Hi Everyone,
So I took today off to honor Veterans Day. I was planning on getting some detail work done on the Hoosier Hotshot cockpit tub. As I was studying the pictures and looking closely at the cockpit, I decided to put a coat of gloss acrylic clear over the flat acrylic yellow zinc chromate. That way I could put a wash on to bring out the details.
Since my air compressor is out of commission, I packed up my paint, airbrush, and everything else I thought I would need and went over to my Mom’s house so that I could use my Dad’s air compressor.
I set up everything and got ready to paint, put some clear acrylic gloss paint in the cup, and tried a few shots just to test, and nothing came out! Crap! It is clogged! So I took the cup out and squirted some acrylic cleaner that I had brought with me into the siphon hole to clear it and tried again. Still nothing.
So I ended up coming back home to get the stupid wrench that comes with the airbrush so that I could take the thing completely apart and do a full cleanup. That stupid acrylic yellow zinc chromate had clogged up my airbrush again!
After putting it back together, I ran lacquer thinner through it (that I also picked up while I was back at my house getting the wrench). Everything was working good. Time to refill the cup with the clear acrylic gloss paint and start again.
I pulled the trigger and nothing but air! Crap! What is going on! I didn’t think you were supposed to thin Model Master acrylic paint! Just spray it straight from the jar! I didn’t bring any acrylic thinner, so all I had was acrylic cleaner. I used that to thin it down. I got it to spray. But it looked real rough when I first got done. I just got done looking at it again (it has been about 3 hours now) and it appears to be smoothing out. That is kind of weird being that it is acrylic, but I swear it does look better now than what it did.
Anyway I did some searching and I found a discussion on this very website about using Model Master acrylic paint:
http://cs.finescale.com/fsm/tools_techniques_and_reference_materials/f/18/t/135114.aspx
I have just ordered some Liquitex Flow Aid and Liquitex Slow-Dri Fluid Retarder from Amazon. From the sounds of it, it may make using the acrylic paint a whole lot easier.
So, here is how the cockpit looks now:
Ken