I am beyond frustrated tonight. I am doing a Revell 1/32 Heinkel He 111 P-1 in the standard early war splinter scheme of RLM65, RLM70 and RLM71. The photos should convey the leve of frustration that I am feeling right now.
The paint is Model Master Acryl. I am using Tamiya tape to mask the hard-edges of the splinter scheme. When I first put down the RLM65 on the underside, I mis-aligned the mask along the fuselage underside, pulled it up carefully to re-align and noticed that some of the paint had pulled up. After I repainted, I let it sit for a couple of days to cure (I applied a generous coat of Future over the paint to act as a sealant and protect the paint from the masking material). During that time I determined that there seems to be a lot of tackiness to this Tamiya tape. I’ve never had an issue with Tamiya tape with one exception - my most recent build, another Revell kit, a P-39D. For the next masking session, I deliberately put the tape on my shirt and pulled it off several times to remove some of the tackiness.
I typically wash all the parts in warm, soapy water prior to beginning construction. I did that on both the P-39 and the He111. While I don’t recall on the P-39, I do know that I did not apply a primer coat to the He111.
Any one have an ideas what might be causing this? Could it be old paint? Lack of prime coat? Tape too tacky? Any suggestions on how to mask for these German schemes? I considered cutting paper masks but could not come up with a good way to adhering the paper to the plastic without using tape. I also tried wall tack and Post-It Notes. The Post-It Notes surprising lifted paint as well. The wall tack was just an attempt to see if it would also lift paint - it did not. I suppose I could use wall tack to secure paper masks but it seems that the paper will not be flush with the plastic, which I think it will need to be to get the hard-edge.
Model Master acryl isn’t going to adhere well enough to mask without a good primer, I’m sorry to say. I’m not so sure any acrylic will, but MM seems to have a tad bit of a reputation for this.
Just like you and so many others, I found this out the hard way.
And IMO it’s always a good idea to de-tack masking tape, even Tamiya.
I too had a recent problem with MM acrylics. Sanded,washed and primed before hand,paint kept lifting. I bought the paint new,it wasn’t lying around. Went back to Tamiya.
As soon as I read the thread tittle I said to myself it has to be Acryl paint. You have to use an enamel based primer to make that junky paint stick. The solvent type paint/primer will give the Acryl some bite into the surface.
I used the MM Acryl primer one time and the Acryl paint and primer lifted when I removed the masking tape, never again!
On the other hand, Tamiya acrilics stick to the surface without a primer and spray way smoother thru the AB than the Acryl paint.
My first thought was you didn’t use primer. From the photos, I can tell from where the tape peeled off the paint. So the issue isn’t Tamiya tape. The lack of primer is.
I use MM acrylics exclusively and never had issues of acrylics peeling off. That’s because I use Rustoleum brand primer as a base coat.
[“BlackSheepTwoOneFour”]I use MM acrylics exclusively and never had issues of acrylics peeling off. That’s because I use Rustoleum brand primer as a base coat.
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Thank you for everyone’s responses. This is probably something I knew about Acryl paint but had just forgotten, so lesson [re]learned. Next time PRIME!!!
I do really like Tamiya’s paints. They go on real well, I agree, but I find having to mix a couple of them to get a color like, say, RAF Middlestone, to be problematic at best.
So I was able to repair the paint today on the one-eleven. I did not use any tape to mask; instead I used small pieces of cardboard to block certain areas while repairing the pulled-up paint. This was tedious but it worked pretty well. I did have to re-design some of the splinter scheme to manage this technique, but it wasn’t major.
Very nice recovery, Aggieman! For touch-ups like you performed, I will sometimes use post-it notes. They are not as sticky as tape, and hopefully less tedious as cardboard.
How do you eliminate the peel mark when re-painting the damaged area? I’ve been using 1000 and 1500 grit sand paper to blend in the spot but still end up with a patch mark on visible on the surface texture, not to mention when sanding more paint comes off.
When I did the re-painting, I used small pieces of cardboard rather than tape to mask. I did not press the cardboard firmly in place and lightened air pressure through my airbrush to 10psi and did not see any paint ridges develop. There were a couple of these ridges from the initial paint job that I rubbed away with 3500 and even 12000 grit sanding pads.
