i know this should be posted in painting, but i wanted an answer from an armor modelers perspective. if i painted my tank with tamiya and polly scale acrylics, what should i protect it with to make sure its safe before attempting to give it an oil wash with mineral spirits? also if i am making mud with coffee grinds, and white elmers glue, what can i do to wash my brushes after?
The oil/turp should not be a problem unless your scrubbing the brush and wiping off excess. Use a pin wash and you’ll be fine. You could apply a coat of acrylic clear, but IMHO that’s not crucial.
Coffe grounds? Are you sure? Organic materials tend to decomplse and coffee grounds havve a rather strong smell for a rather long time. That said, Elmer’s cleans off in tap water, but use an old brush to be safe.
what is a pin wash? will mineral spirits work? i should just apply the wash over the acrylic paint? and i only heard of making mud with coffee grinds. haven’t tried it yet. what do you suggest to make the mud texture?
i just bought model master laquer overcoat, lusterless (flat) #1960, it in a spray can, so its pretty easy to apply. would this work if i coated it over my acrylic before i started heavey weathering? i also bought testors dullcote lacquer, but i am not sure how to mix or thin it, its in a jar.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of using coffee grounds for mud. If you want something small, granular and looks like dirt, why not use dirt? Grind it up really fine, throw it in the glue, and add ground up chalk (not oil!) pastels, and maybe some cheap acrylic craft paint.
I’ve seen coffe grounds used before, it does LOOK pretty good, but I’m not sure how long it would last.
I haven’t sealed a tank before washing with oils in years. I’m absolutely convinced it’s simply unnecesary, as long as you let the base/camo coats dry for a good 6-8 hours. The problem with putting flat laquer over the base coat is that t’s tempting to apply it too thickly, and then it glumps up (yes, that’s my own invented word) in the smallest cracks and crevices and stops the wash from defining those cracks. Also, it really does obscure details; I never usd to think so, but after my eyes became more discerning I could notice it, You MUST seal over enamels–although I stopped using them for armor 12 tears ago or so. Save them for cars and airplanes, if you do them at all. I use acrylics exclusively; mostly Tamiya and polly-s as well, and never have a problem with ruining a finish. Oh, it’s possible to, if you scrub the finish hard, but I usually clean the excess off the flat planes of any model within 10 minutes, before the wash has dried, and if the paint does lift, you can repair it a lot easier on a tank and not really notice it. I only seal my finishd model with the LIGHTEST coat of matte varnish too; To thick a coat again looks lousy; I do it mostly for uniformity of sheen, and to give light protection to the weathering and pastels, I wouldn’t recommend coffee grinds for mud; just use real dirt, in Elmers, or if you can get a pile of fine sawdust, mix that with some appropo paint color into the glue, and that can work well too.