Dave G.

IDK Rodger as that airbrush is not familiar to me at all. Here is a 250: http://www.badgerairbrush.com/library/250.jpg

Ya it's the Badger 250. I discovered this morning and never knew before that there is a finer and heavier tip for that model. Better looking these day than back in the 1970's. The one I had must have had the heavy tip size. Sprayed good though. No control to speak of over pattern but it sprayed good at the pattern it had.

I was thinking of the Badger 350 since it's the same design as the Paasche starter and H, you must be speaking of the entry level one with the vertical nozzle up front. I had one of those way back in 1973ish. I remember it did spray, put out a ton of paint as I recall.

The Badger is push in too. Most bottom feeds are. The Paasche HS is the same design but has a locking nut. I hated it so changed my nozzles to the push in only. And I airbrush in my kitchen. Same for my 200. A guy should always have confidence in his tool !

The starter to my knowledge is the same design as the H but with lesser grade materials used. I own the H and never had the bottle nor the metal cup fall off. Same goes for my Badger 200 I've had for 45 years with it's friction fit bottles and cup. I can't speak for the starter brush though.

I used his Washington Blue lacquer on a 1/16 Model A and really could have done better with Tamiya acrylic X4 blue with a touch of red added. I used the X1 black on the fenders and they came out awesome. The Washington blue just needed a slower thinner, the color itself was dead on. I don't think he was producing the enamels yet when I shot that body. There were a couple of issues to where I wet sanded and re-shot it. It's just not for me is best I can say.

Could be. I shot 1/1 for 35 or more years and never used fast thinner for lacquer at all in any situation in New England. I stocked Dupont 3661 medium dry in 5 gal containers or other brand equivalent ( I remember a generic put out at the time by Providence Lacquer that worked just as well). . I don't know if Dupont even offers this product anymore but there are others out there. Even Kleen Strip is listed as medium dry if you dig into the fine print far enough. But it's still faster than I recall. Mr Leveling Thinner is closer. Mike touts his thinners are high quality though. But I saw a video in which Mike from MCW stated the auto colors have fast thinner and military slower thinner, to me with the glosses used in auto models this is silly. Honestly I'd prefer he sent it uncut and thin it myself. But fast thinner could well explain the cotton candy effect in the interior tub within this thread. I'd be temped to put in a few drops of retarder if the paint has any more room for thinning, the ones I've used are might thin already.. Just sayin

I've said it before, I don't like that MCW lacquers are thinned with a fast drying lacquer thinner for the automotive paints. Seems counter intuitive that he used fast thinner for auto paints and slower for military. I contacted him on this to see if I can get paints with the slower thinner and never got a reply. I like to slow my lacquers down if anything not speed them up.. I make out much better with Tamiya LP and Mr Leveling thinner. The thing is IMO it's the only correction MCW lacquers need besides pricing structure. I can generally make do without them honestly. And also they have the enamel line now which I have not tried.

Well square bottle lol. They sit side by side together too, somehow I visualized the black one. Anyway, works for me. I use it sometimes to mount my chrome parts as well.

I just use Testors black bottle Clear Parts Glue. The only caution is it's real tacky stringy stuff so hit the nail on the head the first shot so to speak. But it does dry clear and is strong.

Depends what you're doing. I'll say that for fine lines you can utilize your other hand to brace with, then upper body motion for moving forward with the line. This is what we do in airbrushing finer work or letters on fabrics or in art work. But this assumes your work piece is stationary. In gluing smaller pieces together anything to kelp support the hand helps as mentioned above. And here is a big one that takes some practice, be firm but don't tense up. At the moment of contacting one piece to another hold your breath for that short period but not for like 30 seconds, don't forget to breath lol. Between everything you will find your way with practice. Don't give up.

In 1/1 I always put in a shot of fisheye eliminator and never got fish eyes or craters. The product I had was for enamels and lacquers not sure it would work in 2k. I can imagine 2k has it's own iteration. Mine was a universal product named Smoothie and it seems to me it alluded to one shot. I remember the green and white can with pump top well.. But I painted 1/1 for 35 years using this stuff in my blends, even solvent based acrylic enamel with urethane additives and hardeners. No problems with craters or fish eyes, no meaning 0. TCP Global sells one that eliminates craters and fisheyes. Well Fisheyes end up craters which are caused by silicones and oil contamination. Straight up craters may or may not have contamination but the paint has surface tension then the rings form in the finish. Some thinners will do this in certain paints. We get the same thing in water borne acrylics and in that case flow aid or even a trace of dish soap or glycerin will end it. Non the less, after all these words, I think if you find the right product your problem will go away. By the way, when airbrushing Testors square bottle thinned with hardware store paint thinner I've gotten this. Mix the thinner 50/50 with Mineral Spirits then thin the paint with that combo and no problem. Or use straight Lacquer thinner to thin it, also no problem. This is a case for straight up craters more so than fisheyes. But hardware store paint thinner flows Testors out great then the disappointment comes when the craters form. LT is just right, good flow, decent flash time, no craters.

Minus some nuances basically if solvent based, then enamel is enamel. The brand differences aren't huge in terms of the structural chemical make up. So X-22 ( semi solvent water clean up acrylic) should go fine over any well cured enamel, Revell, Testors or others. The key words here are " well cured". You gotta do what you gotta do to be sure of that. You don't want to find your finish looks like dried prunes 2 weeks down the road. This is caused by two different dry rates or cure rates, thus also shrinkage rates. Solvent based Enamel is long cure ( you want it fully cured) and X-22 as with most acrylics is fast cure or at least much faster than enamel.. Equaling the playing field but in a similar time ratio is the drying cabinet or dehydrator. Air drying in a room takes a week to a month or more for enamel to come to full cure depending on drying conditions. And X-22 about 3 days. Either will be dry to the touch sooner but touch dry does not equate to full cure. The dehydrator or paint cabinet reduces all this to a single day. The enamel will cure in 6-10 hours this way and the X-22 in 30 minutes to an hour or so. Just sayin.

As mentioned already, make sure the enamel is well cured. You could get wrinkling from the two different drying/cure rates if not. And in this case I wouldn't use lacquer thinner to thin the X-22 . It's probably a time to use Tamiya acrylic thinner. LT normally is fine as a thinner in X22 but it could very well attack fresh enamel.

I was just there this morning. Doing a general search in my browser for Scalefinishes the link with /paint came up and that's what I used. Here it is and it should be live just click it: http://www.scalefinishes.com/Paint.html

The only old Indy car I remember building wasn't red, it was this one I believe. And it's 1/24:

When I do the Drano routine I don't cover the trim chrome, just brush the gel onto what I want removed. It takes just a few minutes to melt the chrome away, then using a soft toothbrush rub and rinse and dry. The mask is for when I airbrush back in thinned acrylic paint. I go down to a super fine almost invisible mist. It doesn't even show on a surface till you get 1/4 to 1/2 inch away or so. So there isn't much over spray anyway, just enough mask to cover for 72yo hands doing this stuff lol. It takes a few coats but it gets there and all detail remains.

I use Drano Gel to strip chrome. I brush it on where I want it. I did a Mustang grill where I left the grill surround chrome but stripped the mesh. I even left the horse chrome. Then you could brush the black back in but what I did was Vaseline the chrome and sprayed in a thin black coat with my Badger 200 and .25 tip. Then wiped away any over spray along with the Vaseline. You can mask like that with glycerin as well.

Tamiya LP 7 is a very bright pure red mild lacquer bottled paint,that is to say not as hot as automotive lacquers. And the X7 is the acrylic version of the same color. As others have said of their choices, not sure if it's the brightest. But these have no blue or orange or choral bias in them. They're a pure straight up bright red.

As I mentioned in my other message I too have had good luck with Zap holding up well in the bottle. No complaints, have liked it above other brands for years. I go through a bottle of others here and there but come back to Zap, both gap filling and the thin stuff.

For those speaking of CA thickening I just want to say that a little acetone will loosen it up. And it still works fine. I notice the Gorilla brand thickens easiest for whatever reason that may be. And the Locktite thin less so and Zap even less. I'm not here to explain why that might all be, it's just my experience. You may find too that acetone will clean up your caps and built up crust of dried CA on the bottles with some soaking. Acetone is the all round neutralizer of things gone wrong with CA.

They faded they rusted, weathered, oil and water stains. I have a Malachite green craft paint that after weathering is very convincing. It has a hint of metallic in it that doesn't really show but with the weathering I do brings in a touch of the greyish tone so many of these engines had,though mostly green at a glance. Mix some added colors into Hunter Green and you can get close too. The 53's I believe were a dull red so you don't need to think on that color. Trucks too. The 40's were some form of green. You can look up internet photos, the colors will be all over the place from pale to dark green . I do the Model A 4 bangers in an actual machinery looking grey/green that I mix from craft paints. The 32 Ford V8 was a darker green. But seriously look up photos on google or some other browser, you will see quite a lot of variation.

Oh you need some surgical tweezers, the tips have grooves like pliers but much finer. When I had a gland removed in my neck , on follow up the next day they removed a drain and put in a stitch, the doc gave me a the pair he used. The scissors were horrible but the tweezers great.

All I use is Stynylrez for acrylics and some enamels or Mr Color Primer Surfacer 1000 for enamels or lacquers. Some folks like the 1200 or 1500 better but I've had no trouble with the 1000, comes out very smooth. So far I've only found the Mr "Primer" Surfacer in light grey. Mr Surfacer comes in other colors but without the specific "Primer" designation.

Also Bob, that's a long run up and out, you may need a secondary blower up near the top to help suck those fumes out. You could cut a squirrel cage right into the existing venting.