Please help — decanted Tamiya TS-45 Pearl White not covering

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

I decided to change some decking on my U.S.S. Paul Revere hospital ship model from dark grey (painted with Tamiya XF-24 Dark Grey) to Tamiya TS-45 Pearl White to match the ships hull and superstructure. I first removed as much of the dark grey paint as possible with Mr. Paint Remover, ending up with very light grey decking. I decanted about a third of an ounce of Pearl White and repainted. I’ve now painted it with two coats of the decanted Pearl White lacquer, but it’s not covering worth a darn. It’s still very light grey — certainly not Pearl White.

What should I do!? Will another coat or two do the job, or should I go to Plan B (whatever Plan B is)? After the lacquer dries, could I use a coat or two of Tamiya Flat White acrylic paint, or will that likely get me in more trouble? (The brighter white paint shoud play reasonably well with other, nearby deck houses.)

Bob

2

Did you remember to thoroughly shake the paint can right before decanting?

3

Hello Bob! Painting white can such a sumbich… You might try two things:

  1. painting the deck silver then putting white on top of that. Light gray primer might also be the way to go.

  2. use white Tamiya primer from the spray can (love that stuff!). Then you might or might not put the pearly white on top of that to even things out.

Good luck with your ship and have a nice day

Paweł

4

Pawel’s got it right. Whites tend to be stubbornly translucent, so a primer…preferably white or very light grey…is virtually a necessity.

Good luck.

5

I’ve shot about 3 iterations of pearl white and always use white primer under them. FWIW

6

Yep, Tamiya white primer as an undercoat is the way to go. Use the rattle can. It works great.

7

Pearl colors are translucent regardless. Pawel is correct, a white primer would work. Not only white is a hard color, try yellow sometimes. Enough to want to pull your hair or put a hammer to your model kit.

I once used Pearl White on top of gloss white on a car kit. To be honest, it really doesn’t change the appearance in color white at all.

8

I’ve used the Tamiya TS yellow, on a Ferrari model and it is like water. I will never use it again.

Multiple coats and it looks lemon yellow, not the deep yellow of the cap. The primer color really matters if you are using these.

9

many of you have never worked as an auto body painter, and it shows! Lol

so, the pearl white is literally only the white pearl in a clear carrier. There is very little, if any, pigment in it. If there were, the white pigment would swallow up the pearl so that the pearl effect would not be visible. The white pearl is used to give it a special effect on the topcoat of white. For example a pearl white Cadillac is a white basecoat, over painted with a pearl topcoat and then a clearcoat. So that pearl coat you were using will never cover, you will always see that light gray.

As for painting yellow, there has been talk on several of the podcasts, that apparently the best undercoat color for yellow is actually a pink. Somehow the pink undercoat gives the yellow the ability to show it’s vividness and saturation.

10

“Mortal as I am,I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the Earth…”

Justin - Love your quote from Ptolemy!