DiscoRover007

In my opinion OP it was the paint that caused your bleed through not the clear. I've had this issue with Duplicolor paints many times. It might have something to do with how heavy your coats are but you will get ghost lines and "bleed throughs" if you are not careful. I would use primer sealer on any body you want to paint with a duplicolor lacquer.

1500 is sufficient but I take it 3000 now because 3M has come out with a 3000grit sponge pad that makes sanding a whole lot easier. Testors metalizer is the very best paint to use if you are wanting to paint a car body silver. It's the only thing I've seen that truly matches an "in scale" grain for a 1.24 car body. Here's a tamiya NSX i painted with aluminum metalizer non buffing. Primed with Zero primer and wetsanded with 3000 grit. Cleared with testors wetlook.

What are you trying to paint? Metalizers are designed to be sprayed on bare plastic. If you are priming the surface first you need to sand it down up to 2000-3000 grit or higher. The metalizer is an extremely fine grained silver. It will show any imperfection or paint (primer in this case) texture underneath it.

Honestly I just judge it by feel. If you've put on a couple of heavy color coats just let it gas out for a few days then apply clear. Waiting for weeks isn't necessary and I haven't had a problem with it. The problem with ts-13 is that it is "hot". it can and will destroy decals. This is why wetlook clear maybe more suitable in that application.

I use the wetlook clear now as well. I'm a heavy handed polisher and this stuff goes on a little thicker than Tamiya and is a little tougher too in my opinion.

For me personally. The joy in building is trying to do the best I can. I don't go all out with aftermarket parts and photo-etch but I definitely use ignition wires, fabricate my own hoses and seatbelt catches. I've been building model cars for a long time now. The one lesson that has made the biggest difference in my modelling is this. You have to treat the model like a work of art. Secondly you need to give yourself the leisure and time to do the best you can. It's like anything else. You can't just magically rush it and expect it to look good. You don't hand paint an engine with silver because you know good and well it'll clog up detail, show brush strokes and look like a mess. No, what you do is research photos of this engine online. Then with your experience of paints determine what would best represent the texture of that block. Smooth engine surfaces are best replicated with MM aluminum metalizer. Rough texture= Tamiya XF-16. You have to simply change the way you view the model. Expect more of yourself. If you make a mistake, do it over again. Even if you have to strip something in brake fluid. If you want perfection you have to strive for it. Also another thing. There is no substitute for quality tools and supplys. If you want to get serious about modelling. Buy an airbrush and buy a good one that'll last a long time. Don't even waste your time with cheap plastic ones. Iwata is amazing here. This is the same for paints. I'll save a lot of people some trouble here. Paint your interiors with acrylic paints. Vallejo is the best by far for this. Their brush paints do not leave brush strokes and dry evenly. Their airbrush line is fantastic too. Their colors are very opaque as well. For me its like this. Bodies=Tamiya/MM/Zero/Testors One coat. Engines=Tamiya acrylic/MM Metalizers/Vallejo. Interiors=Vallejo. Brush Paint details=Vallejo. I also find that painting areas of the model that are hidden on final assembly helps reiterate to myself that this is a piece of art. Sure I might waste a little more paint. But I know that I painted those areas when it's all said in done. And I know that if I were to do a photo shoot with just chassis it would look extremely neat. Lastly. As i said before do not rush anything. If you are not giving yourself the time to strategize, research, and do your best work you will simply not accomplish it. I may never enter a model competition because I know my best means going at my own pace. Planning is key to this hobby as well and it all ties in with patience. If you have a curbside engine with molded in detail for example. The inexperienced modeller would try to brush paint those details. He may or may not do a fine job. But the expert will carefully mask those areas with tape. He'll airbrush parts he knows he can't paint with a brush. Then he'll mix a few acrylic colors to a shade he likes, dilute the mixture and begin shading highlighting areas of the engine bay with a brush. In regards to how much detail I put on a model I judge by outside appearances. If the body does not match photos of the real car it must be modified and fixed. This is regards to panel lines mostly. Some kits are engineered to have separate body parts where on the actual car the panels are a whole piece. The tamiya XJ220 is a good example here. I try to achieve details I can reasonably do and replicate to give the appearance of complete accuracy from an outside glance.

I tend to use solo cups. Crack the lip of the cup and it will adjust to the size of the body and usually fit securely.

I started a thread on automotive forums a long time ago discussing the colors for the xj220 and long time member told me what they were. JD3 is Silverstone and JD4 was the monza red. They were exclusive colors for the xj220 so they are very hard to find. I basically just tried to find automotive touch up websites that might have that code and lucked out on one. The paint is on the way so i may have the right color but only a test will tell me how small the flakes are. Im pretty sure it's a pearl color so it should look like it's in scale.

I just bit the bullet on it! I actually found the exact color. The code is JD3 from 1992 https://genicolor.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=67630&virtuemart_category_id=23&lang=en I would imagine JS0003 is quite similar but I guess we shall see. Hoping to make my XJ220 as good as yours! I've been going back in forth on mine for a while now. Wanted to do one in silver for the longest time but last week I though the green be a more fun, more unique choice.

Awesome work! I was wondering though. Have I perhaps stubbled upon the sivlerstone green you were referring to? http://joomladev.genicolor.com/index.php?option=com_virtuemart&view=productdetails&virtuemart_product_id=28232&virtuemart_category_id=21&Itemid=481&lang=en

Revell could actually make more kits that younger people want to buy versus constantly rehashing old subjects.

BMF doesn't intimidate me at all. But then again I don't build classic subject matter. I build my favorite modern cars thats it. So I use BMF on interior/engine/and tail lights. I'm not risking scratching anything because I'm not using it for window trim.

Sounds like a good method to keep air brushed from being gunked with enamel residue. I've been using testors enamel gloss black thinned with lacquer thinner. Provides a great and tough finish but I hate cleaning it out of the spray gun.

The revell kit is pretty good for the price but they always have a lot of sink holes and such on the body. Plus the grainy engine cover it comes with isn't realistic at all.

Looks good. Would be a good option for those who paint bodies with Vallejo Air Acrylics.

They should scrap the design all together and come out with a Defender 90 kit and a Discovery I or II. Those would sell.

Elmers can work nice but you need the right watered down consistency with the white glue. The best results I've achieved were through spray can adhesive from autozone. Just mask off what you don't want sprayed. If you miss some spots then you can "patch" them with the white glue method.

I didn't mean to come across as harsh on the Badger airbrushes. I had the 150 and 175 at one point. That was early in my modelling career. I was more naive then and didn't know proper care for airbrushes. However I still think Iwata is superior. For less than $150 you can get a gravity fed brush, one with a trigger even and you probably won't ever need another one again. What I didn't like about Badger is the o-rings dissolving based on what solvents you used. You can spray anything out of Iwata. Siphon fed tends to be messier. One cool thing about Iwata is that Hobby Lobby is starting to sell replacements parts in their store. Which comes in handy if you accidentally bend a needle. I myself have 2 Iwata brushes. The CR and the Kustum CS. It's awesome having 2 ready to go. You can get a lot of work done in a short amount of time. I usually use one for metallics and one for solid colors in painting sessions.

You should get a gravity fed airbrush from Iwata. I find siphon fed brushes to be nothing but annoying and more time consuming to clean. You'll never go back and they are the best for your buck.

Automotive primers are cheap and awesome. The biggest issue with Duplicolor paints is that they are extremely sensitive to humidity. So the paint fogs very easily and you pretty much have to paint it in direct sunlight to get a clear shine. However if you clear coat with say testors one coat clear. The shine returns regardless. I've also noticed that Duplicolor paints show mold lines very easily. Even you sand down your mold lines and prime the body properly they can still show through. I believe the term is ghost line. I rarely get this problem with Tamiya cans. I'm guessing the Duplicolor stuff has more solvent and perhaps etches the primer. So basically if you use duplicolor you need to work overtime on mold lines. Don't just sand them down. Even if you think it's smooth. Fill them with putty or super glue and then resand.

Ive got a 911 gt1 kit by Tamiya that I keep putting off because I want to convert it to a street version. I have mustered the courage to do all the putty work. Not that it would be hard but I just dont feel like it yet haha.

I think $15-$30 is the range most if not all kits should cost. Anything above that I can't really justify, no matter the quality it is still plastic in a box.

Model Master Aluminum metalizer makes for a great silver paint job because it is extremely fine. But the surface has to be perfectly smooth and you should probably use zero prime. TS-17 is Tamiya's finest silver, well actually their bare metal silver is probably finer. TS-17 is a finicky paint though, it is not easy to use in my opinion.

Hey guys. Finally bought this kit and am so excited to get started and share with you all. The NSX is absolutely one of my favorite cars ever. I knew immediately I wanted to replicate a sebring silver with black top version once I saw this photo. This car is my inspiration. So for the paint I went with model master aluminum metalizer. Now I've searched a lot of paints and tried a lot of silvers, even a few Zero paint silvers and I must say I've yet to find one that truly replicated an "in scale" flake that MM aluminum can. You'll find that it's not as bright as some other paints such as TS-17 but some cars have darker silvers etc. The most important thing in my mind was scale of flake. So the body was primed in Zero Primer, wet sanded smooth. It took about 2 bottles of metalizer and several takes of resanding and respraying, some buffing in between here and there. It was then clear coated with testors wet look clear. I first spray light clear coats with an airbrush to build up a base and then did the wet coats through a can. For the interior I went with Vallejo air black, flocked with detail master dark grey flocking. I used the spray adhesive method. Superior to the white glue method in a lot of ways. Though I think white glue still has it's place. I can tell if I finish this one I will taking a ton of photos. Here are a few mock up shots so far. To replicate the wheels I'm going through hobby design: And since it was a nice day out I had to snap a few of another kit I'm working on... http://s3.postimg.org/4418k12eb/IMAG0610.jpg http://s29.postimg.org/p4ol201xz/IMAG0615.jpg Hope you guys think it's interesting so far. I think this one will be a lot of fun.

Im some what in the same boat. Almost none of my friends know I build. But if there were to find out and give me hell for it I'd tell them to piss off. I consider myself fairly advanced skill wise now and the patience, time, effort and intellectual thought that goes into detailed models is absolutely mature and interesting. I simply consider it another form of art work or painting. It's better than smoking weed or watching tv all day.