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The quest for the acceptable model car finish.

Paulw

Paulw

Well-known member
After the Miata build I sort of got the bug to build curb side kits. so I got to thinking of a way to get an affordable kit. I bought the Revell '85 Olds 442 from Hobby Lobby. Looking at the plastic it appeared to be molded with several different types of styrene. It had swirls different shades of white among other things. 400 grit sort of kinda smoothed it out a bit and then I shot some Rustoleum, which turned out to be a bad decision on my part, as a guide coat and did a color sand to get the high spots and smooth out the surface. I then shot four tack coats and two wet coats of Tamiya metallic blue. This is what I came out with. Basically a bunch of what not to do knowledge which is good all around in any case. I also am going to stick to kits with better plastic.
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Looks ok. You need 3-4 clear coats now and then polish it back to get that glass finish on metalic
 
Tamiya metallic sprays DO NOT require clear coat! You can add clear if you're needing to sand imperfections out, because metallics are tough to sand out without recoating. There's definitely something different about this latest version of plastic, I ran into it on my '29 roadster and have read that others on other forums have as well.
So, my advice would be let that cure a couple days, lightly sand and give it a couple more wet coats, about 20 minutes apart. Warming the can in a container of hot water seems to make Tamiyas spray better and shaking the puddin' out of the can right up to application works for me.
 
Like Mike said, I'd keep with the color and not clear coat. I've seen the results of his method.
 
Whatever you decide, this really brings out the gloss with TS sprays.
shopping

A dab on a piece of flannel (like an old shirt), rubbed in circles the wiped off will make you go wow! Just be careful of edges and raised details, it will rub the paint right off them. You can protect the edges with a piece of masking tape. Good luck, love the color!
 
Iron Mike said:
Whatever you decide, this really brings out the gloss with TS sprays.
shopping

A dab on a piece of flannel (like an old shirt), rubbed in circles the wiped off will make you go wow! Just be careful of edges and raised details, it will rub the paint right off them. You can protect the edges with a piece of masking tape. Good luck, love the color!
Click to expand...
I have several tubes of that stuff and it works real well. However, I have not used a rattle can on the Olds but use the acrylic metallic blue snd a clear coat. Ill do some rub and buff later. As it stands now I think I will be going for enamels for further car builds and stay with the acrylics for my planes. I reall do appreciate every ones input.
 
I think the point is that if you clear coat it acts as a leveller and removes the need for a good finish in the base colour.
 
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