarily through the initial primer coat without the use of a barrier coat on the bare plastic such as future floor wax ? It wont appear on the primer but show up on the final color.

Edited July 6, 2015 by BIGTRUCK

[Snake45]

[Snake45]

I hafta agree with you Snake45 'bout the red dye not coming through the Dupli-Color primer and color coats. When spraying over a colored plastic body, I spray silver, then primer, and then my color coats and clear coats with NO problems.

Silver works great for this, so does black or even some shade of blue.

My own theory is that the wavelength of red/orange light is better able to penetrate paints than the wavelengths of other colors.

[Hawk312]

When spraying over a colored plastic body, I spray silver, then primer, and then my color coats and clear coats with NO problems.

THIS! I touched a little on this in the Big Scale Beauty article. I had a tough time getting the white and blue stripes to not turn pink or purple on my 1/12 `67 Corvettes.

And, I usually use Duplicolor clear, and sometimes testors lacquer clears. Tamiya goes on nice, but I have had problems in the past with their clear burning through the colors on edges.

[martinfan5]

Mr Hobby Super Clear is best in my opinion

[Tom Geiger]

I'm sorry, Tom, but I simply don't believe that. I've never seen ANY chemical that's able to pull the "dye" out of the plastic. If that were possible, you could simply soak the whole body in that chemical before painting it and "bleach" red, orange, etc. dyes out of it. If there IS such a chemical, I'd like to hear about it.

Hey, then you tell me what happened!

This was Duplicolor gray primer with Duplicolor blue on top of it. I made the decals with the BMF brand decal paper, and coated those with Testors decal sealer. I then put the Testors Wet Look Clear on it and this is what I got. I asked for advise on this board and was told that the red plastic had leached through. It was fine before the Testors clear. To show that it indeed had something to do with the plastic, see the window area which is still the original blue tone. That's because it was clear plastic.

In this photo you can see that the plastic that was protected with the decals (on the drivers door) also stayed the same color. If indeed, the entire van wound up the darker tone, I would've kept it, as it wasn't a bad color. It just wasn't working with the two tone thing, and the Sharpie leaching.

After advise from the board to seal in the plastic with a coat of silver, I started over with the Duplicolor primer, then Duplicolor metallic silver. Between not knowing if I had enough of the blue left to paint the van again, and actually liking the silver, I decided to keep it. I don't have a current photo, but the van had new decals now. The original decals came from my old printer that developed that line in the color output. The new decals are much better from my new Canon printer.

So you can believe what you want.... until you come up with a better explanation!

[Tom Geiger]

Here's the van before putting the clear on it. The blue paint was uniform. The decals stunk, so I got that right, including the spacing, the second paint job.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Tom Geiger

[Snake45]

I asked for advise on this board and was told that the red plastic had leached through.

Lots of people still believe this old myth. I don't know exactly what "happened" in your particular case, but I can tell you that no dye leached out of the plastic.

[Tom Geiger]

Lots of people still believe this old myth. I don't know exactly what "happened" in your particular case, but I can tell you that no dye leached out of the plastic.

I always wondered when people said red or yellow had come out in their paint job. Never had it happen to me. I have a junker Monogram Cord downstairs that is pink... who ever was building it sprayed it with an antique white color.

[Longbox55]

^{I never has that problem with a clear, but I did have a similar problem with red plastic on a build used fingernail polish on. The kit was the Monogram '56 Corvette. The kit was primed with Derusto brand primer (I don't think it's available anymore), which I had never had a problem with before. The color was going to be pearl white, which at the time I could only get it was in fingernail polish. After I airbrushed it on, it looked ok, but when I went to lay down the top color (it was to be a 2 tone, dark blue on top, pearl white on bottom), the white part was an nasty orangeish-red color. Ended up going ahead and spraying the blue, the topcoated the white parts with a different color. Only thing I can think happened was the solvent I used was too hot, and leached the color through. IIRC, I think I used an acetone based solvent.}

[Snake45]

^{Only thing I can think happened was the solvent I used was too hot, and leached the color through.}

Yeah, that didn't happen.

[BIGTRUCK]

Tom I had a Monogram Jeep molded in yellow no matter what I did it bled through to the white paint . The only thing I noticed on the body was light swirl marks in the plastic. I just gave up on it after the second paint job. You have a lot of time and work invested in your build hope it works out .

[JTalmage]

I think it's more of the paint leeching into the plastic. Duplicolor paint is meant for cars and is a little "hotter" than hobby paint when it cures. And lacquer is especially chemically hot when it cures. Could be the reason. I use Tamiya clear and it goes on smoother and more beautiful than testors one cote in my opinion. And duplicolor clear hazes over for me. And I don't like buffing model cars so I don't use it.

Edited July 6, 2015 by JTalmage

[Longbox55]

Yeah, that didn't happen.

But yet it did. Which I had pix of it, but that was about 25 years ago that I did that. Maybe it wasn't so much pulling the color out of the plastic so much as the solvent leached the paint into the plastic. Whatever it did, it looked terrible.

[mrm]

Yes, some plastics bleed through. The main reason I switched to two part automotive primers. I built a lot of diecast models. Did a lot of Ferrari 355s. Both made by UT of Germany and by Hotwheels in 1:18. Started with red models as donors. Stripped everything down to find out everything is metal except the bumpers the rear lids and the mirrors. The mirrors were very flexible, rubber like material, but black in color under the paint. The bumpers were molded in a brittle red plastic and the lid molded in very flexible hard plastic.

Had to paint one in white and the other in yellow. Both of them were done the same way. Strip all old paint, wash very well, air dry, tamiya grey primer followed by Tamiya white primer and then tamiya color. Everything decanted from their spray cans. In both cases primer was first perfect grey, then perfect white and then the colors were pure and as intended. Then sprayed Tamiya clear and everything changed……only at the bumpers. Both cars retained their color beautifully, except the bumpers. Funny thing was that the engine lids that were also molded in red plastic, but visibly a different kind did not bleed through. But I had a noticeably orange and pink bumpers.

[Snake45]

For those who still think red dye "leaches" out of plastic, try this:

Spray a red plastic body (or underside of a red interior, or whatever) with Testor Wet Look Clear. Let it dry however long you wish. This stuff comes right off with rubbing alcohol. Put some rubbing alcohol on a white rag or paper towel and wipe the TWLC clear off the red plastic. Does your white rag or paper towel now have any red or pink coloring on it? NO. Is the red plastic any less red than it was before? Again, NO.

Again, for anyone who thinks this happens, tell me the chemical you can soak red plastic in and "leach" or "bleach" the color out of it without harming the plastic itself. If any kind of paint will do this, there must be some chemical that will. Only way any chemical can get any color out of plastic would be to dissolve the plastic itself (MEK, lacquer thinner, acetone, etc.) and that is a completely different problem. No one has yet mentioned that the red plastic underneath was wrinkled, crazed, matted, etc.

As I mentioned before, my own theory is that red has a light wavelength that is better able to penetrate covering paint than other colors. (No one ever complains about bleed-through with blue or green plastic.) The clearcoat might be allowing light to penetrate through to the red and then back out again more efficiently than a less glossy coating, or something like that, I don't know. But I DO know that no dye is coming out of the red plastic.

And Tom, the Sharpie mess would have been a dealbreaker for me (strip time!), but if it hadn't had that problem, I think I would have tried painting red on the inside of those van windows and see what happened before stripping that model. I think there's a chance that might have made those panels match the rest of the body.

[Jantrix]

I think Snake might be onto something there.

[Snake45]

I think Snake might be onto something there.

Thanks, Jantrix.

Tell you a story: About a decade ago I was trying to lay a gloss white finish on a model airplane that was molded in light blue. Don't remember if I primed or not (I might have spot-primed some bodywork with a light gray of about the same tone as the light blue, I really don't remember). I was airbrushing Model Master Classic White, which had always worked and covered well for me before. White over light blue, no problem, right? After four or five or six coats, the thing was about the color of Ohio George's Malco Willys. Was the light blue "leaching" out through the white paint? No. The white paint simply wasn't opaque enough. At that point I gave up and airbrushed on ONE coat of Floquil Reefer White lacquer, a wonderful paint (no longer available, sadly) that is VERY white, VERY flat, and VERY opaque. No more blue. I then finished off the model with ONE more coat of the MM Classis White--perfect!

Until someone can prove differently--at which point I will come on here and publicly say I was wrong--I shall continue to operate on the observation that dye doesn't leach or "bleed" out of plastic; paint just sometimes isn't opaque enough. And I think there's something about the wavelength or optical properties of red pigment/light that makes things more difficult.

Oh, BTW, can red (or any other color) paint bleed or leach through covering paint? I believe that's very, very possible/probable/likely. But plastic? No.

[BIGTRUCK]

Snake, I'm not saying your wrong I'm saying it just never happen to you yet, your lucky on that, but I am surprised you never came across this topic or heard of it before. It has happened to me on yellow plastic, not all yellow plastic and not all red plastic. Why one primer will cover red plastic from one model company without bleed through on final color and allow bleed through from another model company. For me it never happens on primer coats. Maybe your onto something.