I'm done with sanding/wet sanding by hand! Any alternatives?

plasticjunkie

I shoot my gloss enamel  paint and set it aside to cure for 5-7 days then use a soft old cotton t shirt and Novus#2 to polish the paint that produces a glass smooth finish. This method will also work  on a car finish. 

I tried your suggestion first because it was the easiest and I'm pretty happy, surprised and impressed with the results! All you do is rub the course compound with a "not-too-smooth" cloth and you can actually see (and feel) the orange peel fade away. I should've taken a pic of the model before I started to show you what it looked like with the orange peel. This is a huge difference.

Here's the body after the course/fine/wax applications. This is pretty good compared to what I've done before. It's not as good from all angles (I am using some photo-trickery), but for the easiness of the method, I can't fault the payoff.

Without sounding ungrateful and full of self-pity, it's still a long way off the manufacturer's results.

Sometimes I wonder though about the official pics. Look at this tiny sign on the side of the body. On the manufacturer's pic, you can clearly read it as Hertz. I've taken a pic of what I got in the box. Couldn't get a closer pic with my phone but it's pretty close to what you see. There's a big difference. Do these pro modelers use a pin or something to etch out the words again? Or maybe print a sticker to go on top of it? Puzzling.

 Another biggie to keep in mind when spraying with a can or AB is to always start before your subject and end your pass after the subject and keep it moving. Don't change directions while on the subject either. This is especially true of  colors that contain flake or camillian affects. And like Lewbud stated, try to paint with all the parts in place as it will have an affect in the look when it's done. Your best to start off with a kit or two that you are not super stoked about so you can afford to make mistakes and experiment some. Then when you get a feel for what you're doing you can then transition to a kit you really want to look good. 

All the stuff everyone has mentioned here applies to this hobby. Above all, practice and patience is key. Good luck.

BK

lewbud's method is spot on. Now it's just a matter of getting used to doing that with your airbrush. My apologies, I got frustrated with these pop up ads the other day and didn't go into detail. I would sometimes thin color coats more as I went along but not always and only with solid colors. You don't want to do that with metallics. I did always do it with clear. But, I was also using lacquers almost exclusively. And normally used clear fingernail polish for my clear coats. It's a tough, hard finish that doesn't yellow, sprays very well and was readily available. There are a lot more products on the market today than 10 year ago but, at least in the US, almost any drugstore, supermarket or retail store sells fingernail polish. You can get some pretty nice colors too. :-)  Just thin it with lacquer thinner. I have seen some people say they used a fingernail polish that didn't work with lacquer thinner but it never happened to me. 

You definitely need to thin your Tamiya paints. Try to use 15-20 psi for air pressure. A little more if you need it. Remember you're using an airbrush and not an aerosol. You have much more control. You can slow down and get closer. BUT, you're painting a car body so you're still going to need to put out some paint. Light mist coats are what you start with but you need to progress to wet coats. That's what allows the paint to flow and level out. Too dry or too thick and it won't. Too thin or too heavy and it will run or sag. It's something you just have to do and get experience with. It takes time. Don't get discouraged. You can do it!

Ohms,

I primarily use Tamiya rattle cans, so I don't worry about paint composition.  The distances are for spray cans, but can be adapted to airbrushes.  You'd just have to experiment and find the distances for your airbrush.  I use distance to control the amount of paint that goes on the model.

@lewbud

Thank you so much. I feel like this is a post I'll be referring to years from now. 

When you speak about mist coats/medium wet coats/wet coats, are you only changing the distance of the airbrush from the body, or are you also changing the dilution of the paint with the thinner?

BrandonK

It is rare when you can lay down a finish with no peel in it.  

Wow! That gives me a lot of hope. If I have to take longer knowing I'm not the only one dealing with OP, then so be it. 

Ohms,

What Brandon meant was that you don't want to sand the peak where the surfaces of the body panel come together.  That peak has the least amount of paint on it and you will sand (burn) through the paint a lot quicker than the flats of the panels.  It's a thin enough line that your brain will trick itself into not seeing a difference in the shine.  As others have said a smooth foundation makes a smooth paint job that much easier.  Sand the body smooth to get rid of the mold separation lines.  Sand the primer smooth.  Apply the color coats.  My base usually consists of 4-6 mist coats to get full coverage with about a 10-15 minute wait between each coat (shot from about 12-18 inches away from the body).  Then a couple of medium wet coats shot from about 10-12 inches away from the body, usually about 15-20 minutes between coats. Then a couple of wet coats shot from about 8-10 inches away from the body, with about 20-30 minutes between coats.  I rarely use a clear coat because the cars I tend to build never had them.  I then set the body aside for a week or two to let the paint cure.  This is using Tamiya spray lacquers from the can.  In the old days of using enamels, a body could take 30 days to properly cure.  Make sure you paint the hood with the body, especially if you're painting it white (ask me how I know this).  Also look for any molded in underbody reinforcements or places that have been thinned out so you can cut a hole in it (usually the hood).  These can create a slight depression which you may not catch until you've shot your body color and they create a ghost image in the paint. They can be found by sanding the body before you primer it (the low areas wil still be shiny so sand until they are gone).  If the bonnet or boot is removable, pay attention to the edges.  The molds, depending on how much use they've received, may have a slight curve at the edges resulting in a peak being formed that you may not find until you've burned through the color coat there.  Sanding the parts before painting should catch this.  I never wet sanded a body, only dry sanded.  I would cut the sand paper into small strips about a 1/2-3/4 of an inch wide and maybe a couple inches long and would get maybe a panel out of a strip before having to cut a new one.  Regardless, watch your sand paper.  If the grit is starting to get clogged, either rinse it out or get a new piece.  As others have said, it takes at least a couple of hours to properly and carefully rub out a paint job.  And as with everything, practice, practice, practice.

It's not like the effort is really difficult, it is the subject.  I just don't care for cars, real or models.  I just see them as ways to get from point A to B somewhat quicker.  Car models are fun builds and I admire the artists who do them.  Now that said, I'm building now an ESCI 1/9 scale Kubelwagen. Go figure.  I just finished a old kit 1/35 of a DML Pzkfw III ausf G.  I've done it Panzer grey. 

tankboy51

That's why I build mostly tanks and fighters.  No gloss finishes, except when I apply decals.  No big seam filling.  Flat finnishing.  

 

True that. Armor Is great to work with specially easy to hide gaps and steps with pigments and weathering. Just throw some mud on that ugly gap and problem solved.  

The orange peel on my finishes are VERY light and are removed by the Novus as the paint can be seen on the t shirt after polishing an area.  It takes time and patience to rub the paint out, each time changing sections on the t shirt to keep a clean polishing cloth. The only times I wet sand is if an area is very grainy or rough. It takes several coats to build up the paint thickness so some of it can be removed during the polishing step.

Or build weathered race cars, rusty junks or demolition derby cars ;)

That's very true, tankboy. If you don't like what you are doing you won't find youself doing it for long. In the end if you don't enjoy the work to get that perfect finish you probably won't be building cars for too long.

BK

That's why I build mostly tanks and fighters.  No gloss finishes, except when I apply decals.  No big seam filling.  Flat finnishing.  I've done one car for a friend, 20 years ago, that's it for me.  I had one little cat hair that landed on the finish, and after much wet sanding with extra, extra sanding I got the plastic kit looking good.  My buddy just put it on the back shelf of a case, and that was that.  I'm back to tanks.

You definitely have to have good body work in order to get a good paint finish. Kind of like building a house, if you don't get the foundation just right everything that follows will be off as well. Now, the color you decide to paint the vehicle can also make a big difference. There's even a saying in the auto body industry, If it ain't right, paint it white. Black and silver are probably the hardest colors to get a perfect paint job with.

Getting that showroom fresh and smooth paint on a car requires removing any orange peel you have in your paint. It is rare when you can lay down a finish with no peel in it. So wet sanding is to flatten those areas out only, not to make it shine. The shine comes from the finest of the pads making that surface glass smooth. Then when you are there the polishes like Novus are to bring out that shine in the super smooth paint/clear. And no you wont get any blotchiness in the finished product if you take your time and slowly work the paint smooth and then polish it. You can't really see the OP in the body lines or sharp edges and when its done the super smooth and shiny paint forces the eye to see that and not any small OP in the edges, which likely aren't there any way due to how the paint will flow away from those edges when you spray and it settles in. 

Again, wet sanding is not done in 30 mins. You should take a least a few hours to carefully work the paint out grit by grit till its perfect. This is why 1:1 cars cost so much to get a super nice paint job. It's all the labor in sanding down the coats and clears to make it perfect and then they polish it to get the shine. Sanding only gives you the base for the polish to achieve the shine. 

BK

plasticjunkie

Yes the cotton t shirt will act as a super extra fine polisher specially when combined with Novus.

 

Or cotton gloves and Novus.

Sorry, I can't fight the ads today.

Short answer is, you can get a really good finish with just paint but you have to learn how to reduce it and spray it. It can be done. Light coats first for some coverage and then heavier wet coats. Once you get full coverage with a wet coat, let it set for a little while, reduce your paint a little more and do it again. Hate to say it but you're going to have to suffer through orange peel and runs and sags and any number of other problems until you get the hang of it. That's just the way it is. 

Yes the cotton t shirt will act as a super extra fine polisher specially when combined with Novus.

Don Stauffer

Sanding between each coat is necessary. 

Yeah, people like Dave Thibodeau teach the sanding of even the primer! (Which is how I built my current model).

BrandonK

Take your time, sometimes days worth, and slowly work up to finer and finer pads.

Days?! Wow. I went through abrasives 3,400-12,000 on my car body within 30 minutes. 

plasticjunkie

I shoot my gloss enamel  paint and set it aside to cure for 5-7 days then use a soft old cotton t shirt and Novus#2 to polish the paint that produces a glass smooth finish. 

Again, this is something I'd like to try first, because it's just a change in method and I won't have to purchase anything new. Plus it seems easier, and I want to explore the easier options first.

Are you saying the cotton shirt acts as a very fine sandpaper? Because I've been applying Tamiya Coarse compound to my models on scratch-free cloths (basically the cloth used to clean eyeglasses, obtained from local opticians). The point (I thought) of the compound is more to level scratches, not visibly smooth out the surface (from orange peel), but I'm wondering if your cotton shirt suggestion can actually smooth out a surface like the fine sandpaper, just with a lighter touch. That's definitely explorable.

The secret of a good gloss finish is brinkmanship.  It also requires multiple coats.  The first coat should be light, the last very wet (several intermediate coats help).  The last coat should be so wet it is just ready to run.  How do you know when it is ready to run?  Experience and practice.  Buy or find some cheap sources of plastic.  Many of us use cheap packages of plastic.  Priming is always a good idea.

Sanding between each coat is necessary.  Model cars are the most difficult genre to paint, because of the need for a good gloss finish without clearcoats.

Ookay, I was dreading this, but time to reply to the posts (deep breath).

@Jon_a_its:

What's "0000+". I use Micromesh abrasives, which number (off the top of my head): 1800 going all the way to 12,000 in about 10 sheets. Are we speaking about the same thing?

I could try your suggestion: multiple dust coats instead of 1-2 wet coats. I thought dust coats were just for the base, so I never considered (or maybe even seen on YouTube) a multi-layered dust coat. It's easier for me to try this because it's just a change in method. Getting specific stuff in South Africa or ordering online is often impossible (when they're out of stock), time-consuming or costly, so I have to be very sure I want something before plonking the cash down.

My fear about dust coats was you'd get a non-even, patchy finish, but I'll practice on some bottles to see if this is a better option. Sounds intriguing.

It's not really the fact that I have to change my method that troubles me. I don't mind trying out different paths until I get this right. What's really confusing me is I've seen YouTube videos where they get a good shine, basically emulate what they're doing with the same or similar products, and there's still a big difference. I'm just trying to figure out what I'm missing/they're not showing.

Thanks for the recommendations.

@Eaglecash867

If you're saying you can still see the primer after the first coat, it means you're heavily thinning your paint, which is also something I can try. Again, this isn't a costly, "try another product" solution, so it makes sense that I attempt this first before putting aside my Humbrol coats.

I don't know if I'll go ahead with the bath in alcohol just yet. 

At the moment, I just shoot the Tamiya acrylics straight out of the bottle, without any thinner unless it can't go through the airbrush. Lol! Some of you may be shaking your head after reading that, but I always believe in taking the easy route until it's proven not the way to go.

@philo426

YES!!! This is the approach I (sort of) took with my current model. Prime -> wet sand -> 2 good body coats -> wet sand -> 3rd coat -> 2 gloss coats

I thought I saw the method in this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rxgXxyOPKQ) but looking at it now, I may be confusing it for another one.

I'd like to find a way to get the gloss/mirror finish without sanding the uppermost coat of paint and/or clear coat, because that just adds another variable to a scracthy finish. I'm sure someone on YouTube did it by sanding only the undercoats.

@BrandonK

I understand not sanding the edges/body lines to prevent the paint from burning off, but doesn't that lead to a patchy finish? This is why I want to attempt trying to get a gloss by sanding only the undercoats.

@Don Stauffer

Abrasive polishes, you say? Will have to look into that. Is this the equivalent to the Tamiya polishing compounds? Because I have and use those as the final process.

@BUCKY

So there's no other way to do sanding besides by hand? Noted. 

@gene1

This is doable. I have 2 cans of Tamiya gloss clear spray. Never thought of using it through an airbrush. Colour me intrigued!

BTW: From one racing fan to another, nice models!

@plasticjunkie

I'll try that with the Tamiya fine compound, which I have. 

That's it! Thanks all for the tips, people! Now I have plenty to do in trial-and-error. Will get back to you in time with more problems to help solve!

I shoot my gloss enamel  paint and set it aside to cure for 5-7 days then use a soft old cotton t shirt and Novus#2 to polish the paint that produces a glass smooth finish. This method will also work  on a car finish.

By the way, that Balloon car I got on ebay used & painted & it was a mess, but the wheels were not started. I soaked it in 1/2 Purple Power & water for a day & all the old paint came off. It repainted nice & is a beautiful model. I did a lot of those big old car kits. Loved them.

Don, it is a 1/16 Rolls Baloon Car I forget who made it but it is a beautiful kit. You even rig the wheels & it wasn't hard. I have done a lot of wheel rigging, once you get the pattern straight. 

    That little Bugatti was another real nice kit. It is 1/16 or 1/20. 

                       Gene

Beautiful!  What is the second car down?

Hi OHMS, I have been building models of all types, everything for nearly 80 years & love cars. I think the best advice I can give you is use Tamiya spray Lacquer. I buy the cans & spray a 1/2 oz bottle 1/2 full thru a 4" plastic straw & then thru  my Pasche airbrush. I also use any large can of paint the same way.

                   I also don't use much wet & dry paper, mostly some 3M type pad from an auto store made for car painting. It is about 2000 grit. The other people gave you great advice too. I will show you some of the cars I have painted  this way. I just wanted to show you what Tamiya spray lacquer can do. I use Tamiya's acrylic paint for ships & things because masking tape does not peel it.               Gene

I definitely WOULD not try to do any sanding with a motor tool, such as a DREMEL! 

That would most likely make it come out more patchy than what you've had up to this point. It probably would even gouge through the paint and primer, and dig into the plastic.

Thanks to everyone so far for the replies. Believe me, I check up every few hours to see if there's a new reply to the thread, and so far I'm ecstatic about the responses. 

It's just that I have so much feedback that I'm gonna have to try finding time in the weekend, or at least by Monday, to express all of it. 

Have a good one. 

Abrasive polishes.  They come in a wide range of grits. Auto polish is a fairly fine grit- rubbing compound coarser, cleaner a medium.