CadillacPat

Unless it's a 4 speed stick who cares. Removing the automatic shifter from the console or column is a great idea. One less item to wipe clean when cleaning the car. CadillacPat

Well Mike, I'm new as a Member. Post counts and View counts are not what I am interested in. Fun for me is learning or teaching. The little digs and innuendos I read are not fun at all and really dilute the board. Lately there has been a certain amount of infantile banter to wade through (luckily Harry takes care of that quickly) that I have to really look around for the "Fun" part. CadillacPat

Many sites have character limits of 10,000 which really limits a decently written Tutorial. And, Limits of less than 15 or 20 pics usually require lengthening the Post by making successive Replies. Harry, Can you shed some light on what is allowed here??????????????? CadillacPat

Is there a quota here for the number of pics in a post, or the number of characters in a post??? I've been on several forums that had to increase the number of allowed pics and characters within a single post. CadillacPat

I don't use Acrylics. But, What exactly are you doing? Did you spray a coat of Acrylic Clear and then stop to come back to it later? How much time has lapsed since your last coat? CadillacPat

I'm always buying tools I see that I know I will someday need. That and the fact that I use so many different items for any project means that no matter if I clean up the shop and put everything back in its place, the very next day it looks just as it did. Even with tools spread out everywhere I always remember right where I last put something. I can always tell if someone has walked though and borrowed something for a non modeling chore. CadillacPat

If FarceBook is affecting participation on online forums you can bet the forums are better off without those participants. CadillacPat

Now here are two very informative answers detailed with lots of great and helpful model building info. Just the kind of thing I'm sure people search for.

If you paint nearly every day as I do it's best to wear your Respirator, regardless of having a Paint Booth, even while you are mixing 2K Urethanes. Some people may save their projects up painting several all day long, and that Respirator will make a big difference after a few hours of AirBrushing. My Paint Booth ducts everything quickly outside the Shop but wearing my Respirator means there are absolutely no ill effects from exposure to vapors. I think it's best to teach people the right way to do things and then let them make the choice of cutting corners if they choose to. CadillacPat

The absolute cheapest way to go, Empty 35 millimeter film cans. Before cameras went digital I would go around to Film Processing Shops and ask for their discarded film cannisters. CadillacPat

Look in your local Yellow Pages for Medicinal Supply Stores. You can purchase 1oz. graduated medicine cups usually $4 for 100. I buy mine online by the 5000 lot for about 1/2 cent each. I also purchased a 10,000 lot of graduated Pipettes but since the Medicine Cups are so easy to read I rarely use the Pipettes except for adding small amounts of prepared paint directly into the AirBrush cup. I've sold most of my Pipettes to other Customizers online. Both Pipettes and Graduated Medicine Cups are made from LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene), the soft squeezable type plastic you find in Ketchup Bottles or Barbecue Sauce Bottles. These type plastic bottles are great for storing premixed paint or paint you have removed from aerosol cans. This LDPE will not react to Petroleum products as does HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) similar to Styrene. CadillacPat

Mike, Your post above listing Enamels, Urethanes, Lacquers and Acrylics was written as if they all could be interchanged. Oil and water don't mix. The HOK SG100 and new SG150 Intercoat Clears are Petroleum based and are used as a protective layer preceeding artwork or if you plan to not finish and Clear for a period of more than 12 hours. If you would like I can send you one of the thousands of HOK Tech Manuals or HOK Tech CD's that the company supplied me with for giving out online and at Customizing Conventions I attend. Shooting Lacquer over Enamel will boil up that underlying layer just like Paint Stripper. Shooting water based Acrylic over anything Petroleum based will fisheye. CadillacPat

Just to clarify, Remember to stick to a system. It doesn't matter if you are painting Models or anything else. I would not shoot Lacquer over Urethane Enamel basecoats as stated above. Nor would I shoot Acrylic over any petroleum based paint as also mentioned. Automotive Basecoats like the HOK I use do not require Hardener, only Reducer. If you are Clearcoating with Urethane then certainly you need Hardener and Reducer. 2 part Automotive paints are different than rattlecan Lacquers and Enamels. Urethane Enamel can be shot over any subject matter with proper priming. Enamel can go over Lacquer or Acrylic but not vice versa. CadillacPat

I've mentioned the TableTop Paint Booths that I designed and built in other threads. No matter, Spraying any kinds of paint I still wear a Respirator. It doesn't matter if you buy them at Lowes, Home Depot, or anywhere else as long as they are approved for the type of paints you are using. CadillacPat

Rattlecans are Great------------ for painting lawn furniture.B My favorite part of Customizing or Model Building is laying down a multi layered complex paintjob of airbrushed basecoats, candies and pearl powders. This is where I see the transformation from a raw casting to a colorful finish. The object comes to life with paint and then screams, "Look at me" once the Urethane Clear is laid down. I don't look for a quick or easy way to build things and find the longer I work with my Hobby the more steps I gladly add on to reach the results I require. It only takes a minute to crank up the airbrush, another couple of minutes to mix the paint and then another minute or so to clean up after painting. Once I've put the time into all the other steps of Building I like to use the absolute best methods and products to complete it with paint. I understand that some are anxious to get a piece assembled and finished and this may intimidate them from airbrushing, but, Airbrushing gives me total control over all aspects of painting and allows me to add a very important skill to my talents. By all means, Build to suit yourself, unless you sell what you make as I do, but, give airbrushing a try. CadillacPat

Just remember, If you are going to store your stuff away for awhile that it needs to be climate controlled. If you are just going to move them all to a shed or even the garage you might as well sell them now. CadillacPat

I buy all my Decal Paper from Papilio.com. They ship quickly (sometimes arriving the next day) and the paper is always fresh with a consistent layer of film. I've been teaching Decals online since '04 and designing and selling custom Decals to other DieCast Customizers for their own work and those they sell on Ebay. I go through a lot of Decal Paper and I store all of mine and those I send out in Baggies. Separate Baggies for each design or Model. The Baggies are then kept in Plastic Tupperware. This makes them easy to look through and they stay fresh indefinitely. The sealant I use for my Decal Pages is House Of Kolor Intercoat Clear airbrushed on about 30 minutes after the pages emerge from my printer. CadillacPat

What the heck is "Spell Check"? It's amazing that only 50 years ago English, Spelling, Reading, Grammar, Punctuation and Sentence Structure were all taught in school, even Manners. These subjects at that time were as fundamental as Math and History, not just in school but in all aspects of our daily lives. It's easy to recognize a simple "tpyo" and although I try my best even my posts sometime contain a mistake or two. Some Internet posts are a bit more revealing of people. In today's world of instant gratification, especially on the Internet, there is no thought for taking the time to be precise. For decades now Schools have been forced to get kids graduated no matter how ill prepared they are for the Real World. Not long after I first joined here I would tune into that goofy "Lousy Barn Door" thread just to bust my gut laughing at the ridiculous meandering of that Member and to see how completely miswritten and misspelled his unintelligible ramblings would be. Everything about that person's thread was so incredibly brainless that the extent of it's mistakes were actually compelling to read and laugh at. It was like a bad car wreck that you could not turn away from, only hilarious. Now, this is a Model Forum so as long as the info you post outweighs what we have to wade through to read and understand it, then your thread is a Plus. CadillacPat

I don't apply paint with a can. It's not the medium that I find important but the color I wish to use. While I have used Waterbased, Watetborne, ModelMasters. Tamiya, Testors, Boyd (all through an AirBrush) and others, I've used nothing but House Of Kolor for over 10 years. AirBrushing is quick and easy it is also a very important (maybe the most important) portion of a Build yielding results that breathe life into a model. CadillacPat

Many Rattlecan Clears never really dry. Some remain "soft" forever and are susceptible to heat and cold. I suggest a 2 part Automotive clear for hardnes and durability. CadillacPat

Model Building (whatever scale) is a personal experience that does not have to measure up to anyone's expectations but that of the Builder. If a Rattlecan does a good enough job to fulfill your requirements for your Model then so be it. Personally, having used Rattlecans as child, I was amazed at the quality of my paintjobs when I first moved up to a simple Paasche H about 13 years ago. Then I was even more delighted when I moved up from that Paasche H to a simple double-action Badger 155 Anthem. The move from the Paasche H to the 155 Badger Anthem was itself a quantum leap in painting my projects. Then, again, adding AirBrushes like the Iwata HP Series and the Eclipse Series along with the Badger LG 100 to my arsenal of guns showed me how superior they are in delivering fine atomization for a choice paintjob. Using the original Paasche H AirBrush and the #3 Tip I laid down Primer, Basecoats, Colorcoats, Candies and Clears, all with Pearl Powder Additives. But, the better Guns all offered a greater ease for producing slick clean results. Breaking downany of these Guns for a full cleaning only takes 2 or 3 minutes so "convenience" never drove me back to the RattleCan. I normally find ways to build in more steps to each new project in an effort to produce results that I demand, so, the 2 or 3 minutes of thoroughly cleaning my Guns has never been something I thought of as a hassle. The ability to mix my own Colors, Candies and Clears gives me complete control over any job. The 1/64 Scale which I do most of my work with have deeply recessed areas that require the use of an AirBrush for complete coverage. Cranking my Gun down to a low psi allows me to go in and thoroughly and evenly paint door, trunk and hood jams. I use nothing but House Of Kolor paints. I have been sponsored by HOK to produce outdoor BuildOffs, Convention Seminars and Product Giveaways. For me a good AirBrush with House Of Kolor Paints is the only way to go. I paint most of my work using 20 psi but also work anywhere from 10 psi to 35 psi depending on the piece I'm painting. Good paintjobs can be done with cheap Guns and poor paintjobs can be shot with expensive Guns, but the AirBrush give you complete control as opposed to air blasting out of a RattleCan. CadillacPat

Chris, you don't have to fear spraying Automotive paints on Models. As long as you Prep your surface correctly you can spray anything onto anything. CadillacPat

I don't see any slack in the posting here of real information. Remember, A huge bloated thread that was created to dominate the site and ran on ad nauseum for 7 weeks was just entirely removed for being useless and having no information value other than to display unintelligible groups of misspelled words and ridiculous run on sentences. That thread dominated the site for almost two months with all the good members here politely biting their tongues and choosing not to reply with their distaste for it. The author of the thread falsely drove view counts into the thousands by using an old F8 > Return feature to falsely drive up his view counts in a short period of time. That member who created that thread was removed from the site and now has gone on to writing entire paragraphs in A new forum slandering the members here. I don't see any difference in the amount of posting here being done now or before that ridiculous self serving thread was started. With the removal of that Member and that ridiculous thread about some Lousy Barn Door. things are simply back to normal here. CadillacPat

Body Prep is everything for a nice paintjob and the diecast bodies of Hotwheels, MBox or Jada castings take on a whole new appearance when stripped and then filed and sanded free of all factory cast imperfections. I rub down all my castings with #3 Steel Wool once they have been filed and sanded clean. It knocks down evenly all scratches from the 220 sandpaper giving the surface a consistent overall spun lustre perfect for good paint adhesion. Just be sure to finish up by using a soft brass wire brush to rid your casting free of any tiny debris and then wash in soap and waer with a small brush. CadillacPat

"Removing Paint From Aerosol Cans for AirBrush Use" "Removing Paint From Aerosol Cans To Use In Your AirBrush" Several years ago I invented a way to remove aerosol paint from its container and Toy Car and Model Magazine saw it online and ran it their magazine. If you care to use it you're more than welcome to. This Tutorial also appears here at this link, http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17308&view=findpost&p=580319 Those of you who own an AirBrush can remove paint from any Model Master, Testors, Boyd, Duplicolor, etc., aerosol can and use the product in your AirBrush getting much better results than simply spraying it from the can. Here's a trick I came up with to transfer paint from the aerosol can to a container so I could spray it through my Airbrush. Toy Car and Model Magazine saw it online, contacted me and requested to publish it. You will need a 3" - 4" length of plastic drinking straw, some 1" wide tape, and of course a suitable container. I collect the empty film cans from local WalMart Photoshops. This soft pliable plastic will not react with automotive paints. 1st-----Butt the straw up to the hole in the button of the Aerosol can. In most cases with Duplicolor, the straw will actually slip over a short protrusion in the button. 2nd-----Wrap the tape around the straw and button so they are held together firmly and tightly. 3rd-----Just spray your paint into whatever container you've chosen. The straw will perform like a muffler, choking down the escaping gases and allowing the paint to gently run out the end of the straw. If you're only using small amounts of paint, you can just spray the paint directly into your paint cup. CadillacPat