Different finish with the same paint

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
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I just painted my body shell, and yet, using the same primer and the same number of coats of TS-7, look at the difference: a beautiful glossy finish on the hood versus a matte, slightly grainy finish on the body shell! Note that I used a different can of paint (but still Tamiya TS-7)… Does anyone have any idea what happened?

Photo 2026-08-10 18 31 29
Photo 2026-08-10 18 31 291920×2560 270 KB

Photo 2026-08-10 18 32 14
Photo 2026-08-10 18 32 141920×1440 104 KB

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Hey @grosplante welcome to the forum! I can’t explain why there is such a difference, but you have several options to try and address the problem. You could try lightly wet sanding the grainy paint finish with a very fine grit finishing sandpaper 2000 grit or even higher. that may even them out. A gloss sealer can be applied as well. I have also used floor wax to seal and shine finishes. You could also strip off the paint and respray with one can for the entire car.

It looks like a great subject though. That is a very cool car. Good luck with this one. Let’s see what some our forum colleagues think.

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Hello! Different can of paint is most obvious here - they probably sat on the shelf for a different spans of time, right? But then there are other factors - like how good the paints were mixed before painting. Then you can also have a difference in ambient temperature - affecting both propellant gas pressure and paint flow and atomization. Really lots of factors here.

Good luck with your projects and have a nice day!

Paweł

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Hi Peter!

Thanks for taking the time to reply and for all the suggestions! I really appreciate it.

I think I’ll try lightly wet sanding the grainy finish with 2000+ grit first and see how it turns out. I’d really rather avoid stripping the whole thing and starting over if I can. :sweat_smile:

And yes, it’s a pretty cool car! I’m enjoying the build so far, despite this little paint mystery.

Thanks again for your help!

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Thanks Paweł! You may very well be right about the different cans. I hadn’t really considered how much the age of the paint, temperature, or even how well it was mixed could affect the finish.

There are apparently a lot more variables involved than I thought! I’ll definitely keep those things in mind for the next coat.

Thanks again for taking the time to explain it, and good luck with your projects too!

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