Painting Vs Floor polish

[Norman Shamy]

Hi: I have a white plastic model of a truck. I want to keep it white. Should i paint it first with an enamel paint or can i get away with just applying floor polish to it. I'm worried if i don't paint it first it may yellow.

                                                                                                                                                                                               Thank you soooo much

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Norm

[Can-Con]

If you paint it with white enamel I guarantee it will yellow.

Just get a spray can of gloss white acrylic. Or better yet, a spray can of Tamiya gloss white made for models.

[peteski]

Norm,

Excuse me for being pedantic, but if you mean Future (or Pledge), then it is not a "floor polish".  It is a "floor finish".  Polish has no body (thickness) to it, while Future is actually a clear acrylic coating which has some thickness to it.  Yes, polish and finish can be used to make floors shiny, but we use Future as a clear finish (coat).

There is a recent active thread in this forum about pros and cons of using Future as a clear coat.

[Dave G.]

You need to paint the plastic, especially that it's white plastic. If not then edges and corners will always give up light in a way that renders it looking like plastic, clear coat will just give it shine. So it will be more realistic looking if you paint the white even though it will still be white. Yellow plastic acts the same way. It's the nature of styrene in lighter colors..  Put your parts up to a light and you will see what I mean. It's why nearly my first step in a build is to prime most of the smaller parts trees., immediately they take on more detail and realism. Even some dark styrene parts aren't fully opaque, you can see it first in any flashing that might be there..

If you think about it the very first thing you see in even 1/1 vehicles is paint. If you want to render realism then you need paint.

[Norman Shamy]

10 hours ago, peteski said:

Norm,

Excuse me for being pedantic, but if you mean Future (or Pledge), then it is not a "floor polish".  It is a "floor finish".  Polish has no body (thickness) to it, while Future is actually a clear acrylic coating which has some thickness to it.  Yes, polish and finish can be used to make floors shiny, but we use Future as a clear finish (coat).

There is a recent active thread in this forum about pros and cons of using Future as a clear coat.

Yes i meant Future or Pledge, just wondering does the model need to be painted then Pledge as a clear coat or just clear coat over the unpainted model BTW Happy Thanksgiving

 

 

[SCRWDRVR]

I would say it’s definitely better to paint it and use a gloss white acrylic like said