The Little World

Or painting with rumour, advice, lies, advertisements, and blind faith. Pardon – that should be blind, stumbling faith. What could possibly go wrong?

Painting white is tough. Painting red is tougher. Painting yellow worse. Painting silver worst of all. Woe is us, woe and wailing. And particularly if we listen to everyone else’s advice.

And now I’ll tell you what to do….

I know a chap who was struggling to paint a model. It was a unique subject, and he’d done quite some research and made sensible choices about how he wanted it to look. One of the choices involved seeing a shiny metallic finish on the outside.

He’d had good success with other models and far surpassed my skills when it came to weathering and presentation – so I was loathe to offer any advice about the bare metal finish. Unfortunately the materials he favoured were apparently difficult to use – specific undercoats and polished perfection needed at every stage. He’d done well and put the hard yards in…but seemed unhappy with the way the material was performing.

I commiserate – I’ve had some finishes fight back too. In my case I rarely scrap a project – but I have alcohol-washed away mistakes when I realized that there was never going to be satisfaction. And then had the pleasure of seeing the next attempt succeed. But I was not going to make those noises to him. He was too far down Hard Work Highway to call back.

Okay – what would I do for a shiny metallic finish? Ready for the advice you should not listen to?

I’d use the latest of the Super-Metallics from GSI Creos. They are lacquer paints in the familiar little pots – but they cost double the standard Mr Color paints. Get ’em now before they go up again… You get different versions of metal; stainless steel, dark steel, silver, titanium, etc. The latest one is 208 – bright aluminium – and it is perfect for the sharp and shiny duraluminium of aircraft.

Use the Mr Base White 1000 as the undercoat to brighten the silver.

Mix the 208 sensibly with one of the thinners from GSI – rapid, regular, or levelling, depending upon the temperature of the workshop. Better a little thinner than thicker – and better laid in three thin coats. Be patient – give it a night to harden before handling.

If you need a mirror shine, coat it with a clear varnish. Or lay decals on the clean final paint – they will settle well.

Note: hard-to-get super paints that are only imported in the dark of the moon by titled aristocrats are all very well, but when you run out and the shops have nothing to sell, you’ll wish you had settled for a more common material.