When spraying, I'll apply light colors first, masking, then spray the darker colors. Three colors are used, yellow black and silver.
My plan was to use gray primer and sand.
Then white primer and very light sanding.
On the upper Wac section, yellow was sprayed overall. In the first picture, I've masked for the silver fins.
I should have masked for the black areas and followed with the silver last.
The silver looked okay before I put tape over the fins to mask them out for the final black.This picture was taken after the tape was removed off the silver fins. The sticky side of the tape had ruined the smooth silver surface. I would have gotten better results with a brush!
Even though I gave the silver adequate drying time, the tape still ruined the painted surface. Silver paint is always iffy.
TIP: Avoid using masking tapes on silver paint!
Note to self: Try to make silver the last color you lay down.
I had to sand the fins smooth and mask over the black this time.
The fins look terrible in this picture, you can see silver, yellow and primer when all was sanded down. They are actually smoother than they look!
Case in point:
I was looking over the instructions for the Quest AS-1 Escort kit.
In Step 26, you are told to first spray the rear of the model black, concentrating on the tail and rudder fins. The tail and rudder fins are black on the face card picture.
In Step 27 you mask off the black tail and rudders and spray the rest of the model silver!
Normally, you'd think the black (or darkest color) would go on last. Not so here! Quest doesn't explain the reasons why (you should spray silver over the black) but it's obviously to avoid using masking tape on silver paint.
I don't remember which brand (it may have been Testors model masters) but I have seen a black base coat recommended for silver/gold paint. I believe Alclad also recommends a black base for some of their metallics.
ReplyDeleteThanks Chris!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting - I'll do a little more checking into this. It's probably like painting a white undercoat when the final finish color will be on the lighter side.
The Quest instructions just said to paint the rear of the model black. But, almost the entire model (except for the rear fins) is Silver. If Quest wanted an entire black undercoat they probably would have said so. Who knows?