I bought a bottle of testors silver the other day and when I painted it it gave me a smooth metallic surface. I couldn’t see the metallic flakes seperated from eachother. I assume the reason is that the metallic flakes are really fine. I bought a bottle of tamiya silver also and I mixed for about 10 minutes straight and then I applied it and you could see seperated flakes and it looked horrible compared to testors. Is there something wrong with what I’m doing or is tamiya metallic paint just bad. I don’t want to have to use testors to paint metallic silver beacuse it is enamel. Is there an acrylic solution to a good metallic surface?
I feel your pain. I primarily use Tamiya acrylics, but I hate their silver and black. Testors Model Master Acryl silver isn’t bad, but I normally use Citadel for silver (actually it’s Games Workshop “Boltgun Metal”). It is an acrylic, has very fine pigment, and sprays or brushes very well. Other choices that are available, but I haven’t tried, are Humbrol, Gunze-Sangyo, or PolyScale. Others may have used them and can comment on them.
I also use a lot of Testors Buffing Metallizer for aluminum or stainless steel. They are laquers, but I just get rattle cans and spray them outside.
HEY,
Alot of people use alclad too but ive never tried it, but im planning on it as soon as i can get to my LHS.
Randy
alclad is laquer based though, but i know where ya comin’ from. metal paint is always a pain to apply anyway. did you try thinning at different ratio’s? with tamiya thinner? later.
[quotedid you try thinning at different ratio’s? with tamiya thinner? later.
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It won’t help … you open the Tamiya bottle and it looks like a pile of aluminum flakes. The pigment size is just plain big for some reason. I’ve bought my first and last bottle of it. Other than silver and black I like Tamiya though.
i have a bottle of tamiya aluminum as well, i cant say that ive ever used it much though!! i used to do alot of airbrush practice with tamiya acrylics. when i started building “seriously” i found that mixing every color that you need for a bird became cumbersome, so i swapped back to enamels for the convienance. so, i’m not much help. but for metallics, alclad II is the best and most realistic finish IMO. later.
only my own 2cents but, when it comes to metallics i use one of two things Model Masters on small jobs, or SNJ metal and clear coat on large jobs… (If ihave to i mix the colors to make my own “gunmetal” its not that hard… in fact i sometimes like my own mixed colors better than the ones they sell you in the LHS…
Alclad2 is simply the best metallic paint on the market. Comes in several color variations & is extremely durable. The only metallic I can mask over & get no paint surface pull up. Downsides are, it is a lacquer, requires special priming techniques for best results, and it’s expensive. Still, it’s the best if you want a realistic, durable NMF. If you try it, my guess is you won’t go back to your current favorite.
Regards, Rick
I just realized that when we speak of metallics, we could mean either of two different things:
-
Paint that’s supposed to result in the part looking like it’s made out of a type of metal in its “natural” state - e.g. aluminum, steel, chrome, etc…
-
metallic flake paint like one gets from a typical (real) automotive paint (e.g. “dark metallic blue”)
The type of paint that works for 1) is not at all what is needed for 2). I feel a bit silly, but it just now dawned on me that I need to think about what is being discussed!
I use Alclad2 and really like it. It also makes you try harder with your models because you cant hide anything with it ( I know I tried… doesnt work). It has an awesome finish to it. Like rjkplasticmod, I like it because I can mask over it. I am building Monograms P-51D right for a test bed for an up and coming project in Mrs. Marilyn’s markings and it looks good with the od on it with the alclad. It’s good stuff, once you try it, you wont ever go back to anything else.
I’ll second (or third or fourth) the vote for Alcad 2 paints. Any lacquer based paint will give you a better look if spraying a metallic finish. I use automotive lacquers , you then can get more variety of color (gold, copper, bronze etc.) than the Alcad.
I don’t particularly like tamiya acrylic metallics, but they are really good for drybrushing and weathering. random patterns.
otherwise i use gunze
Yeah the two metal flake Gunze Aquaeos colors I have used were great… metallic red and metallic blue-green. I got those for my nephew’s Calamity Gundam, which he airbrushed.
Another brand that works just like Alclad II is Spaz-Stix. You know… gloss black enamel first, then chrome lacquer. So, if your hobby shop doesn’t stock Alclad II, maybe they have Spaz-Stix.
I like and use Tamiya acrylics, but like you found the metalics a bit ‘rough’. So I use Humbrol enamels just for metal. This is fine for me as I mostly build motorcycles or cars. I have just used Allcad for the first time. Great finnish, but I found it very hard to use. Going to practice though.
Cheers,
Paul.