Dave G.

Scuff the finish with 1500 grit micro pad. I remove polishes and wax with odorless mineral spirits. As long as it's not freshly sprayed enamel paint, it should work fine. Or diluted IPA. The sanding will break down the polish anyway, you just want to get all that dust off containing the polish..

Those small or "compact" SilentAir compressors basically use a refrigerator compressor on a tank. This is indeed pretty quiet. Some folks have scratch built similar units, from scrap yard parts. Everything most have mentioned in the thread here are piston compressors. But some of those are pretty quiet too, at a much lower price point than SilentAir..

I haven't tested this, but I'm pretty sure that we have seen this before, in which cases the Tamiya acrylic was thinned with Tamiya X 20 thinner. I suspect it may not happen if thinned with lacquer thinner. Tamiya's own statement on a harder X series finish is to thin with LT. I'm thinking the X20 thinned paint may stay soft enough at the surface to be affected by the tape. And or the solvents in X20 may be what interacts with the tape. Secondly, the fact that automotive acrylic lacquer is not affected supports my theory. Automotive acrylic lacquer is a hard surfaced paint. Quite hard actually. I also don't experience this with properly cured waterborne acrylics, including craft paints, Createx paints and even artist acrylics. Though I must say that I moved from Tamiya tape some years ago now. I either cut strips of blue painters tape with a razor or use FineLine tape. And if using Tamiya acrylic I thin with LT, always have since day one of my acrylic journey.

Think of sandable primer as porous and the sealer as a shell coat or barrier coat over the primer. There are also primer/sealers. Not sure about that in the Duplicolor lineup.

That's a nice white, almost a cream. I could see me decanting that, adding a little slower drying thinner and airbrushing it. I bet it would lay down beautifully. I'm not saying you have to do that, it's just how I'd treat it. Basically I'm thinking out loud lol !

If to error, I'd rather go more towards flat than gloss. Even though factory stock chassis black back in the day was more towards gloss. But that's if there was any paint left on the chassis at all, here in New England. Our weather and road treatment is brutal on the under pinnings of a car. Anyway, gloss is too stark for a model chassis, looks plastic rather than metal. So satin brings in artistic realism vs truth at the model level. Of course around here a new 1950 Ford ( for instance) by 1960 had a rust colored chassis, if not outright rotted. So lately I keep decanted Rustoleum Satin black, thinned a bit extra with a touch of lacquer thinner, and airbrush that. I keep a 1oz mixing bottle of that on hand. But that could change next month, next year etc. I also like Stynylrez black primer as underside paint, chassis or otherwise, I don't spray models with spray cans. It goes on too heavy and is a colossal waste of material that sees atmosphere and even the butterfly bushes outside, rather than plastic parts when shot from a can. I'd venture to say that anywhere from 2/3 to 3/4 of the paint in a spray can just goes anyplace but on the model. And somehow that adds up to savings to some folks.

Well I don't spray can Krylon onto plastic cars or trucks, so I can't say how you should put it on.

That red can be sanded and polished. Watch some youtube on how to do it.

No. I mean you can always scuff and polish. Just with enamels, to do that you really should wait some weeks. Even to hit it with a second tone I'd wait a few days personally. Regardless, you want the rough areas smooth.

Essentially, yes.

Consider getting yourself an assortment of 2" square micro pads. It costs about 10 buck as Amazon, last I knew. And you have pads from 500 grit on up to 4000 or more in some packs. Just a few drops of water and a 1500 grit pad will smooth out your rough areas. Dry it, wipe down, blow off and re shoot the whole cab. If you want to try steel wool, I've had great luck with OOO steel wool from the hardware store to remove fuzzies. Just be sure to clean the model off good, since there will be tine steel fibers left in seam lines etc. However you scuff, do it very lightly in terms of touch. Not much pressure is required. I'm saying all this in regards to paint in general, as I don't paint my models with Krylon. I'm not speaking against Krylon, I don't have much access to that product line where I live, is all. A few decades ago Krylon supply just evaporated around here.. I liked the primers and flat colors for building and structures etc in model railroading, as my boys were growing up.

I have notes for color formulation, when I've mixed my own colors to airbrush color or color coat.. I've been building since 1958, never used build notes other than the fore mentioned. But my builds aren't complicated.

Flat paint is just a coat of paint. Primer has the properties to act as a medium between the plastic ( in our case) and the paint. IE, primer sticks to plastic, paint sticks to primer. Not all paints, flat or otherwise, really stick well to plastic. Some paints are horrible at it and flake off over time, or crack, chip etc. In many/most cases, The same paint put down on a correct primer coat display no such lack of durability. Primers made for kit plastic display exceptional bond and some degree of flex. Some are sealer rated so that colored plastics don't bleed through to light colored paints. Some build for smoothing and sanding etc.

You'll get various opinions on this. Personally I don't use any of Vallejo's additives. I have a couple of blends of my own or I just use Createx 4021 as my thinners for all waterborne acrylic paints, to include Vallejo paints. And in Tamiya acrylics I use either Mr Leveling Thinner or Tamiya lacquer thinner ( don't try those in Vallejo paints !).

Thats looking awesome !