Dave G.

There is a guy over in FSM older than me, like 70 years painting enamels. He took a box, put a fixture in the top with a low watt light bulb. Mounted a computer fan in one end, vent holes and filter in the other end. Later he added a thermostat to turn the bulb on and off to maintain constant temp. Anyway that's his enamel paint drying box. Some folks have done the same with plastic storage tubs. I use a food dehydrator, enamel in that at around 112 or 115F is cured in 6-10 hours depending how thick the coat is and thinner used. On the flip side, acrylics as we know them in the hobby industry or craft paints are cured in an hour or so. Enamels I usually give 4-6 hours then room cure for 4 days. By then I'm ready to move on with the build sometimes. I have a lacquer paint job thats been sitting for two years, I just haven't gotten back to it. It's in it's own model box ready for finishing assembly, it's about 1/3 built.. There is no rush and since our eternal treasures aren't stored here but in heaven it doesn't much matter anyway once I move on into eternity.

One thing about it it will sort of blend into the purple pond ! But seriously, I'm with Steve, I see no need to clear coat a good enamel finish either. Since I use a dehydrator I don't wait two months though. And the era vehicles I tend to model were never clear coated in real life either ( 1910ish to 1960). I'll airbrush Testors little bottles or decanted Rustoleum Painters Touch/2x, airbrush those with some added lacquer thinner and the finish is smooth as melted butter and the trees in the yard reflect off the finish. It's about technique, but I've shot enamels for more than 60 years too. Give yourself a chance to learn enamels ways. Somewhere in the 1970's I clear coated a dragster because it was 2/3 decals. But I don't build modern vehicles normally.

I'd go to a .7 or even use my Paasche H with #5 which is a 1.0. You don't have to open it ( believe it or not it is capable of a fine spray when closed down) up but you can run a blood clot through the sucker if you had to.

Until Rob replies, If you read the fine print it says #3, #1 and #5. Understand that on the later model H like this the #1 and #3 nozzle tip share the same needle. #5 has it's own as well as it's own air cap. There are model H sets with just the #3 tip but the cost difference isn't significant enough to bother IMO. And I know on my H I do swap heads periodically. Right now it's been set up with the 5 for several months but it had the #1 on it for a year at one point and the 3 many times for months on end. Point being it's nice to have the option.

Just hardware store lacquer thinner works fine in enamels. As far as Tamiya acrylic goes, Tamiya themselves suggest thinning with lacquer thinner when wanting a harder finish. You just have to look at their website, it's listed there not on the bottles that I know of.. Same thing, hardware store lacquer thinner is fine. Some folks swear by Mr Leveling Thinner in Tamiya acrylics but I personally do no better with that and hardware store LT is less expensive and works fine..

The best way and suggested way to brush Tamiya acrylics is to thin them with retarder. I use Liquitex retarder but of course Tamiya recommends their own. And you use touching strokes or so called lapping strokes not over lapping strokes. That's the fancy way to say your brush strokes should touch one another. With the retarder the paint will naturally flow together. 10 other people will come along and tell you ten other ways but that info is right from Tamiya and it's how I use the stuff. So I brush Tamiya acrylics but I don't do entire bodies with it, so that part is up to you to learn.

Model Master Acryl I used my own thinner blend in and to me was great when shot over Stynylrez primer. Other than crusty stuff forming at the bottle rim. To me it was just a matter of learning it's ways and skipping their own thinner. You had to remember to wipe that area clean before re capping the bottle though. Colors were great too, rich pigments. Just my take.

I suspect not too many here are familiar with this primer. But I will say that if I was going to try it out I wouldn't start right out on a model I was building, I'd test first. Course I'm one who does more testing than building models anyway. But I haven't even seen the Revell paints anywhere around where I live, never mind the primer. I probably wouldn't use the primer anyway, I like the Badger Stynylrez for an acrylic primer.

Hey if it helps you get a better nights sleep keep going for it !

My time painting 1/1 professionally was 35 years but ended some 15-20 years ago. Still, Acrylic enamels and acrylic lacquers came on the scene in my lifetime. Waterborne acrylics, alcohol acrylics for models as well. Base coat clear coat in 1/1. Imron for fleets. The alkyd resin enamels and nitrocellulose lacquers were non acrylic. MCW enamels are acrylic enamel as are their lacquer paints. Rustoleum to my knowledge is synthetic enamel much the same as alkyd resin. When I say I've mostly moved on to acrylics, I'm speaking mostly of waterborne but not exclusively. On another note,I ran into something I was unaware of till I read the back of a can of Mr Surfacer 1000, they list it two ways on the back: Product name is "synthetic resin paint". Material: "Acrylic synthetic resin, organic solvent, pigment". I somehow assumed it to be nitro lacquer, well it's not listed as such. And yes, it has stinky solvents in it. So too is the case of solvents for Krylon clear acrylic and Crystal clear. They sell clear lacquer as well, and clear acrylic lacquer ( stinky solvents). So yes, I'm well aware of various uses of acrylic carriers but I don't claim to be a chemist lol ! Then we get into accelerators, hardeners/two part systems with isocyanates that you will never find in my house but people on here love to use. That's what drove me out of 1/1, when I found myself wearing basically a space suit to spray in ( not literally but that's what I called it, with it's own air supply, plastic shield, disposable white suit). We got the warnings in classes and seminars how rough this stuff is on human tissue and most notably lungs, it wasn't too long for me to conclude I don't need this. At the time it was a lot of fleet work and shooting Dupont Imron, a two part paint with isocyanate as catalyst, and Centari acrylic enamels with isocyanate hardeners. But anyway, ya you can say I'm speaking the model industries lingo on acrylic. But you might want to understand that they use no other term, non of the toxic acrylics that I know of are listed as acrylic on the front label, including Mr Surfacer 1000. Not till you read the fine print on the back. But I haven't looked too hard either.

Course with all my writing in this thread I suppose it's worth noting that I don't use an airbrush rated compressor at all. I use a 4.9 cfm portable 8gal compressor that will run nail guns and my LVLP spray guns. Airbrushes are secondary and basically insignificant to this compressors output. I air it up and then shut it off for airbrushing.

For $74 at Amazon you can get this one with a tank on it, then when/if you want to move to something like a Paasche H or VL etc. the compressor should keep up. This is a Point zero.

With enamel I go till it's done and that's it, no flash time the stuff dries too slow for that. And using lacquer thinner to thin it, no runs. When I say go till done, that adds up to everything getting hit 2-3 times, the last pass the most wet. So shoot one side, the other, top side, back to the first, second and top again, then repeat. With LT you can practically dump it on at that last coat and it doesn't run, dries smooth like glass. After 60 years of mostly enamel ( 35 professionally in 1/1) and solvents, I can safely say I've now turned mostly over to acrylic though. And a little hobby lacquers now and then. I might decant some Rustoleum 2x now and then. I do use Rustoleum on metal lawn furniture, just painted the patio set a couple of weeks ago in fact. My Models now are mostly shot in acrylic.

I bought a VL kit a while back, airbrush only kit since I have air etc and been airbrushing for decades. The kit came with a metal side cup and bottles, also an adapter from the dedicated Paasche threads to Iwata/1/4. Also a quick disconnect. I bought it for art work but with the smaller needle and tip installed it's great for models too. I generally do buy syphon brushes, I have one gravity feed but rarely use it. I use a metal side cup a lot on the Badger 200, Paasche H and this VL though. The Paasche airbrushes are built very robust and to me with decent fit and finish, good chrome too. At least the two I own. I bought my VL at Amazon, with prime it came next day as I recall.

It's Chinese stuff. But the airbrush is probably half decent. The compressor would be good for blowing bubbles in a fish tank.

The Minicraft kits seem to have their little quirks but generally it's not anything you can't deal with. The doors and hinges I mentioned on the Model A has mostly to do with the idea the hinges look like they might be better suited for a split rail or picket fence gate. They might have some scale if mounted to a 1/8 model. But really that's my main gripe, most other things you might find along the way from various kit manufacturers. Then too you need to consider the age of these kits. I think someone built one of those MG kits over in the FSM forums.

I have two of the Model A roadsters, one un opened, the other painted and ready for assembly. You could say truthfully assembly is a bit unique, mostly to do with the body and door hinges etc. If I ever get to the second one I think I'll just glue the doors in and make it one solid body. The fenders have a slight warp towards the right rear that I can deal with. But everything else seems straight or for the most part anyway. Getting the chassis square on assembly was interesting, it's a ladder assembly and narrower at the front than rear. And it's all separate rails and cross members you glue together. There is no pattern or anything to fit it to. But hey I did it. I used the slow setting black bottle Testors liquid glue and had time to tweak it as an assembly to where it mounts and just set it aside to dry. The instructions leave much to be desired. Be a great thing to model as a barn find or junk yard discovery. But you can get them together half decent too. The cowl, dash and windshield portion is just plain a piece of work. I don't perceive that my wheels and tires are out of scale. It has decent chrome, the engine has nice details. It has it's plus and minus features to the kit. But alas, that's the A, never worked on the MG.

If you want white pearl then you will need white primer or a white base coat under it. If you don't have white under it you will get a color cast from what is under it. This sometimes might be wanted, like I might use rose gold for instance. But if you want white you need white under the pearl finish in my experience.

Right, I thought of this, thanks for bringing it up. I often forget people are using hot lacquer primers sometimes. I use Stynylrez, Mr Primer Surfacer or just Mr Surfacer, non of which is hot lacquer.

As someone said block sand it. I'd feather sand that, then prime. Scuff the primer with a micro pad. After that a single coat of primer before the color coat goes on. That's more primer than I use if the body and parts were all set to begin with but needed in this case. IMO.

This is Starlight Black, a 1968 Pontiac color chip of it:

I do pretty much the same as Steve in terms of craft paints ( and get decent results but his is ridiculously perfect in comparison), also artist acrylics. I'll use water or my own thinner I make up for acrylics. The artist paints get a bit better grip on things like chrome grill washes. On engine washes I have an oil stain that is water clean up that I use. I don't think they are any longer available though so when it runs out it runs out.

The Mr Primer surfacer is truly a primer and that's according to their website. But the Surfacers without 'primer" designation have plenty of Grip non the less. I personally use the Mr Primer Surfacer in gray. My black primer of choice is Stynylrez. Both of these I airbrush. I rarely use rattle cans on models anymore, even if I have rattle cans I generally decant them for airbrushing. The point being I buy these products in bottles. OK, that said, some fill scratches, some meant for super smooth surfacing and primer/surfacer is pretty much self explanatory. To my Mr Primer Surfacer 1000 hits the middle mark of all this, comes out egg shell smooth with still some grip for the top coat. Great stuff but so is Stynylrez.

I use craft paints on my interiors these days, or artist acrylics. Plenty of colors to choose from and what may not be dead on is either close enough or I mix it myself. I brush the colors on usually, but spray the primer. If you go to a place like Micheals you will find more colors than you know what to do with. Or Hobby Lobby for that matter. A lot of people here don't like Rustoleum paints but in the 2x spray paint line you will find aqua, or ocean mist enamels. The key would be to find it in flat or at most satin, you don't want gloss unless you're willing to spray a flat clear over it . Also Tamiya might have a spray can of aqua, not sure since I don't use rattle cans, I airbrush most things. Here is a chart though:

Without a shop discount and for Joe Average consumer, Duplicolor is still the better bang for the buck, at least at Amazon.. That said, as mentioned, I airbrush the Mr products or Stynylrez personally. To me there is a lot of waste in spray cans. With airbrushing, smaller quantities go further.