i’ve always been wondering how to buff or polish paints. i especially would like to polish up gloss paints to make them look more shiny and reflective. but i don’t know how.
what exactly is buffing? especially when it comes to paint applications. my painted surfaces always seems weak and chips off easily. i have tried to use micromesh to polish things, but that stuff don’t work at all. it only creates scratch marks and chips away all of the paint off. it makes the surface more fogged and cloudy.
i don’t know if there is a right way or the wrong way.
or is there a good product i can use to this.
or is there a special type of paint that is good for polishing?
What paint are you using that is chipping so easily?
Mike
LB -
You have several options -
1 - Gently wetsand your final colorcoat with a 2000 grit wet/dry paper (the key word here being GENTLY, you don’t want to sand paint off of edges or corners), or 000 Steel Wool. All you want to do is give yourself a good base for Clear Coating. You can Clear coat with Future, either spray with an airbrush, or brush it on if you do not have an airbrush. Future is nice in that it will even itself out leaving a minimum of brush strokes. Let dry completely without touching. You may alternatively choose to airbrush an enamel clear coat (or lacquer, depending upon what kind of paint you’re using for your color coat), but IMHO most people are now going the Future route.
2 - Shoot or brush the Future without presanding the topcoat - not as nice a look as the Future will not “fix” any body imperfections you may have from your final color coat. The upside is that you won’t have to worry about possibly oversanding an area prior to clear coating.
3 - I haven’t tried this, but I have heard of people using Pledge Furniture polish to wipe down their models after the final top coat to give a more glossy finish.
4 - If you clear coat or not, you may also get some polishing compound from WallyWorld or someplace similar, and gently polish the model. You could also wax the body with a good car wax .
Whatever method you finally decide on, take your time and don’t be in a rush. If you take the proper amount of care, you should end up with a really nice finish. Give it a try, and post pics when you’re done.
HTH
lowdog
I do a lot of Car models and often have to polish some finishes…the best thing I’ve found is The Novus Polishing system which is available many place but if you order the Try it pack from Micro Mark it comes with thier 2"x2" polishing pads which are great! The item # for the try it pack is 82462 it runs $18.50USD and is on page 73 if you happen to have a Micro Mark catalog…
if not you can visit them here: http://www.micromark.com
I currently use Novus (found some in Hobby Lobby) - but have used regular automotive rubbing compound - its easy to find in the local automotive supply store - just check in the body section - it comes in several grades, coarse, medium, fine and ultrafine - the fine and ultra fine work great on model paints and a 1 lb can lasts forever (as long as you make sure the top is sealed when you are finished) -give em a try
An automotive detailers trick, works good too.
There are many finishing and top polishing compounds out there as well as modelling waxes to help you get there.
Many of those are nothing more than fine grid sanding pastes and similar.