Dave G.

You gotta bite and chew sometime lol ! Just practice a bit.

Anything clear that I'm gluing on a model and I reach for Testors clear parts glue. Ya it's the white stuff that dries clear, but for me, it's held great.

There are alkyd arts paints but those are not your traditional oils . Alkyd oils are closer to enamel alkyds and faster drying and fully curing. In alkyd paints the binder is synthetic oil resin. Faster drying than traditional oil paint, oil paint can keep changing and hardening for decade, if not centuries.. Oil paints generally have the pigments carried in linseed oil or another natural vegetation based drying oil, like safflower oil. Windsor Newton and Lukus oil paints use linseed oil in their oil paints but offer also a water cleanup oil line of paints, where one molecule of the linseed oil was changed and made an emulsifier to fit the bill. So with those, oil mixes with water for soap and water cleanup. Now some VanGoh brand oil paints use safflower oil for the carrier. And as a medium to help paint flow, an artist can mix in walnut oil or stand oil. So this is all different from petro or synthetic based alkyds. As you progress from alkyds, to linseed oil, to safflower oil to walnut, then stand oil, the speed of touch dry is changed from fastest to slowest. Oh and one more complication ! Odorless Turpenoid, is truly odorless as in no odor. But it's not turpentine lol ! It's actually a highly refined odorless mineral spirits. I use this to clean my oil painting brushes. It should clean alkyds as well, it's petro based. Oil paint solvents can be toxic but the paint is not in general. Certain colors can have metals in them that may be toxic, the highest toxicity of those being cadmium. IE Cad Red or Cad yellow etc. Thus they came out with cad hue paints, these give the same punch to the color without the toxicity. As others mentioned not being chemists, neither am I ! I just do oil paintings and a lot of studying. By the way, the term " acrylic" is another whole ball of wax lol! This was meant to be short, so I'm not getting into the acrylic topic. But just to get back to the topic Lacquer, we have acrylic lacquers ( which incidentally, I'm not the greatest fan of. As much as I like cellulose lacquers, I think I dislike acrylic lacquer, unless it's special like Tamiya LP is).

The 91% IPA needs to be cut with water anywhere from 60-40 ratio to 70-30 ( even better) water to alcohol ratio. It will work fine for washes in most craft paints, in terms of not attacking the chrome, flow, dry time etc.. But it would be more durable with some medium based acrylic thinner in the mix, Like Liquitex Airbrush medium for instance. The Liquitex mediums maintain the resin molecules, where too much thinning with water and alcohol, breaks the molecular connection or so called binder. You discover that, like perhaps, a year down the road when it all starts flaking off if using a non binding medium like water lol ! Acrylics ( water borne) shouldn't be thinned more than about 35-40% with a non supportive solution, so make up the difference with the medium. This gives a wash with some adhesion, thin enough to drain off the high points and easy to wipe grill bars clean of any left over film, while still partly wet. Artist paints will stick even better. I conducted a test with artist acrylics from Liquitex. I painted it on to aluminum foil, let dry. Then crumpled the foil. Expecting the paint, in acrylic fashion, to flake off when I opened up the ball of foil, it did not do that, but rather stuck quite well. FWIW, model chrome is plate aluminum. I've also used water clean up oils. All that said, everybody has their wash formula and like it. So ramble mode off. Have a great Sunday !

True, but I have auto mechanic metal/wire cutters. Side cutters, snip snip, done through steel that size. The 53 pickup flathead has no holes through the oil pan though.

I suppose the existing metal axle could be snipped off just the same way. Funny, never though of that ! I built two of these back in the 1960's and have one mostly done now, ALL stock. But it's a great kit to hot rod too.

The other issue with the swap, not mentioned thus far, is that AMT chose to use a steel axle rod through the backing plates to connect the wheels with. Typical early AMT. I had to do a little filing on even the kit flathead to fully clear that metal axle on a recent 53 build. FE Fords, I believe, you might have to make into a rear sump oil pan ( which in 1/1 was done on some drag cars). Just flip the pan around backwards. Nobody knows it doesn't have the extended oil pickup tube from the front pump, lol !

Besides pre mixing the retarder and paint in a specific ratio, I've found wetting the brush with retarder, then picking up the paint onto the brush to work quite well. It's an acquired skill that you learn very quickly if you pay attention. Same as I'd do in oil painting for more flow with linseed or stand oil on the brush, or even mineral spirits, then pick up the oil based paint . Great for long runs of tree trunks or limbs, the paint flows right off the brush. Well, retarder and Tamiya acrylic work similarly, the paint flows right off the brush and levels. But most paints can take up to 30% of some additives or thinners and not break the structure of the paint. It's kind of a generic percentage. Whether or not there is any gain between say 10% and 30%, or loss for that matter, is another topic lol. You'll generally be safe in that range, and the paint may even be able to take more. There comes a point where you lose film and opacity though.

Tamiya recommends using their retarder to cut the acrylic paints with for brushing. It's right at their web site. But I use Liquitex retarder fluid and it does fine. The other tip is using lapping strokes, not over lapping strokes. Thinning with retarder a bit ( say 30% or so), then using lapping strokes the paint flows together.

I don't use tack cloths at all,never have. I use the OMS on tissues, then blow off with my airbrush using just air. Or canned air will work as has been mentioned. In 1/1 I found tack cloths to be more trouble than they're worth, sometimes picking up trash from one spot and putting it down elsewhere. Or if there is chemical contamination, if you think about it, it gets on the cloth. I tossed those things in my first year of 35+ years shooting 1/1. And never used them in nearly 60 years of painting models.

I've gotten this even with using alcohol, so my final rub down of the model now is as I did in shooting 1/1 paint jobs. I switched my final wash to wipe the surface down with liberal amounts of odorless mineral spirits. And I've never gotten it since. The gloves are a real thought as well. So is sneezing over the model. If it were an airbrush being used it could be contamination in the lines from the compressor, but you said it was spray cans.

I scuff for dirt as well, using somewhere between 2400 and 3500. But I tend not to dehydrate straight primer because generally I've primed days if not weeks ahead of the color coat paint job.Priming is often one of the first things I do to a kit right after de- flashing. That's the case because I don't care for the look of bare plastic, unless I have to glue something in ahead of the paint, like external hinge mounts that are somewhat weight bearing.

The trick I learned with Stynylrez over in the FSM forums was to cut the Stynylrez quite a bit with hardware store lacquer thinner. I tried it and the results were very very smooth. But you and I spoke before about Stynlrez and the problems you had with fuzziness, that for the most part I wasn't getting even without the thinner.. All I can think of is maybe something climatic. And or proper mixing with something like a Badger power mixer. You can never properly mix Stynylrez with a stick or hand shaking. The power mixer does the job in about 2 minutes. Anyway, glad you find the Mr primers to do the trick for you ! Now you don't have to figure out the Stynylrez at all. I personally still use Stynlrez under acrylic paint jobs and I also like it as a barrier coat if a kit is yellow, blue or red plastic, as Stynylrez is a primer/sealer.

I think you will be pleased.

I've airbrushed the grey 1000 Mr Surfacer and it goes on smooth with a very slight sheen and I was not expecting that. No worries with top coating right over it. It's just that it fills micro scratches well from body sanding, that I'm not sure 1500 would handle. Even out of a can it's quite good but the fan is wider and the volume per push of the button higher than airbrushing it, the airbrush just better targets what you're spraying, at a controllable rate... I'm one who believes in one or two light coats of primer, I'm not one to bury a body in coat upon coat of primer. I just want the primer to level out any odd tones in the plastic and increase bond of the final finish, make everything one color and get rid of that plastic look. Thus, generally speaking the 1000 works fine for me, given that it also dries quite smooth, at least for me..