What paint is compatible with typical MPC vinyl tires?

[robdebie]

I'm building an MPC (not AMT as I wrote initially) Pinto Wagon, from the Blues Brothers movie, and want to tone down the glossy vinyl tires. Yesterday I airbrushed Revell enamel over them, but the paint is still sticky. I'm stripping the paint as I type these words. I want to try an Aeromaster water-based acrylic paint next, will that work? Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Rob

Edited November 15, 2023 by robdebie

[Bainford]

Cool, I love Pintos.

Are you painting the tires with black paint, or with a dull clear coat? Either way, if you paint vinyl tires, your best bet is acrylic paint. In many cases, enamel will not dry when applied to vinyl tires. Ever.

However, if your need is to dull them or remove the shine, there are other methods. Scrubbing them with a toothbrush and a slurry of abrasive cleaner and water (such as Comet or Ajax) can do a nice job. Depending on how hard you wish to weather them, steel wool or Brillo pads can work also. I have also dulled vinyl tires by giving them a scrub with lacquer thinner, though go carefully here, as a strong thinner can soften the details of the tires. I strongly recommend that any of these methods are tested on junk tires to ensure you get the look you want. If you go with the lacquer thinner method, definitely test first as some thinners are quite aggressive.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Bainford

[Ace-Garageguy]

Your best bet is probably automotive interior dye. I've used the SEM products over here successfully, even dying AMT black vinyl model-T tires a very convincing and permanent dirty white, like early tires pre-carbon-black. It dries non-glossy, non-sticky, and doesn't flake off if flexed.

[robdebie]

Trevor and Bill, thanks for the help! I can report back that the Aeromaster acrylic paint worked well, no stickyness. I used a 1:1 mix of RLM-66 Schwarzgrau and RLM-22 Schwarz, that give me a nice rubber color I think. Maybe it's strange to use WW2 Luftwaffe colors, but I don't have many acrylic paints.

Rob

Edited November 15, 2023 by robdebie

[peteski]

Spraying Testors Dullcote lacquer (or a water-based acrylic flat clear) should work.

But I prefer to dull the surface by using abrasives.  I have used a sandblasting gun to really dull the vinyl tire surface.    You could also use some abrasive household cleaners and rub the the tire with some cleaner on a moist cloth.  You live in Netherlands, so you probably have different brands of abrasive cleaners than what I have in USA.

[Ace-Garageguy]

7 hours ago, robdebie said:

...Maybe it's strange to use WW2 Luftwaffe colors, but I don't have many acrylic paints.

Whatever works and looks right. I ended up using a WWII US Navy aircraft color for some early 1960s Ferrari interior bits. 

[Ace-Garageguy]

4 hours ago, peteski said:

I have used a sandblasting gun to really dull the vinyl tire surface.   Glass beads are what I use, depending on the exact effect I'm going for. I feel sand generally does too much damage, and can obliterate sidewall detail pretty quickly.

You could also use some abrasive household cleaners and rub the the tire with some cleaner on a moist cloth. I've had excellent results using a coarse abrasive cleanser like Bon Ami, or the old sctatchy Comet, worked into a paste, scrubbed with a toothbrush.

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Ace-Garageguy

[LDO]

7 hours ago, robdebie said:

Trevor and Bill, thanks for the help! I can report back that the Aeromaster acrylic paint worked well, no stickyness. I used a 1:1 mix of RLM-66 Schwarzgrau and RLM-22 Schwarz, that give me a nice rubber color I think. Maybe it's strange to use WW2 Luftwaffe colors, but I don't have many acrylic paints.

Rob

Didn’t those go out of production a LONG time ago? Asking for a Ta-154 that needs to be finished .

Running off to Google

[LDO]

A quick search shows that Aeromaster acrylic paint is not the same as the paints from the late 1990s. The latest info I found was from around 2018. It may be out of production again. 

[robdebie]

9 hours ago, LDO said:

Didn’t those go out of production a LONG time ago? Asking for a Ta-154 that needs to be finished .

Running off to Google

You're correct, it's fairly old paint. Last year I got lucky at an IPMS-NL car boot sale. I spotted a box with paint bottles, and noted a 'Polly-S' label. I blurted out 'My modeling friend likes that paint a lot!' and before I knew it, I was given the whole box for free. Apparently the seller had inherited the box, and it had been eating up shelf space for too long. Half the paint turned out to be Polly-S, that I passed on to my friend. The other half was Aeromaster, I think the full RLM range. That was a nice (second) surprise! I rarely use acrylics, but I knew from the past that this is excellent paint. And all bottles were still OK, despite the age. Lucky me ?

Rob

 

[hedotwo]

15 hours ago, peteski said:

Spraying Testors Dullcote lacquer (or a water-based acrylic flat clear) should work.

But I prefer to dull the surface by using abrasives.  I have used a sandblasting gun to really dull the vinyl tire surface.    You could also use some abrasive household cleaners and rub the the tire with some cleaner on a moist cloth.  You live in Netherlands, so you probably have different brands of abrasive cleaners than what I have in USA.

I'll agree with Peter and second using Dullcote...  done this for years to take the shine off tires and never had problems.

[Pierre Rivard]

I just apply "soot" Tamiya weathering master with the little sponge tip applicator. 

[bobss396]

I use Dullcote to protect tire transfers and decals. Someone else here uses Tamiya TS-71 that does the same thing. Or similar enough.

[robdebie]

Peteski, Bill, Rich, Pierre, thank you all for the additional tips. I hear about Testors Dullcote a lot, but I don't think I've ever seen on my side of the Atlantic. Glass bead blasting is something I haven't done yet, too few uses fro me I guess. Tamiya weathering paints should be available here, but to be honest, I can't see the forest for the trees, there is *so* much weathering material available, I don't know where to start..

Over to my tires, painted with an Aeromaster mix. The wheels are from the old AMT 1949 Ford, hubcaps too, sanded smooth. I painted the wheels and the body with Model Master FS 12197 International Orange. I'm working against the clock, and this had to do for the Blues Brothers movie car.

Rob

 

 

[Skip]

Looks like I got here a little late for this party to add my two cents, I'll toss them in anyway. 

I read in and old SAE, and then saw someone probably Doug Whyte on his Model Car Muse or one of the aircraft YouTube channels, about using a Paasche air eraser with old erasing (blasting) media on tires to age and take the shine off. I was thinking of using baking soda through my air eraser to do the same thing, it's a whole lot less aggressive and way cheaper than the stuff Paasche sells.

I've used Vallejo's Acrylic Matt Varnish sprayed on vinyl tires through my airbrush, which came out looking like your tires, almost a dead flat black color. Vallejo also has a Satin Varnish (Acrylic) that I've used on other stuff, (like interiors, gives a slight sheen that looks like vinyl or a low gloss leather).  For interiors, some underhood and chassis details the acrylics work just as well as any of the smelly paints that I have, they seem to cover just as well as the others do. I can usually get away with spraying the acrylics into an old paper shopping bag with the parts on a clip, almost zero clean up that way. 

[peteski]

When earlier in the thread I mentioned sandblasting, I didn't mean industrial size sandblasting gun but my old trusty Badger sandblaster, which is basically the Model 100 airbrush where the paint nozzle has been replaced with a sandblasting nozzle.  I use the Badger aluminum oxide blasting media.  It is not very aggressive.

[Ace-Garageguy]

31 minutes ago, peteski said:

When earlier in the thread I mentioned sandblasting, I didn't mean industrial size sandblasting gun but my old trusty Badger sandblaster, which is basically the Model 100 airbrush where the paint nozzle has been replaced with a sandblasting nozzle.  I use the Badger aluminum oxide blasting media.  It is not very aggressive.

Probably why it's good...in my opinion...to err on the side of providing complete information, even at the risk of triggering the TLDR syndrome that's widespread today.

And an industrial blasting cabinet using glass-bead media won't take off excessive material. Used right, it does a lovely job de-glossing "rubber" model vehicle tires.