a few question about hand brushing enamels

1) In most cases, enamels usually hand brush better than acrylics, especially certain brands of acrylics.

2) enamels have never "burned thru" any acrylic base coat in my experience. As long as your base coat has dried and cured, there should be no problems of painting one type over the other.

3)Testors are ok for enamels, but I prefer Humbrols in most any color if I have a choice between the two. Unless you are in Europe, those are pretty much your choices for enamels here in the USA. In Europe you can also get the Xtracolour and Revell enamel paint lines.

Hello Falcon10275!

Aren't you havin' fun anymore?

I'm not especially good at brushing, but I can tell you that enamels aren't especially "hot" - when put on throuhly dried acrylics they should do no harm. Now lacquers - they tend to react with the underlying material, you should watch for that. As for quality - Testors enamels are OK, but not my favourite - I believe Humbrols are better. I find the Testors colours of red and yellow especially hard to paint with.

Hope it helps, good luck with your projects and have a nice day

Paweł

I have yet to find anybody's Yellow paint that handbrushes well... ;-) The properties of that color, be it enamel or acrylic, in any brand that I have tried, are just something that make it one of the most challenging colors to paint.

when it comes to yellow and red,  a little trick i learned from my days of painting Warhammer miniatures.    Use a  solid white base coast first.   Makes a huge difference and really helps.  Gray wont work,  has to be bright solid white.

We painted our kitchen Red.   I will never apint another part of my house red. It took almost 5 coasts.   Like stikpusher said,  Red and Yellow have pigment properties that make it difficult to get down.

Thanks for the help guys, I might get a bottle or two of humbolt on my way home from work tonight and give it a try.

I cant recall ever having problems with reds... on models. yes I did a "red room" in my old home. It took three coats to look right. Yes I have done that white undercoat trick as well.

Humbrols come in a little tin, just like gallons of house paint, with a lid that must be pried off. Make sure that you stir them thoroughly (stirred, not shaken, the opposite of Mr Bond's preference), but once stirred completely they handbrush like a dream.

And it's a good idea to store the "tins" lid down - to seal the outside air off. That way a paint can can last you years. Some time ago Humbrol took this into account and started putting stickers with paint number on the bottom of the can - this way you can find the colour you want without turning the can right way up. Hope it helps, have a nice day

Paweł

Some people only worry about thinning when airbrushing.  But the proper amount of thinner is important for hand brushing larger areas.  Brushing small pa rts is generally not a problem, but if you are brushing a major part, like a wing or tail or fuselage, it works best to thin to a good ratio, best found by experience.  Too thick and the brush marks will not level out.