How do you use Alcad paints?

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

I’m working on a kit and I want to get an even uniform coat of Alcad aluminum paint on. Put a black base down now when I airbrush the alcad I get areas that look good and areas that blotch and pool.

2

How long did you let the black base dry for? And what kind of paint did you use? The base should have dried for a few days before spraying alclad over it. Make sure you shake the bottle very well, and then just spray it on at about 15-20 psi with even strokes.

hope this helps.

3

G’day wvermilyea and [#welcome] to the form Try swannys Artilce here’s a link , It explains everything you need to know , good luck .

http://www.swannysmodels.com/Alclad.html

cheers mike

4

I’ve used a lot of Alclad2 & never experienced the problems you describe. Maybe you are spraying too heavy coats. That, or surface contamination on the primer, are the only things I can think of that would cause pooling.

Regards, Rick

5

I’ll go along with Rick and the others. I’ve used Alclad for a while now, and one of the absolutes with this product is that you MUST have a clean, unblemished surface to begin with. You must also allow the primer coat to cure sufficiently before applying the Alclad metallic coat of your choice, using the recommended pressures and spraying techniques previously descrtibed. Swanny’s article is a valuable reference tool. It’s never far away from my bench when I attempt a bare metal finish. Hope this is of some help to you.

6

I encountered a similiar problem on my Mustang for the group build. It was from not letting the base coat not completely cure. Yours sounds worse then mine did. I have slight blotchyness on the wing tops only and some grainyness I didnt take the time to look for before I futured the whole thing. A light sanding on the entire plane til you are confident the surface is even everywhere and then redoing the base coat should get ya fixed. Make sure you wait 48 hours this time.

7

one thing i do is to wait about 10 minutes between the first coat and the next. then take a soft wide brush and wipe off any dust that has settled on it. i have acheived the best results with only 2 coats ocasunally 3 but never more
rhino II