Dave G.

Now finally: Acrylics have metallics to use, most will be too coarse. In my case if I'm shooting for metallic I'd rather do a silver base coat which can be found in very fine metallic and a clear color over that ( Tamiyas clear colors are very good and you can mix them to get other tones). But if I'm doing this sort of thing I'm not generally going for a factory stock finish. Another thing I do is use Liquitex iridescent medium in acrylic colors. I did up a pink like this for my wife, it's rather pearl looking and she wants to use that on a Cadillac, she wants to build a pink Cadillac lol ! So I did up a blue as well. If we land a pair of Cadillacs , hers will be pearl pink, mine pearl blue. As to a 60's or 70's real true factory metallic finish ? This is where I digress, I'd use MCW, probably enamel. But in any case, as I stated earlier on, all this requires an airbrush. I know I'm way off topic but people asked questions I feel compelled to reply too. Sorry about that ! I'll stop now. Actual hobby paints I buy from my local dealer or order from MCW but that's really rare since I mostly do some custom paint on the 60's cars if to build one, or my main stay is more solid colors on 50's all the way back to single digit 1900's completely stock builds. If I use hobby paint, it's these: MCW, Tamiya LP lacquer, Tamiya X series acrylics. Now the only thing I'll say that really complies to cheap alternatives for purchasing actual hobby paints and the topic of this thread, is before you rule out your local shop, maybe help keep him stay in business and before you do order online consider shipping costs. Remember that he pays those too.

Until James gets on board and answers for himself I'll offer this much. Good primer is your friend. Craft paints stick to plastic horribly on their own. But stick great to primer and primer to plastic. So if you don't do anything else I will mention here, at least prime ! Additionally, Createx makes an intercoat #4030 you put into acrylic paint. This turns the paint into poly acrylic and is specifically designed to make their own acrylic line go down and level well and stick to hard surfaces like plastic ( remember Createx is a professional paint company, not just geared to hobbies, they also cater to fabrics companies and automotive industry). Combine that with the paint and shoot the paint over primer, adhesion is a non issue. I've taken blue painters tape to properly dried craft paint and yanked it off intentionally and nothing moved. Same for soft body or fluid body artist acrylics and of course Cteatex which you would expect to work fine. People have complained of Createx staying kind of rubber like after dry, 4030 cures that. 4030 is a converter, createx was designed for fabrics, as such needs to be flexible and 4030 changes its application to be used on hard things. All you need is about 15% of your blend to be 4030. For me 20-25% in craft paints. To get even closer to the catered hard surface market they introduced the Wicked line of paints. All the same additives apply. Some artist paints will stick to plastic, in fact I've taken Liquitex soft body as a test and put it down on aluminum foil, waited a few days and crumpled the foil up into a ball and leveled it back out and the paint stuck fine, no primer fwiw. It will also stick to plastic but all the better with a touch of 4030 and over primed plastic. Tamiya and any of the alcohol solvent acrylics work fine as is. Still best to prime. Tamiya states at their web site that Lacquer thinner as the thinner increases hardness in their acrylic paints. I thin Tamiya with Denatured alcohol or LT. Tamiya's acrylic is acrylic indeed but I personally view it as a hybrid lacquer, it sprays as such to me. I've been extensively working with acrylics for 7-8 years now conducting more home brewed tests than painting cars. They're here to stay, I took the bull by the horns after 50 some odd years of enamels in both hobby and 1/1. Low and behold mid stream in my testing Model Master went away. Meanwhile I use acrylics freely, I'm not sitting around wondering when the paint will fall off my models because it's not going to. And as far as clear coat, I use whatever I want, no restrictions as yet. Also for craft paints I pretty much use my own thinner formula, which turns out to be very similar to Bobby Waldrons mix over at Genessis Models ( pro painter and builder,he has a video out on making the thinner). He just uses different name brands of ingredients. I've also switched my flow aid to a trace element of Dawn dish soap for every 3 oz of the blend I mix up. I've found that to work best for me even over Liquitex's professional commercial flow aid. But just for the record Createx 4011 reducer can be used interchangeably, I do it all the time. So I'll leave it all here, you guys can do as you wish and meanwhile maybe James will get back.

An airbrush is the game changer. And it doesn't have to be HP- CS something or other. Even simple single action brushes will work. Ya you'll need a little holiday time to get used to it . Other than that I can't discuss cheap options or even MCW for that matter, as they all require the airbrush in my world, that includes decanting Rustoleum and thinning it out some more. I can go on and on but I'm tired of the topic today.

Yes Joe, looking good !

I use Stynylrez and have been for about 7 years now. It's smooth right from the bottle and thinning as you've mention all work. Here's one for you though, baby bottom smooth, egg shell sheen finishes thinning with Lacquer thinner. I know, I know, I didn't believe it either. A guy in the FSM forums put me on that idea a couple of years ago. I will say I generally only thin it when using finer needles though. It's great primer ! I use it for both acrylics and enamels. I will say I got a little sand scratch swell when using it with hot lacquers but then I'm not much of a fan of hot lacquers anyway. And a quick scuffing and one or two more light coats and the scratches were gone so it wasn't very severe.

That's true but the airbrush goes a long ways to level the playing field with 2X as well. Decant ( now you can mix colors), a bit of lacquer thinner and the stuff flows great. I'd say as good as Model Master enamels did. You can't do everything with them but great for pastels and solid colors. Get into 60's metallics and that's another story. These days I shoot more acrylic base coats though.

I decant the 2X paints, add a bit of lacquer thinner and airbrush them. And cook them for a couple of hours. That makes it handl-able but full cure takes longer ( 6-8 hours in the dehydrator,or a few days room air dried). Works for me, super smooth gloss. But that's if to use enamel, I've gone more and more to acrylics. Cincinnati tends to run humid so that will further the dry times of most paints, I'm sure. As to Rustoleum from the can, it helps to heat the can up in hot water just so after shaking it's still warm to the touch but not hot, you get more pressure,better atomization and thinner coats that flow out more evenly. Thinner coats make for a little faster flash time to the touch. I did a 40 Ford hood that way and it came out like glass in one coat. If it goes on unheated it's too thick, you get the blochiness, thick here, thinner there, orange peel over there, smooth in that spot etc.. Just heat the can up you don't get that or less of it. But that's why I decant and physically thin it a bit extra, plus the airbrush has better control and I do about 4 coats. Out of the can you get one shot at it in my experience. I used to use Krylon years ago, it's harder to find here these days and when you do find it there are a bunch of missing slots. I mostly used the primer colors in model railroading though. The only gloss I stocked was at work, red, white and black and semigloss black. It was used on the old metal heater boxes and such things in 1/1 heavy trucks.

I've gotten Glued models apart that were assembled with the Testors orange tube glue by me on assembly. I wouldn't put any bets on doing the same if Model Master black bottle glue was used. The Testors orange tube glue today isn't what we had back in the 1960's, plus I'm kind of a sparing user of glue in general. But I just pried the parts apart, as mentioned above, gently, however persistently. I got body parts, under frame and engine parts off that had been glued two years prior. They really were not welded very much at all unlike when using the black bottle. Or Testors tube glue I remember from decades ago. And of course there are many variables.

By the way the primers were applied in an electrostatic dip. It didn't look like sprayed primer as such. Over in the 1/1 Mopar forums they speak of this, then the body went on a rail system about 9" off the ground and that got painted the cars color. Apparently not a ton of over spray hit the underside floors around 1968. I imagine it was an automated spray system.

Same here, don't know the specifics of that car but most undersides in the 60's, especially unibody cars, were some color primer with body color over spray. Most were an oxide or some tone of gray as I recall. I still do them black quite a bit though because being here in the NE we often saw black undercoat on a lot of cars.

If I remember right I read someplace the alcohol in X-20a is some form of glycol alcohol. Denatured alcohol would indeed be closer than iso. And actually denatured alcohol works well in Tamiya acrylics. So does lacquer thinner. At the Tamiya site they list LT as the thinner to use if you want a harder finish ( look in the fine extended print there).

If you were going to have trouble with the lacquer thinner mix it would have occurred most likely right in the mixing cup. Some acrylics accept lacquer thinner some don't but you will get anything from glop to separation to grit or strings usually within minutes if not sooner. Now I never tried MM Acryl with LT personally, I always have used either my home brew thinner or the brand name for the paint with no problems. Actually my home brew works a bit better than their own did. My home brew is 60% water and 40% 91 IPA with retarder and flow aid added. It works in most but not all acrylics. And it sprays great with MM Acryl. But hey if LT worked so be it ! The biggest issue with MM Acryl that has bit many here is to not use a good primer first. It's a nice hard paint on primer but practically falls off of bare plastic.

I use blue painters tape to cover the first finish color, de-tacked as mentioned, but I use the back side or underside if you will, of my arm. Just once. Along the edge of the Tamiya tape or other model tape you can put down a light coat of clear to seal the edge before applying the second color. Or as already mentioned, a light coat of the first color.

Tamiya clear red for me as well.

To me if to use a rotary power tool I'd get it close and file the rest of the way. It would be nice if someone made a rotary oscillating sander scaled for models to follow up on the filing with. But hand sanding will do on the final as well.. Your thread reminds me of the Mercedes metal kit I had that someone unpleasantly scoffed from me in my younger years, first married not much money, the kit had been gifted to me. That incident has left a bit of a mar in my thought process of metal car kits though I did go on to build a few HO locomotives. Plastic auto models mostly has pleasant memories associated with them so I kind of hover there. I did do a Model A in metal, the metal flashing of which was pretty hard as I recall. Many moons ago, a vague memory, I don't recall the manufacturer. Finally a dust mask should do just to not suck in metal dust. I have a full face shield so personally would use that for grinding and power sanding etc.

You could also try the X-22 in Tamiya flat black. I've done this but used Liquitex satin varnish in the Tamiya flats. Since you wanted Tamiya references I bring up the X-22.

All I can say is the last thing I'd do if intending to puncture the can by whatever means, is shake it all up. Why do you do that ? Now I do shake it if to decant out the nozzle into a jar. When I do that it's usually just into the airbrush jar of a siphon feed airbrush of which I have several jars and also mixing jars with caps, and enough for the single job at hand, so usually 2/3 of a jar or so..

And this is how I also have been doing it for the last couple of years if not decanting the entire content of the can. Works for me.

I think Quick Shine floor finish is one of the latest go to products to move to if your Pledge has run out ( mine is low but still 1/3 bottle or so and I'm the house keeper lol ). I've seen it at Home Depot, it's also advertised at Walmart. But what I don't know is which iteration is the one modelers are turning to and there seems to be a few.

And if there is not quite enough sheen just add in a little X-22 to the mix ( in the paint not over it).

Any enamels I use ( not too many these days, after 5 decades of using them have gone more acrylic) I thin with hardware store lacquer thinner, pretty close to 50-50. I doubt it's your airbrush. Metallics are known to have the metal flecks sink, so you need to keep them agitated, this is one place where bottom feed or a cap for top feed is helpful. Even in 1/1 we had to keep swirling the cup to have the metallics stay suspended. You get a feel for that in due time.

I didn't know the Model Master was discontinued, it's my favorite glue for a strong welded type bond for things like door hinges and such. Glad I have a nearly full bottle of it.

Not sure what you used for heat ? Any time I've shaped plastic, reshaped plastic, dented plastic, sheet or otherwise I used fire. A mini butane torch, candle. Or back when I was a kid matches. I never had much luck with hot water or hot air etc. , though I hear that others do. And you have to be real careful with fire or you get melted or curled up plastic. But it works when gotten just right.