I thought that tonight I might share one or two basic thoughts on paint and what I have been through over the years.
I am surprised nowadays that with all the fancy acrylic paints in a bewildering number of finish types I still find myself returning to good old modelling enamel and inevitably Humbrol tins. Pretty much the same stuff that I started off with when I put my first plastic kit together somewhere in the mid sixties. Who remembers Airfix Series One kits in a bag at 2/6? My pocket money in those days was half a crown so I couldn’t afford a kit every week, as I needed supplies as well. Birthdays and Christmases were always brilliant as I always got a kit or two.
Anyway paint, asuming most beginners are going to start with enamels, lets once again look at the simple pitfalls with the two different types of enamel, namely gloss and matt.
Over the years I had a number of disappointments with enamel gloss and they all centered around achieving that lovely deep gloss finish that always seemed to be marred by some imperfection or other. Just to digress I once got a brand new Airfix Jumbo just after they released it and I painted the hull gloss white just before my Gran decided to do the vacuuming. Big lesson there!! Anyway the upshot of all my trials and tribulations was this, all finish imperfections are as a result of foreign matter in the paint so all I had to do was remove it from the equation. Simple really. This foreign matter comes from:
1) Dust and dirt in the brushes, no matter how clean they are they still contain traces of old dry paint. Solution, use a new brush.
2) Dirt in the paint, usually from dried bits around the rim that has formed when previously opened. Solution, use a new tin of paint.
3) Airborne particles landing on the wet paint. Solution, paint in a clean dust free environment (tidy workbench!!) and as soon as the painting is finished leave the room until it is dried.
4) Dust on the model surface. Solution, wash it in warm soapy water first. This also removes waxy mould freeing agents.
Other obvious considerations are use a good quality brush that will not release bristles and paint in even well loaded strokes in a direction that is comfortable. It is well worth using a piece of sprue to glue to the inside of whatever you are painting to make a handle and have a vice ready to put the part in when you have done. By the way don’t forget to mix the paint very thoroughly and if at all possible do all the painting of one colour on a particular model at one time. If you want a time, do it for longer than you think necessary.
The first time I took all these precautions was on a Tamiya motorcycle petrol tank and I was amazed at how good a gloss finish I could achieve. That bike still winks at me knowingly from inside it’s glass cabinet.
As for matt paints, the pitfalls here are invariably centered around variations in finish. Matt paint contains not only pigment and the vehicle but also solid matter held in suspension that gives the surface its rough finish. Varying densities of this solid matter will vary the degree of the matt effect. Quite often variations in a matt finish are required to enhance a surface and I even deliberately blend matt and gloss in varying quantities to achieve different surface textures sometimes but assuming you need an even finish the one most important thing to remember is the mixing. All that solid matter has to be evenly dispersed around the paint and this takes time. Even when the paint looks mixed it can still dry to a slight satin finish if the paint has not been mixed thoroughly. To achieve this I use a piece of bent copper wire in my Black and Decker battery drill and mix all matt paints for a very long time. A battery drill is ideal as it is relatively slow. Obvious precautions are do not remove the stirrer whilst moving and do not let go of the tin while mixing.
If you spend the time on this process and take the same precautions as above with gloss paints you should find that your finishes are considerably more consistent. Once again though it is well worth doing all the parts of a model of the same colour at the same time whenever possible. |