Dave G.

I don't know but I'd like to build one of those. Is it 1/25 or 1/24 ?

Oh I'm getting there ( lost my wife back in Dec, still get rocked now and then out of nowhere but overall much better than I was).

Well MP, I shot it as is too. I added just a little lacquer thinner next time. I decanted about half a mixing bottle which is about like a Model Master bottle. I didn't really measure, just shot in a little thinner with a pipette. Wasn't really all that much but it enabled me to trim the nozzle setting back. I had it pretty opened up as is out of the can but it shot ok, just had to open up. This was a while back around late May or so, pretty sure I put down 2-3 coats out of the can through the airbrush and 4 coats thinned, wet coats too. Using the spray can for me was too much paint but that came out good too, just gotta be careful. After decanting I let it sit to out gas with the lid just on loose. Maybe an hour. Tightened the cap at half hour and shook and got pressure when I loosened the cap and some bubble in the paint, at an hour it stopped doing that. All I did is cover the top of the bottle with a wad of paper towel, and gently as I could spray into the bottle at an angle to get my paint in short spurts. Took about ten minutes to get the quantity I wanted, didn't spill any and no over spray, course I was outside. I know there are more sophisticated ways but for a test it worked. I did that with white and with light aqua.

Now I'm resurrecting your post from Feb lol ! I won't speak on the primers under Zero. But I've been messing with Rustoleum colors, Painters Touch and also 2X. Let me just say it works from the can but it's a pretty heavy coat, really one coat will do it if you got good coverage and missed nothing. Two coats is more paint than a model really needs but it's ok. Now here's the deal, after those tests I decanted to shot with the Paasche H. Same good results and much better control, you can slow down the passes. Thin it just a little bit extra and you can get 3-4 coats and that super enamel finish. And what I really liked was the satin finish paint and buff it in a few days to a week or so. Now you get a really convincing 1950's factory finish. It buffs up to where it doesn't knock your eyes out with the gloss but you can see every tree in the yard in the finish. That's the look I like for factory stock paint jobs in the old cars I enjoy building, which by the way were not clear coated. And I didn't prime in my test shoots, I shot right to plastic ( not say I wouldn't prime but didn't). To me through an airbrush it acts pretty much like Model Master enamels. I bought a can I'm using on my 1/16 57 T Bird when I get to that build. That's in my future as I have two 1/16 models now to finish up and two 1/25 nearly complete but can't quite see my way back to. I get off on these experiments and right away think of another kits I'd like to use that on lol.

If you're using my thinner I mentioned to you for craft paint in that more humid weather you can cut back on the retarder to 4 drops for 3 oz of thinner. You may still want a hair dryer handy as the paint flashes off very slowly in humid conditions. I still can't speak for Createx, never used the stuff personally. The problem in high humidity is generally speaking with lacquers Mike.

If it's any consolation many an old car faded to hues of purple as well. Nice Ford !

Always a pretty sure bet for black Zip.I'll just reiterate that my experience with black for bodies has been pretty much limited to Model Master Classic black, that flowed out awesome. I still have one bottle left that I kind of cherish, and a partial bottle I've used for brushing since new. Recently I went with Tamiya acrylic thinned with DNA and that came out awesome but it is a slightly more midnight or Jet black than the Classic black is. But it looks good on the Model A fenders enough that I won't change it. Barely needed polishing, everything just went off right on that one ( 1/16 Minicraft Model A roadster).

Do a test of the 2x red right over the orange,it may pop more than over grey. 2x sticks to plastic.

I agree with you Pete so take me off your list of ones not agreeing, at least as it applies to painting..

Dew point is literally related to moisture content and the degree of temp where saturation occurs, thus at night temps fall below dew point and you find everything outside all wet,your lawn, car, barbecue grill etc. To me it's important to painting vs relative humidity . But it's just the gauge I prefer to go by, doesn't mean anyone else has too. That said I've seen fogging of lacquers in cool temps too from spray cans. With low dew points sometimes, because the exiting of paint from spray cans chills it further to below the dew point and water gets into the picture in the form of that fog on the painted surface. Thus the heating of the can is two fold, it sprays better for one thing but raises that temp to where it won't drop below the dew point on the surface you're painting. Airbrushing flat acrylic Tamiya and getting a rough finish is another matter. The uneven drying times over the surface of the model yet another and for flats actually fairly typical. Try the retarder lacquer thinner, 1 part paint to 1.25 or so thinner and see what you get. And you can push the drying with a hair dryer on the low heat setting if you want. That's my first suggestion. You might be better off with a dehumidifier in the basement, let the temp rise a little and still get the humidity a bit lower. Be nice to see your number reverse, 66 deg and 60 humidity. But I'm not convinced that's your issue.

All mine have open necks as well. Not very wide necks but open with no sleeve. I only have about three- four brands though and there are many brands out there. My newest bottle is maybe two years old. And I lost my LA colors green I wanted to use or experiment with anyway for Ford flat heads.

Ya I'm with Pete, there are a few interesting little kits there ( ebay) that have caught my eye. The ones I built were probably 25-30 years ago now and really quite accurate given the scale. I saw on Ebay recently a 1934 Ford 4 door sedan that caught my eye and a couple trucks and pickups. And several kits of no interest to me. Didn't see much for Ts but I was only at the one site. All 1/87 scale though and no idea if they have the quality of Jordan. If you find a Jordan kit I have to wonder what the cost might be. These were ranging around $16 US with 10 and 11 people watching some of them, so obviously popular. I love little accurate kits, if it's not accurate I'm not interested. But lately I've been in 1/16 scale which I also have a heart for.

Not really related to this topic but I've built Model T kits down to HO train scale which is 1/87 that came out rather nice I thought.

No text: I replied missing some of the question.

No problem masking at all and doing two tones and more, period. You do have to wait for enamel to cure of course. We were doing this way back in the 1960s and 70's as standard procedure, so Andy and Donn don't exactly have a patent on it lol. Try it in some tests and you will see for yourself.

Sometimes to get a product to settle into corners and recesses you need to shoot it at various angles. But I've never shot that specific clear so can't say a whole lot.

Looks like a bit more rubbing on the hood and roof but it could be the lighting and camera too. Paint is not like clear you're gonna get some color on your polishing cloth. On one of your test shoots coming up try adding a little paint thinner into some lacquer thinner before thinning the paint, maybe 25-30% PT. Especially with the black you want to shoot. Looks good though thus far so that's just an option for ya down the road.

Get yourself some test spoons or something and find your run threshold on them rather than on the model, for your thinner type and ratio.. Put the last two coats on just below it. As I mentioned in another message you get a rhythm for this.

Thanks everyone for condolences ! Yes there are a number of ways to thin Testors bottle paint. Hot lacquer paint, especially hot acrylic lacquer I just never liked on models, too much sanding/polishing etc. You can get some great colors and great matches to OEM but at this stage of the game for me it's not worth the extra work. I mostly do classic era cars bone stock, enamel is fine. I've done well with mixing Tamiya acrylics too. Most of these cars were non metallic. I've done them with craft paint and clear coat, come out good but you know it's cleared and those cars weren't clear coated in 1/1. Now and then I'll do a 50's Ford or Chevy done street and strip or semi custom. That's different I'll use Tamiya clear colors over acrylics for that or stock paint, depends on my idea which generally ends up morphing anyway. Lately though been into 1/16 scale, basically box stock. I figure the paint out as I go but like the 57 T Bird that's sitting in the wings waiting really screams enamel at me.

Oh my, thanks Pete ! Corrected it.

Thanks guys on my wife . We all have an expiration date that is not written on our birth certificates. Hers came up Dec 20, 2020, 1:10 am.

That compressor looks to be pretty close to mine lol !

Depending on the paint viscosity, the day etc. I put down the last two coats pretty wet. I don't so much change my shooting distance as open up a bit more and slow the passes down. I hand hold the body on a mount of one sort or another and always shoot down onto it, not to the side. So the roof faces up when I shoot, the left side faces up when I shoot and the right side faces up when I shoot and each end faced up when I shoot. Doesn't have to be perfectly up but the brush should be shooting down on it in a general way rather than shooting a horizontal surface. Another thing is the compressor. The Paasche H flows that true 35 psi but not all compressors keep up to that. Many airbrushes today restrict air to 20 some odd psi, you can set the compressor to 50 psi but the airbrush itself won't flow it but the H will. You need to watch your working pressure, that's what the gauge reads with air flowing through the brush. That said I shoot enamel 32-33 psi working pressure anyway personally,least at the thinning ratio we are talking about. If there is a good pattern coming out it will go down fine. If it needs more I crank it up some more but my compressor will flow 4.5 cfm at 45 psi or 3.5 at 90. Most hobby compressors won't flow that at any pressure setting. Point being I don't worry about it. I don't pamper it, I just blast it on lol. There is a rhythm to the passes, once in the groove just keep going. Black can be tricky, pick a nice day. And practice, get a few bottles, you don't want to run out mid spray. When Model Master stopped producing classic black I was bummed, had it perfected. I havn't shot the regular enamel in decades. But I have Tamiya X-1 going down pretty glassy. Just a light buff is all. Did 1/16 model A fenders in that last fall and came out awesome. Then the wife died and I've only worked on the kit half heartedly since. Just getting back to functioning a little more normal now but 47 years with someone you love who up and croaks one night is a real shall we say stirring upset.

Sometimes I do one of two things in warmer weather. I mix 30-40 % hardware paint thinner into the lacquer thinner before thinning, then thin with that. This acts as flow aid and retarder. Paint thinner by itself flows like crazy but I notice you can get craters or a fisheye type effect using it alone. Or I nix the LacquerThinner and go 50/50 odorless mineral spirits and paint thinner then thin as usual. So those are some options to mess with. That video was from Andy X, I just linked it. I thin more like 55/45 paint to thinner which is more what he had by the time he flushed that bottle, fwiw. I used to use Pete's method but hit on these and never went back. But that finish you have there is going to buff up fine. You may not have pure lacquer thinner !! Some states have put so much restriction on LT it ships to those states mostly as acetone. Not saying thats the case but get a whiff of acetone when you can, then your thinner, should be a different smell. On another note a guy or two over in the FSM forums made paint dryers using a tub like you have there. Mounting a low watt light bulb in the top or in the back on one end, wired on a dimmer ( I want to say 25watt bulb) and a computer cooling fan in one end, a bunch of holes in the other end with a furnace filter mounted there.. I believe one guy sets his dimmer till inside temp is around 110F. He leaves enamel in for 3 days to full cure. I can get full cure in about 8 hours in a dehydrator. I just use the Emeril 350 we have in the kitchen lol, set to 108 usually. But I'm going to conduct some experiments with hotter temps, I think I can get to 115f. I've done 110. I usually do 3 hours to kick start it. Then air dry a few days, those few hours I can handle the painted surface ok. Besides we may need to change it to oven mode and cook pizza. Just put the parts on a small tin or something and put the whole tin in the oven. Anyway, if you get to like enamels ( this is just your first shot at it, I been shooting enamel 60 years, a form of dryer helps pick up the pace, especially if you do two tone work. Some guys by used food dryer and hack the racks up. One guy in FSM scored one of those cabinet style paint dryers in a yard sale or flea market someplace. Pretty sure it was 50/50 LT to paint thinner and thinned Model Master yellow enamel 55/45 paint to thinner and can see myself in the differential of the 1911 Mercer. That day was pretty dry as I recall, maybe 68F.

Not much time right now, I have a couple thoughts. But that finish should polish right up after a couple applications with something like Formula 1 Scratch Out. I was going to suggest getting two bottles lol !! I'll be back,others might chime in meanwhile.