Alclad II Issues

[DutyCat]

So some of you may have noticed that I have started doing build videos and putting them on Youtube. I am having some fun with them and a good number of people are watching.

One of them is a little Airfix 737 that I am trying to do in US Air NMF. The latest update is here,. In it we are talking about NMF options. You will see that the jet is looking pretty good at this point.

This is the third time around for this kit, the previous two attempts having been bungled by my novice attempts a a high quality NMF finish. The first time I tried Alclad Polished Aluminum. The Alclad finish had a few specs of dust, so I tried to polish it out. Nope, you can't really do that. Next up was SNJ Spray Metal. I ended up putting that on too thick I guess, because it dried as hard as a rock and their polishing powder would not even put a dent in it. So, this time I decided to go with basic Alclad Aluminum. I had the model base coated with gloss black and it is all polished up. However, there were a couple of areas where I had polished down to bare plastic. I go to spray the Alclad on. I get crazing where the plastic is bare. Ok, got it. Not gonna make that mistake again. I attempt to polish it all out and respray. That doesn't work either, because there is no way once you have sanded through this stuff that you can ever get the sanding transition to disappear completely, even if you use 12000 grit followed by Novis #2. So out of desperation I tried Floquil old Silver to see if I could get a decent finish and cover my error. That worked okay, but still no NMF. Not good enough. So I sand and respray everything with gloss black and wait four days for it to dry. I polish it out and try again. I spray on the aluminum and it is going on a little grainy, so I open up the tip of my trusty H to make sure it is going on wet. Well, it was too much because then the Alclad is not laying down smoothly, and guess what; it crazes the gloss black. So, another ruined finish. At this point, the paint is too thick, so I am going to have to strip it down and try again.

My point here is Alclad is not always that easy to use. You need a little experience working with it or else you can hose it up big time, like I did...twice. Now I have learned a few things and I am sure I would get better results the next time, but I think I am going to try SNJ again and mist it on like in their videos.

Edited January 22, 2012 by DutyCat

[Cobrahistorian]

I've been having nothing but grief with Alclad.

[Old Blind Dog]

I'd say that if Aclad is a problem for you, your next best option would be Tamiya AS/TS rattle can synthetic lacquers.

Advantage of these paints over Alclad are:

(1) They are much sturdier and can stand up to masking and extensive handling,

(2) No primer necessary.

(3) You can use SnJ metal powder to buff up the shine with no fear of rubbing the paint off,

(4) You can apply Future over them with complete confidence without getting what I call the "dulling effect."

Granted, the final product won't look quite as good as a perfectly applied coat of Alcald, but getting there will be considerably easier.

cheers

Old Blind Dog