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I just got finished shooting a Spitfire with Alclad2 Aluminium over Tamiya TS14 black. At a distance of 1 to 2" and 15psi. For the most part i have a smooth finish, but some spots have a grainy like finish. How can i smooth out those areas?

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I just got finished shooting a Spitfire with Alclad2 Aluminium over Tamiya TS14 black. At a distance of 1 to 2" and 15psi. For the most part i have a smooth finish, but some spots have a grainy like finish. How can i smooth out those areas?

I've never heard of spraying Alclad II over an acrylic black. I've always seen it done over either an enamel or a lacquer. Don't know if that made a difference. I've always sprayed Alclad II over either Model Master Gloss Black, the Alclad II Gloss Black primer or over Future applied to bare plastic.

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I just got finished shooting a Spitfire with Alclad2 Aluminium over Tamiya TS14 black. At a distance of 1 to 2" and 15psi. For the most part i have a smooth finish, but some spots have a grainy like finish. How can i smooth out those areas?

 

Polish them out. Use fine grit sanding cloths followed by Novus polishes and perhaps toothpaste (not gel). Eventually you will get a smooth surface and a terrific shine. Unless the layer of Alclad is too thin, but then you can spray more and hopefully get a good finish the first time.

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I've never heard of spraying Alclad II over an acrylic black. I've always seen it done over either an enamel or a lacquer. Don't know if that made a difference. I've always sprayed Alclad II over either Model Master Gloss Black, the Alclad II Gloss Black primer or over Future applied to bare plastic.

 

Tamiya's spray cans are acrylic lacquers, and the gloss black works well under Alclad II. My wife built a Tamiya 1/72 P-51D and used that combination, and the finished product was quite nice indeed.

 

Ralph

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Thanks guys! I was wondering if I could actually spray future over it and then respray the alclad?

 

I don't think that would work--you'll have to get rid of the grainy texture before you can do anything, and spraying something on top without smoothing the surface may actually magnify the graininess. Try polishing it as James suggested. If you rub through to the black primer, mask the affected area at the nearest panel line and re-spray the Alclad.

 

Ralph

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Thanks guys! I was wondering if I could actually spray future over it and then respray the alclad?

 

I corresponded with Mr. Alclad2 some time ago (Tony Hipp, isn't it?) and came away with the following information.

 

The gritty texture could be caused by either of two things: either the paint is drying before it hits the surface, or the undercoat is too thin and the hot Alcald2 is attacking the styrene. In the case of the problem I had, it was the latter.

 

I've never been able to polish out the problem when it occurred. Alclad2 dries to a very hard shell. I had to strip and/or sand it out and re-do the entire preparation.

 

On the Alclad Website it says:

 

"ALCLAD High Shine -Chrome and Polished Aluminium both require a dark glossy base. Polished Aluminium should be used over Tamiya TS-14 gloss black, or gloss black auto paint. Chrome and only chrome should be used over gloss black model enamel paint."

 

They have added two High Shine finishes to their product line but have never updated the Application Web page. They are Stainless Steel and Airframe Aluminum. Use the same gloss black base for them as you would for Polished Aluminum ("Aluminium" to our UK brethren). They have also added their own Gloss Black Base, which people have used with mixed results. Some batches had trouble with the paint never drying completely. I have tested ModelMaster Acryl Gloss Black, ModelMaster Enamel Gloss Black, ModelMaster Automotive Lacquer Gloss Black, Tamiya TS-14 Gloss Black (decanted from a rattle can), and Scalecoat II Gloss Locomotive Black, all with good results. I also never saw a problem with using any of the above gloss blacks under Alclad Chrome

 

I've done a lot of test shots with various undercoats and the results have been that almost any good acrylic or lacquer gloss black base will work. I also tried some other dark gloss colors to see if they made a difference in the final color (it did on some) and in a few instances the Alclad2 attacked some gloss enamels that weren't fully cured—Testors (square bottle) Green and Orange, if I remember correctly.

 

Regards,

Bruce

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That's good intell. Thanx Neptune!

 

You're welcome. Here are some old test shots. You can see where the Alclad2 attacked the green, orange and red enamels underneath. The object of this test was to see if slight variations in panel colors could be represented using different color undercoats.

 

DSCN0019C.jpg

 

 

This was a test of the effects of gloss black compared to gray primer as an undercoat with various Alclad2 paints.

DSCN0036B.jpg

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