Dave G.

Nice job on that build !

The metal color line is just that, designed to simulate various metals. In this case basically aluminum plate. The model air line is more paint like, as mentioned it's likely more metallic. I seriously doubt they will match. You'll have a hard enough time getting a second bottle of model air to match, metallics are difficult like that.

$58 at Amazon. Then you need the compressor. The H at times can get a little thirsty for air so I'd get the compressor with a tank on it. This set has just the #3 tip which is the standard tip and no side mount color cup. But what it does have is the 1/8 fitting you need to mount to that compressor. And you can do pretty much everything with this anyway for model cars. Course there are other sets for a bit more money. And any of those accessory tips or the cup are available separately. Just pointing this out is all, if nothing else you have a good view of the adapter fitting lol. There are about 6 different ways you could go to get yourself into an H.

There are any number of decent compressors even at Amazon, Point Zero is a decent brand. But meanwhile you can put your compressed cans of gas in warm water so as not to ice up. It may not be ideal but it will be more consistent..

A good primer coat is always a good idea for any number of reasons. But Testors enamels goes down on plastic smooth and sticks well if the plastic is prepped at all. Also, Testors will look better on bare plastic than if shot onto a lousy primer job. The key here is not to do that.

That finish to me looks like you needed more thinner or it was fast dry thinner.. And personally for Testors enamel I use hardware store lacquer thinner to thin it with. It's almost fool proof as long as it went on reasonably wet. Testors never bottled their enamel in 1oz size bottles. If it's the little square bottles then they are 1/4oz. Take a look and confirm because in 1oz I don't know what you have there.

For two decades I built models using an X-acto with two style blades but mostly the angle blade. A razor saw, a pin vise. Some common pins and paint brushes. Testors and Pactra paint both bottles and spray. Some steel wool. And a pair of scissors. In that second decade came the airbrush. By the end of all that a Dremel that to this very day I barely used and now doesn't work. You can spend a lifetime finding the theoretical best tweezers lol. But I got mine given to me by my surgeon after a neck surgery. Very pointed but with serrated grips on them. Awesome !

The Paasche plastic bottles are white and fine with solvents. I already stated that so I'll be done now.

The only thing on my plastic Paasche bottles is a seam line.

I have both the glass for my H and plastic for my VL and soaked both with acetone without issue. I've shot enamel thinned with LT for years, I use either interchangeably. The only thing with the glass they are heavier and you can see inside them. But otherwise they perform equally. Edit: If you've seen the Onyx 100% acetone bottles the ladies use to strip lacquer nail polish off their nails, that's a similar type of plastic as the Paasche bottles. But the Paasche plastic bottles are whiter and thicker/more ridged. Solvent does nothing to them.

Createx will sit semi flexible possibly forever unless you add their 4030 intercoat into it. 4030 is made just for that purpose, so the paint hardens on hard surfaces. And it also sticks better. Createx was made for fabrics and to be heat set (pressed with a heat press to around 320F). But Createx also recognized the need people had to make the colors work for other purposes, like models. So 4030 addresses that. 4030 is also made to work with their 4011 reducer, to which their 4011 is now their standard reducer across the whole Createx line to include the Candy 2o and Wicked line up.. You can find all this in Createx videos or at the website. Just sayin.

So the general flavor of things seems to be, if you order from Hobbylink, to figure on 8 days or so to receive what you ordered. Assuming everything was in stock. Do they to hold the entire order for the out of stock items to come in before shipping ? Or will they ship what they have then catch up on the OOS items later ? I've looked at their site many times and always decide to go elsewhere.

Finish carpenters rarely work with truly squared up rooms but make it look as if they are square. Far be it from me to say you need to build it at all ! Nascar cars are about 1/4 OEM, 2/3 fabricated bodies of flimsy sheet metal and lean to the left ! What can I say, I don't have the kit in front of me so I can only make blind suggestions. AMT may have thicker plastic if that's what's concerning you.

Not on Nascar specifically but I've enjoyed building models from both companies. I think in terms of buying old stock like this you run the risk of warped parts regardless of manufacturer. 90's till now is a pretty long time. I'd probably do what I could to straighten what I had then glue and clamp in place till dry. It's not like these cars sit straight even in real. I've seen videos of box openings and builds of AMT 90's Nascar and at least through my computer screen they seemed pretty well detailed. I think Monogram has been great at effective scale and AMT at the flavor of the subject, whatever it might be . AMT nails the shape of things like engines, Monogram the size on engines, wheels, tires.. Just my take in a general way and not so in all cases... With that said I build mostly old classics from 1960 back into the 1910's or so. When I built stock cars and Nascar they were kit bashed, that I did myself in the early 1960's. A warped body was the least of my issues and maybe even the incentive to build circle track car out of the kit..

My wife and I built AMT 1960 T Birds back in Feb or so. The color coats were Createx, hers yellow as is in the bottle, mine custom mixed blue ( a dash of blue in white) and the clear is Pledge on these, just for the ease of it. But for Mike: Future and Pledge are no longer produced, so if you like the stuff either just nurse what have left or find a source of old stock someplace. Personally I bought a larger sized bottle of Createx 4050 and that's my most recent fetish in clears. Rustoleum spray lacquer, the green and white can with a black chair on the label, works quite well on many things models. Stinks to the high heavens so I'd plan on shooting outside. I have put that over craft paint color coat. Just be sure you buy the gloss. I've also sprayed my wife's acrylic paintings with that lacquer if not using Liquitex varnish. So it goes over acrylic paints fine. I've used that stuff for years, really decade.

They're looking great in the photos ! I especially like the T Bird, probably because I just went through a T Bird session with my wife last winter. Anyway, I thin X-22 with hardware store lacquer thinner 1/1, so equal parts thinner to clear. Yes it's glossy but when fully cured it might knock it back just slightly. This is not an issue, just polish with a final polishing liquid, I use formula 1 Scratch out. I put down two medium coats, flashing off each one. Then 2-3 full wet coats each one progressively wetter. And that's it. Sometimes I've gotten dirt in the finish, so when dry I scuff that out and reshoot two more wet coats. Honestly I think that comes out even nicer. Especially with the Tamiya clear colors but that's now going off topic of X-22.. Denatured alcohol works, it will flow out like crazy. With lacquer thinner you need to get in closer and slow down your passes but with DNA you back away as the flow gets crazy if in too close. The first couple of coats will flash off dull with DNA but those wet ones bring on the shine. LT is shiny from the first coat. Of course you can use Tamiya X-20 thinner if you want. Just Tamiya at the web page says if you want a harder finish to thin with lacquer thinner. DNA was my own experiment. My go to clear right now is Createx 4050 though. {Also add a bit of 4030 to craft paint and it improves it in a few ways}. This 4050 dries semigloss then just buff it up to the gloss you want, the gloss is there it just needs to be brought out.. They also sell a more wet looking clear 4053 ( harder to find) but I like buffing to the desired shine so I can replicate the old antique car lacquer look, which 4050 does well, it's why I'm using 4050. Old antiques never had the wet look. And finally, all these I'm speaking of have gone over craft paints . Or else over artist acrylic or Createx opaques. A forum member who does well with X-22 also is Zippi. Just fwiw.

I haven't used Tamiya rattle cans over DecoArt but I have used other clear lacquer over it no problem. As well as over CraftSmart, FolkArt, AppleBarrel, Anitas, Ceramcoat etc. Also I've airbrushed Tamiya X-22 acrylic over it as well. And a few other clears. Just do a test shoot on something other than the top side of the cars, I bet it goes well. Most important with craft paints is priming before your color coat goes on, as craft paint sticks to primer fine and the right primer to models fine. But craft paint to models directly not so much.

I don't generally lube my airbrushes either. As another poster wrote, if I do anything which is really rare, it would just be to wipe on a film of glycerin. Or a film of bees wax on threaded things.. My imagination is doing strange things with the thought of motor oil in my airbrush, I must say.

There are a few tricks to try, most of which for me at best has gotten me half way. But at least if you can get most of the tension out, then gluing to the chassis and clamping it till dry basically makes it tolerable. One method is to soak it in really hot water, obviously not so hot as to melt the plastic. Then take it and twist it the opposite way and run it under cool water and see what you get. You may have to repeat. I've never had this last, the propensity is to take on the warp eventually.But as I said it may let off some of the tension. Now the extra thin plastic you mention makes this all the more sketchy. Hopefully somebody with a way that is more successful than my experience has been will reply.

In my wifes art work if she brushes varnish, it sometimes eats at her colors and smears. But I can airbrush it on fine. Even lacquer them fine with spray since there is no rubbing action. Just fwiw. You said you brushed the clear.

I just clicked the link which takes you to the product at Amazon. Scroll down the page and read the fine print of the description, not just the list up next to the picture. It's there before you get to the reviews, if you make it to the reviews you scrolled too far down. I'm on a PC not my phone though, sometimes you don't get all the info at a page with a phone. The info on shared needles and tips etc that I added is my own info from experience.

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.