Paint Cracking Maybe My Mistake Can Help You

[oldcarfan]

This is my Hasegawa Nissan Sunny truck. I started it three years ago and only painting the body before I got distracted and it went back in the box. I decided to make a new start on it this morning and pulled the box down. Not sure what happened, but I promise it didn't look like this when it went in the box. Sad because it was one of my better paint jobs. 

The paint is Testor's Model Master under their One Coat Clear and it wasn't too thick. The body was stored in a gallon sandwich bag and in a climate controlled area and the bag wasn't touching it when I opened the box. 

Those are the details. My best guesses are that maybe the paint and clear coat slowly reacted with each other or that the bag trapped gases from the paint, or maybe the lack of air circulation in the bag did something weird. 

It's all good, the body is now in the purple pond. It'll work out and I even have an idea for a different paint color.

Anyway, if you store painted parts, be cautious. 

[Sledsel]

I had this happen once and I "think" the base was not gassed out enough before the clear went on.

[OldNYJim]

Was it the enamel Model Master, or the acrylic?

[Dave G.]

I could be wrong but I think the One Coat clear is a mild lacquer.

Enamels gas out for weeks compared with lacquer, thus shrink at a different rate and you get the cracks at some point.

I bring up mild lacquer, because hot lacquers would wrinkle fresh enamel right away.

Edited yesterday at 09:53 AM by Dave G.

[Ace-Garageguy]

The simple answer is that one or more topcoat wasn't compatible with something under it, possibly even the primer.

I've had similar reactions when mixing products from different sources, sometimes immediately, sometimes much later on.

One reaction like this happened weeks after spraying Tamiya black lacquer over hardware store black "lacquer" (labeled as such) to get a blacker black (all of it over Duplicolor primer, which should be fine under just about anything).

Tamiya lacquer should be fine over another lacquer, right? So I assumed.

Wrong.

And after stripping it, I had to redo all the extensive bodywork.

Staying within one product line if possible is pretty good insurance against surprises like this.

 

Edited yesterday at 12:51 PM by Ace-Garageguy
punctiliousness

[StevenGuthmiller]

This exact phenomena is why I stopped using Testors clear lacquer on my projects.

I had this happen several times when using Testors clear lacquer over MCW, Scale Finishes, and Duplicolor lacquers.

Don’t know the mechanics of why it was happening, but the remedy was simple.

Stop using Testors clear for bodies.

I still use Testors clear lacquer and enamel for certain applications, but I switched to Duplicolor clear lacquer for bodies and haven’t seen this happen since.

 

 

 

Steve

[espo]

On the subject of Testors paints. Maybe only my experience, but the "new and improved" paint products from Testors that I have used of late just aren't what they used to be. 

[Trainwreck]

Is it weird that my first thought after seeing this , was to incorporate the cracks into an alligator skin pattern in various shades of green?

Call me crazy but I think it would have been pretty cool.