New to this site and forum and just started getting back into Scale Models. Building my first one in 20 years. Where I live I have no hobby shop so I need to get everything shipped and spray paint is considered a Dangerous Goods up here and I don’t own an air brush yet as I am just getting back into this. So I decided to “cheat” a little and use normal spray paint for the body. I put down a white Primer, about 3 coats and then I let dry for 2 days. I put my first coat of Dupli Color (Met. Black) on last night and it is very dull, almost Grey. I have now put on 2 coats and still the same, also in come places the paint looks like it didn’t stay and you can see the primer and in a couple corners it just bubbled up and dried like that. Can anyone shead some light on whay I did wrong to make this happen and is there anything I can do to fix it. Thank you in advance to anyone that offers assistance!
Not sure where the Duplicolor fans are at but they might have a better answer than I can give ( I’m not and never was a Duplicolor fan for models personally). Duplicolor is lacquer and it’s pretty hot lacquer. I’m guessing your primer was enamel, that would account for the lifting. If it’s humid where you are then that could account for the gray looking results you are getting. Lacquer blushes when shot in high humidity and hot lacquer can eat fresh enamel finishes or primers…
I suggest next time you let the primer cure for a lot longer than two days. That’s not enough time to allow it to stop off gassing. I usually go at least a week.
Morrison’s Second Law applies here.
“There’s never enough time to do it right, but somehow there’s always enough time to do it over”.
Also be sure to test these kinds of combinations on expendable samples. You sould be able to get this to work. I understand the situation; certainly have been there.
So what should I do from here? Sand down and start over? Been raining alot here lately so I can’t do too much till it dries up but would like to get a game plan in place. Still finsihing up the rest of the model. Again thank you for the responses.
If you are ordering in this paint, then why not order model paint. Spray cans are really unpredictable. When I did use a can I would usually put the can in warm, not super hot water, about 140 degrees, not on a flame but off, for a few minutes to get the paint flowing better and smoother. Use model paint for the best finish results.
Auto lacquers set up real fast, so it is hard to get a really gloss look to them. You may have to polish the final surface to get a good shine. Problem is, many polishes have wax in them and prevent you from painting over them with a clear coat. One option is to not polish and just bite the bullet and clearcoat. A second is to see if the polish is sufficient to meet your needs. If you are trying to duplicate a factory finish of an older car, that may be enough. For a rod or custom, you may want to do the clearcoat to get that wet look. And contemporary cars often have a clearcoat from factory. Third option is to polish with a non-wax polish and then clearcoat. But in that case you should do a test case on scrap to verify that the polished surface can take an overcoat. A lot of us use plastic spoons for such testing.
Awesome thank you for the help everyone. I will get to work soon on stripping it down and starting over with it. May just waiting till I, or someone I know is out of town and get proper spray paint picked up. The Dupli-Color stuff I can buy localy that is why I went with it. Nice to have a place to get assistance. Last time I was building models I wasn’t doing alot of detail but this time around I will be, the details make them. Older and wiser kinda thing maybe lol. Good luck on everyones next build!
I use actual automotive polish compounds like Meguiars. They state specifically if they can be painted over. In general anything except their waxes can be over-painted.
I also use touch up automotive lacquers, especially when I am duplicating real cars. I make models of all the real cars I ever own whenever there is a kit or die-cast available. These auto paints are very hot so I use the same brand auto primer. The color coats also tend to dry to a flat finish, particularly when decanted to an airbrush, so I go in to the project expecting to polish them back out with sanding pads and polishing compounds.