The Little World

I want fine-grain paint that stays liquid, spreadable and self levelling, and clings to vertical surfaces without sagging. I want it to stay in this condition until I pass a small electric current through it, whereupon I want it to set hard in ten seconds. Thereafter to be sandable and proof against solvents.

Is this too much to ask? It would mean a greatly increased workflow and far easier clean-ups in the workshop. In a pinch I’ll settle for an undercoat that is electrically conducive and can form the basis for a circuit. I want to put the anode on the paint and the cathode on the model and then have the fog of paint settle and cling to the surface. I’m lead to believe that something of this sort can happen in full-size car paint spraying.

I also be grateful for an electric applicator in the form of a handpiece that will let me inject liquid styrene into gaps between fuselages and wings or into the cracks between fuselage halves. Trowelling putty on and then trying to marshal it in the right spot with a wet finger is pretty inexact in the smaller scales.

Now that I have my wish list out and pencil sharpened, let me add a request to the major paint makers to produce their acrylics in larger jars as well as the little 10ml one. I know the 10 ml glass cylinders fit neatly in my paint rack, but there are times when I need more paint for a job than can be supplied by the little pots. I know the larger glass jars are made because they supply some thinners in them – and I save them zealously when they are empty as custom paint jars.

Is there a chance of a tiny plastic gel paintbrush? There are so may pliable and soft plastics that are used in toy making  – surely one could be used for paint application. It would maintain a sharp point and a definite shape and there would be no stray whisps of hair.

Note as well – We are always being battered by the modelling press to use a particular brand of floor polish as a canopy dip or gloss coat while painting scale models…yet there are never any bottles of the preferred brand name to be had in Australia. Why not a similar product from the Japanese makers of paint – even in smaller tins we would buy it. Surely an acrylic floor polish could not be protected that closely by patent.

Finally a request for a set of numbers to let us know what it is we are buying:

a. A viscosity number for undiluted paint, cements, and surfacers. It cannot be impossible to measure and codify all liquids against a known standard; pure water. It’s either going to be thinner or thicker and flow less or more. If water is 100, perhaps snail snot will be 20, and so forth.

b. A sticky number for adhesives. Measured against particular materials. Glue two 1 cm square tiles of whatever it is you want to test with whichever of the adhesives and then pull it slowly apart with a strain gauge attached. The number is however many grams per cm² when it busts.

c. A simple table to tell us which solvents or thinners will work with a paint or other product.

d. Paint information in English, please. It is the language of 1:1 aviation, let it become the language of scale aviation too…