DumpyDan Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Well I am not going back but it has crossed my mind to try brush paint a car, just to see how smooth I could get it. Just so happens yeaterday I put a 1976 Chevy Vega that was so badly brush painted silver into the purple pond, gonna leave it there for a couple weeks.
vintagercr Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 I always thought it would be neat to hold a contest, building a model the way we would have done it in the 60's as kids, brush painted and using thread for the ignition wire. Corduroy for upholstery material.
10thumbs Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 Hi Stephen, sounds like a good idea. I wish I still had my old car models. I've done 100 of yards of thread, maybe a mile. I used to build tall sailing ships. Big ones.
mrindy77 Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 If you use One Shot sign painters paint you can achieve a very shiny and smooth finish. I used it on a panel on a 1/43 Porsche were a decal would not lay flat over the compound curves. It was very effective. One Shot covers with one pass...and takes quite awhile to dry. Due to that fact it 'smooths' out very nicely. I would not paint an entire model with it...scale thickness would be very hard to achieve.
Snake45 Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 I always thought it would be neat to hold a contest, building a model the way we would have done it in the 60's as kids, brush painted and using thread for the ignition wire. Corduroy for upholstery material. Even as a kid, I didn't paint more than two models (AMT '66 Corvair and Mustang GT) before I realized that brush painting just wasn't going to work for me, and moved on to rattlecans.
Ace-Garageguy Posted January 21, 2015 Posted January 21, 2015 (edited) I wouldn't paint a real car with a brush (I have slopped on some Rustoleum primer that way, to protect cars sitting outside) and I wouldn't paint a model with a brush. Back in the days of carriages, sure, they brush-painted stuff and rubbed it down. Yes, you CAN get a beautiful finish, but why bother? Kinda like using two cans and a string instead of the cellphone, you know? Edited January 22, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy
Tom Geiger Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 I remember being 10 years old, having lost my only brush to stiffening since I had no turps, and resorting to painting a model with Q-Tips. I had to laugh recently when I came across an old built up that had been painted that way... those tell tale signs like cotton fibers in the paint!
Roadrunner Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 I remember being 10 years old, having lost my only brush to stiffening since I had no turps, and resorting to painting a model with Q-Tips. I had to laugh recently when I came across an old built up that had been painted that way... those tell tale signs like cotton fibers in the paint! Once, while adding polyurethane to a base, I ended up with a gnat stuck in the urethane. I left him there, sort of a memorial to his misfortune.
Tom Geiger Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 Another memory... In my rebuildables, I have a model built by a kid back then... it has no paint on the rockers, and lots of crud in the paint on the body sides. I recognized it immediately as a car that was placed on the basement floor for spraying. The rockers were on the floor and the spray shot all the dirt on the floor up into the wet paint. Been there, done that! And I thought my father was a genius when he saw that and made me a spray rack from a coat hanger! When I was preparing my grandparents house for sale, and cleaning the basement, I saw a blue spray painted shadow of a model body on the concrete floor.
Roadrunner Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 Another memory... In my rebuildables, I have a model built by a kid back then... it has no paint on the rockers, and lots of crud in the paint on the body sides. I recognized it immediately as a car that was placed on the basement floor for spraying. The rockers were on the floor and the spray shot all the dirt on the floor up into the wet paint. Been there, done that! And I thought my father was a genius when he saw that and made me a spray rack from a coat hanger! When I was preparing my grandparents house for sale, and cleaning the basement, I saw a blue spray painted shadow of a model body on the concrete floor. A ghost from the past? I love it. I too sprayed dirt and crud all over my models back then, always wondering why they looked so bad.
Snake45 Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 I learned very early on, most likely from Car Model magazine, how to tape-roll a body to a Pepsi bottle and use it for a painting stand. The top of my left hand and thumb were painted various hot and cool colors for most of my teenage years, which annoyed my Mother no end. I still use the same painting method to this day, though I now use quart beer bottles, and I have about four of them so I can paint several projects at once. Now I hold the bottle with a paper towel over my hand to keep the paint off it. Whatever works. And, cheap is good!
Skip Posted January 23, 2015 Posted January 23, 2015 Brush painting models was a lot like sign painting, you didn't slop paint on straight from the bottle and get a smooth finish. When I was a kid my Uncle showed me how to brush paint and get a decent finish. He showed me that you wet the brush in thinner then load with paint, this makes the paint flow off the brush in a smooth fashion. (I learned his same principle doing Signs.) The other thing is to use a good quality brush, really soft "camel hair" brush. (Incidentally a camel hair brush is not made of camels hair, probably a lesser quality squirrel hair.) The third thing is to brush in one direction only, not back and forth this gets small air bubbles in the finish and makes brush marks. Just using a good brush and thinner will yield a good quality finish which could be polished out probably good enough to rival rattle can. I thought someone posted pictures of a couple of really nicely brush painted models, I think it was one of our "Foriegn Corespondents". Hopefully someone remembers that thread too so they can link it to this one. Point is, it can be done. Takes patience, it's a learned skill that does take a bit more work to get right, done right it can yield a deep lustrous finish.
Casey Posted February 7, 2015 Posted February 7, 2015 You will need the following paint to complete your model as shown: Testors Gloss Blue, Testors Gloss Yellow, Testors Gloss Red, and Testors Gloss Black Check.
kruleworld Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 I brush painted my 57 chevy back in the early 80s. It's a Monogram kit painted with tamiya bottled red. it had visible brush strokes, but was the best i'd ever achieved with a brush. it's currently undergoing restoration in black.
Zarana-X Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 You will need the following paint to complete your model as shown: Testors Gloss Blue, Testors Gloss Yellow, Testors Gloss Red, and Testors Gloss Black Check. TASTE THE RAINBOW!
Snake45 Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 You will need the following paint to complete your model as shown: Testors Gloss Blue, Testors Gloss Yellow, Testors Gloss Red, and Testors Gloss Black Check. Is that a Fisher-Price My First Pro Stock?
Monty Posted February 10, 2015 Posted February 10, 2015 I brush painted my 57 chevy back in the early 80s. It's a Monogram kit painted with tamiya bottled red. it had visible brush strokes, but was the best i'd ever achieved with a brush. it's currently undergoing restoration in black. This strikes me as odd for a couple reasons. 1) I thought these all came molded in red 2) My attempts to brush paint anything with Tamiya acrylics were exercises in futility because they dry so quickly. Is it possible you were using their enamels? How is the restoration going? I'd love to see pics sometime because I've heard this kit is very well designed.
Belugawrx Posted February 11, 2015 Posted February 11, 2015 Did /Do Tamiya make Oils..? TASTE THE RAINBOW!
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