Hi All, Well, time to open a bag of worms . The subject is paint. I have been using Floquil for a long time. We have two worlds out there, solvent based and water based. Which one do you use and why?? What are the pros and cons in your opinion?? Has anyone used a wetting agent in the water based to make it flow better?? Let the paint wars begin .
Model Flex is my choice. Easy clean up. No smell. And most of all, in 5 minutes with a hairdryer it's ready to mask or decal. Or if you keep the heat off the paint you have about 20 minutes to easily strip the coat off in hot water if you really goofed. (but not me, no, never) Never thought of a wetting agent. The only time I have an issue with surface tension is with heavily diluted washes and a brush (a fav weathering technique of mine) but in this way it has a long working time so it is sort of a good technique. Anyway, wet water may not be such a bad idea - I'll try it.
My favorite brand of paint has to be Accu+Paint. Reasons why: 1. Dries very fast; dries to the touch (enough to mask for the next color) in about 10 minutes. Even quicker with a little heat from a hair dryer. 2. Dries glossy, perfect for decaling. 3. Colors look accurate; their Oxide Brown is about dead-on for the color SP used on its freight cars. 4. If applied properly, it goes on VERY thin and smooth, and won't cover up details. Good example...I recently detailed and painted a Walthers Tri-Level enclosed autorack (for Espee, of course!). I primed it with Gunze Sangyo Mr. Surfacer 1000 (my favorite primer and filler), then painted it with oxide brown. After priming and a good coat of oxide brown, you could STILL see the tiny mold tooling marks on the model. I was amazed! I guess you could class it a solvent-based paint, even though it's way different from Floquil or others. I've been told it's really an ink...in fact, you can thin it with acetone for airbrushing. Only downside I've found for Accu+Paint is availability...when you order it through shops and their distributor network, finding certain colors can be tough, and can take awhile. I've had success with certain colors lately, and one store I visit has a very good fill rate, since they order direct from the maker. I still like to use Floquil for weathering and small details (wheels, couplers, etc.), but when it comes to the majority of my painting, I've switched to Accu+Paint, and haven't regretted it one bit. [ 13 November 2001: Message edited by: Mankind ]</p>
Polly Scale and Model Flex are my paints of choice.They are quite oderless so I can paint in the house with out stinking it up.They both dry fast with warm air are are quite thin when airbrushed. I like to use floquil also for brush applied washes.
I'm with Rob and Catt! I've been using Polly Scale of late though my Soo equipment gets Model-Flex. I find the Polly Scale black goes on very well, better than the Model-Flex. The Polly Scale does need a gloss coat over it before decalling, though. Floquil still gets a run with smaller detail parts from time to time, and if it's what I have on hand for a certain paint job. In Australia, it's impossible to get a majority of the solvent-based paints and some of the acrylics, depending on it's flamability. Floquil, for some reason, gets through! I've been fiddling with methyl alcohol as a thinning agent in the water-based paints. It certainly wicks off fast! Gary.
Pressure: 25 psi or so - straight from the compressor. No water trap, no nuthin'. I suppose I should fix that one of these days I use Polly Scale, with some Model Master Acryl for specific colours that PS don't have "off the shelf. I haven't purchased a bottle of solvent-based paint in years. Cleanup is *fast* when I can just run the airbrush under the tap before taking it apart and wiping it out! And multiple coats are a snap when you break out the hair dryer. The only place I forsee using solvent-based stuff anymore is for metallics - I don't think there are buffing metallics in acrylic yet. One beef I do have - the price of Polly Scale has almost doubled in the last year or two. My dealer says it has to do with production being moved from a Canadian plant to a US one - I don't know if that's true, but the 2oz bottles are now $6 CDN! I don't mind saying that this gets me planning my painting very carefully indeed. Saving Loonies to buy paint, I remain: B-Dubya
Geez,it's been so long since I bought any I had completely forgotton about Model Master paint. This is the GVR's soon to be rail service car She is painted with Model Master chrome yellow and is my very first airbrush victim.
