Dave G.

I decant 2x enamel and Rustoleum lacquers outdoors, just what I need at a time. All I do is use a rubber glove in the left hand, paper towel over the mixing bottle or Paasche H bottle/ bottles, put the nozzle under the paper towel and over the edge of the bottle and press gently letting up now and then to see the level of paint in the bottle. I usually fill about 2/3 full then nothing gets blown out. Ok so now I have the paint and just set the cap on the bottle not screwed down for about 30 minutes. However after that 30 minutes I have added a bit of thinner and screwed the cap down tight. Later in the day upon loosing the cap have heard a slight pressure release. Whatever was left has never been enough to effect the paint job. I can't speak for model paints but the Rustoleum 2X and regular Painters Touch paints you can spray more and thinner coats by a slight thinning with a bit of LT. And you get a nice flow out on the model, the results are every bit as nice as having shot the old MM enamels.

Well there are others too built more like an oven with removable shelves. Probably more convenient.

I mix my own to my taste from craft paints. I used to airbrush engines but find with a bit of thinning that brushing works fine. But then I weather them in the end anyway, even if just for contrast. Not all are weathered to stains and rust. There is a green metallic from FolkArt that's pretty close in tone with a very fine fleck in it,once weathered that can look realistic and nice. You really don't notice the metallic in it then. And there is a green nail polish ( lacquer) from LA Colors ( Walmart, Dollar Tree etc) that is very close if a touch dark but still nice and close enough. Either of These would eliminate the need for mixing. I suggest to prime first.

Ya the dye is very weak in the Windex, if you put straight Windex in your airbrush cup ( I often use it for back flushing acrylic paint after hot water flushing) you really don't see the blue against the chrome. And I'm pretty sure maybe 4 years ago or so I thinned white craft paint with washer fluid and it came out fine and that has a bit more dye than the Windex. But lately I'm more and more on board with Liquitex Airbrush medium and water ( 50/50 blend of those components) and a drop of retarder which is also Liquitex, thin to a sprayable consistency. The paint really breaks down into a creamy consistency this way, very airbrush friendly because well, it's made for the job lol. What I'm really liking about this is it's not real fussy as to exact thinness and it dries satin in sheen and smoothness. Just don't do this if you want an ultra flat sheen, the airbrush medium is white but it dries clear gloss in nature which bumps up a satin into flat paints. If I want truly flat paint I do something else.

I never found either one to be the perfect solution for me personally and only used them a few times ( others think they are great though ). Never noticed any color issues when I did use them.

Also if you look at real car tires or 1/1 as we say, they generally are not covered with gloss paint.

I actually want to clarify my statement above on this. The Dazzling Metallics series from them is fine with my thinner blend that has alcohol in it. The standard series may be, I haven't tested that. Most of my colors are the Americana series, for these I use a blend of water and Liquitex Airbrush Medium and a little retarder. Sprays awesome putting down two very light coats and let each flash off then a couple or more wetter coats from then on. But if isopropyl gets to the Americana it will gel, takes 2-3 minutes to happen jfwiw. Additionally, with the Liquitex medium in there the paint sticks to plastic pretty decently without primer. Though I generally prime everything, I tested it without.

The adhesive on heat duct foil is great. But it ( the foil) might be too thick for finer details. Some of you guys foil work amazes me, side trim and bigger pieces is my limit then I go to Molotow. Or might do the whole thing in Molotow.

I get it. I think my point was more use what you can or have available. That's how it came to pass with craft paints for me. And the real point is I'm comfortable with that, enamel or Tamiya which are accumulated items over years not weeks.

I use Tamiya acrylic too, worth trying out if they have the color you need. I've mentioned it before but I went from MM Classic Black to Tamiya X-1 thinned with DNA and got a danged nice paint job from it, by my standards at least. My 1/16 Mercer has Tamiya on the seat and MM yellow on the body. Do what you gotta do is all. Most of my interiors are craft paints or Vallejo acrylic with a little Liquitex varnish mixed in.

It's not a must have and additionally the use of LT does quicken up enamels cure time quite a bit. Course curing paint by day then cooking pizza at night in the same device probably would turn off some but I've never noticed any difference. But then that's me. People today kill me, a little paint smell is like super taboo then they light themselves up and even legalize pot or drink a half pint of whiskey ( I'm not insinuating or accusing, just seen it in action is all). Hey as kids all we had was enamel basically, not all these choices at least. And we sort of waited for enamel to dry, I know that I got in the pattern of shooting the body and setting it aside for 4-5 days.

Zip,you probably missed this part of my other post since it was an edit: Edit: here's one, think Walmart has something similar: https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjM95KF6JD0AhWnbW8EHbXTDFQYABASGgJqZg&sig=AOD64_2y05Us7P9th2XYx8rK971ZuEnUpw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwjf4IaF6JD0AhX7mWoFHRO-BVoQ9aACegQIARBE&adurl=

To me dehydrating is just part and parcel to the fun lol ! And I grew up in the 1950's and into the 60's with Testors and Pactra enamels so it's just a standard to me, the stink the cure time etc. I shot model parts in my bedroom back then which probably explains a little bit of my different nature shall we say lol.

Not too bad for a dedicated food dehydrator, cut the racks to fit parts. Just make sure it has temp control. One guy over in FSM forums made one from a box, put a computer fan in it and a light bulb. All he shoots is enamels. I shoot everything, poly acryl, acrylic, lacquer, enamel, acrylic craft paint. I just use the kitchen air fryer that has a setting for dehydrate. I give enamels a 2-3 hour bump in the cure time, that way in a couple days can move on to building but you can handle without finger prints the same day.. Full cure is more like 6-10 hours but certainly by overnight, 108- 110f. Edit: here's one, think Walmart has something similar: https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=L&ai=DChcSEwjM95KF6JD0AhWnbW8EHbXTDFQYABASGgJqZg&sig=AOD64_2y05Us7P9th2XYx8rK971ZuEnUpw&ctype=5&q=&ved=2ahUKEwjf4IaF6JD0AhX7mWoFHRO-BVoQ9aACegQIARBE&adurl=

If need be I polish enamel, often to my eyes it doesn't need that.. I've only ever clear coated if over decals. I have used the candy clears over gold or silver metallic. But people do sand and polish it, most notable among them is Donn Yost. He's a long term contest builder and winner using enamels.

Ah, the hitch in the works lol ! Think days to weeks unless you have a dehydrator to push that up to hours.

Ya, busy day yesterday. I should have clarified that you're catching on to the almost effortless magic of enamel. The harder we work at it the more we screw it up, when it's actually a simple system.

You're catching on.

4030 vs 4050:

That parts up to you Mike, can't help you there lol !

Maybe you've seen this one but maybe not but note in the video the products he mentions, 2050 not being among them in his list at the beginning:

JB Weld now has a 5 minute cure formula. I've used that in fly rod building. It holds well and they really mean 5 minutes, in fact if you haven't positioned your reel seat where you want it in about 4 minutes you may not get it there.

David, about 2/3 of the time on my siphon brushes I use the metal side cup. Now you have no bottle to screw on there. Just trying to help here, not saying any of this is your answer but I do find the metal cups to be convenient. I only use the bottles on high volume jobs ( 1/16-1/8 scale, ship hulls, my now passed on wife's ceramics jobs for clear coat, though I won't be doing those any longer).

What I do is a final blow off with the airbrush before laying down paint, so just air first then shoot it. But sometimes tiny specks or even a hunk of what I call dirt can land in the wet paint too.

All you need is a thin but evenly covered base color coat if you're clearing it anyway. Course you need enough paint so the color is right too but Createx probably does that part pretty well. I bet Liquitex varnish would do well over Createx . I keep that stuff here and use it here and there but no Createx so I can't really conduct an experiment for ya. And I have no real desire to go down the Createx road, if I did it would be AutoAir not the fabric paint ( as I understand it that's what the Createx line was designed for, fabrics, which is why it stays flexible). AutoAir, again as I understand it, is for hard surfaces like plastics and metal, thus the name Auto. Then more specific to models is the Createx Wicked line. Here is a video ( hopefully it loads):