Dave G.

The key to Createx is their 4030 additive and their latest 4021 reducer. It's a great match up, and it works nearly as well in craft paints. 4030 and 4021 changes the whole Createx ball game for spraying model cars. 4030 converts the paint to Poly Acrylic, and produces a much harder shell to the finish. Aids in flow out and through the airbrush smoothness. 4021 is to Createx what Mr Leveling Thinner is to Tamiya and lacquers. It has that bit of retarder in it to aid flow and reduce tip dry. If you have 4012 reducer, don't try to use that with 4030 in your mix. It's exactly why 4011 and 4021 reducers were made. And yes, Createx sets up fast, especially when heat set. But it's whole other line of paints away from Tamiya, in the respect of just plain different from Tamiya.

Tamiya, Hardware Store and Mr Leveling lacquer thinners all work. Mr Leveling helps flow out and to some degree gloss. And yes, Tamiya states at their site that if you want a harder finish, to use lacquer thinner for thinning. I've personally never used the X 20a thinner and never have had the issues spoken of in the op. I dehydrate 30 minutes, wait 3 days and move on to whatever it is I'll do next. Also, I thin at least 50:50 Tamiya X or XF paints to lacquer thinner.MLT is my go to for the gloss. And hardware LT is well suited for flats, and costs less.. Honestly, I have the Tamiya, must have tested it, as some is gone from the bottle, but I don't recall using it. On a final note, lacquer thinner doesn't effect the odor very much when spraying. In case someone thinks that would be a serious deterrent.

I don't really regret anything I bought for modeling either. I'm not crazy about the Dremel with model cars, I prefer hand tools for the most part. But I have it, it was gifted to me by a very special person in my life, now passed on. So it stays. I used it more back in the model railroad days when my boys were young. Funny ( different topic but short) the older of the two ended up being an engineer for CSX Railroad, and has a conductors license as well. And his Son is a conductor now too.

I prefer single action for model cars. Double action is fine for T Shirt art or armor models. So for script and art or for cammo. To me, DA not required for cars at all, I get more consistent results from single action, at least on bodies. I could go on and on but I've discussed all this before, from airbrushes, LVLP and compressor. And the 52 years of airbrushing still using at least one original from back then. I'm not going into all that tonight.

There have been a few ( at least a few) reports of bad Testors spray cans at the site here. And not always old stock. We can tack your report on to the list of unhappy customers. So it just may be that it's good to make an entire switch to the Tamiya lineup of spray cans, if spray cans are how you prefer to paint your models.

Model styrene, plastic sheeting, old soda bottles ( bottles being another popular test bed, as it gives shape), may or may not be the same materials ( probably not). What connects the dots is primer. Primer lays the ground work in the paint system, goes to those substrates. Color paints goes to primer, where they may or may not do well directly to the substrate. Even some primers go down well to most substrates but are created to stick to model styrene best. I've tested this in both scratch testing and blue painters tape pull tests ( full strength tape, not de tacked).

Ya, the time is often a matter of prioritizing or substitution of 30 min a day for instance. You set the time limit, I just tossed 30min in there ! Or for that matter the per day part might be twice a week etc. And if there truly isn't a lot of time then stick with curbside builds to start with. The purpose of my other post was to lead into saying, you can get hand rubbed lacquer results from waterborne acrylic paints. IE there are products and ways to do that, but it's going to be more airbrush oriented. As far as rattle cans, probably most folks here started with them. Back around 1958 or 59 I started with brushes, within a year or so moved to Testors rattle can, then Pactra ( now gone). I painted models with those till 1973 when I got my first airbrush. I still keep two of my last spray can shot cars, Dual cowl Duesenberg and a 28 Lincoln roadster. Both need a little fresh up at this point some 50 years later. But the paint was display quality from rattle cans. At that, the airbrush came in at that time more for model train builds back then. But has been now applied to cars since. I use all four mediums, lacquer, enamels, alcohol acrylics and waterborne acrylics. I'm at home with any of them at this point.

I can't help but think of this mix: lacquers/enamels/organic solvents/ apartment living ? If you can overcome that combo, mitigate the odors, then fine. But there are ways to get lacquer/enamel like results from waterborne or alcohol acrylic paints too. I just don't know if you have access to the materials. Or access at an affordable rate for that matter.

I'll add that the trunk lid handle size would be better suited for 1/24 scale ish, or 20th. Consider stripping that and putting it on a sand paper diet, then re chrome with your choice of chrome ( Molotow or whatever will do). The 39 hood fits better than the 40, but I still had to do some contour work to help out the fit to the body cowl. Maybe 30 minutes worth of tweaking. Unlike the 51 Chevy kits lol. Those take some build up and filing and sanding to cover the cowl at the hood corners. It's really not nice of AMT to never have addressed that. So happens I have two waiting for surgery. I'm receiving an AMT 58 Impala today, just wondering what surprises I'll find in that kit, the last one of those I built being back around 1962 ! Edit: the 58 showed up. Nice surprise, everything looks very cleanly molded and nothing damaged in shipping. My wife ordered this from Walmart.com.

There are a few differences between 39 and 40, some of which remained in the 40 standard vs Deluxe. Others did not. Over the years I've possibly built more of these sedan kits than any other, the 49 coupe taking a close second. Anyway, besides the wiper thing, the grill is more obvious, to which in order to make the grill for the 39 included in the kit, look decent, it needs a black wash badly. Otherwise the grill looks like a very badly produced set of false teeth if used as supplied.. The tail lights are different for each year but come in the kit.. The 39 and 40 Ford hoods are different, both included in the kit. The fit of this takes some tweaking. The 39 had a stick floor shift, so remove the column shift details if to build the 39. What is not addressed in the kit is the 39 and 40 Ford dash boards are not identical. AMT did a bad job sizing wheels and tire size and style. It's livable but Revel did much better on their 40 Ford coupe in that regard. Much more period correct, imo... None the less, you can get a very nice flavor of these sedans from the AMT kit without much added effort.. And on another note, the latest 39 I built took a lot of fender sanding, some for flash but also for contour. It took some work on the running boards as well, as the parts tree molded too far up the edge..

Great is subjective, and also dependent. It assumes a quality product and acquired skills. Then yes, you can get an excellent paint job from rattle cans. Now if you take paint designed for a barbecue grill, blast it on there and expect show car results as is, you're likely very mistaken.

Most AMT kits are not overly complicated, even if not curb side builds. You can extra detail by learning washes and paint work, thus increasing skill. MPC has had some nice kits along the way, cutting a nice compromise between detail and complication. But as Matt indicated, it helps us to help you if you give some indication of what cars and era you would like to build in. Speaking for myself for instance, I like nothing later than about 1960 vintage, all the way back to about 1910. And definitely the 1930's and 40's classics, or late 20's classics. And have absolute 0 interest in later than 1970.

Rustoleum primer is enamel ( I conducted that test a couple of years ago and returned the can, since the store employee told me it was lacquer). Duplicolor is lacquer, and a fairly hot lacquer. The hope is the lacquer just crinkled the primer and didn't go deeper down to the plastic.

I bought mine at the local hardware store a few years ago. Aubuchon Hardware, Home Depot and Amazon all list it. We have an Ace Hardware that lists it as well.

I'm mostly protecting the finish. However it seems to offer a bit more clarity if there was any haze at all left. Lets just say, using it, it then appears more finished, at least to my eye. I don't use it on flat colors, fwiw. It's all about gloss or sheen. Also it has a little orange oil in it, so that will clean off any Novus residue.