Acrylic silver or metal paint recomendation

Hands down-- go with Alclad II-- it is probably the most expensive and the most labor-intensive to prepare-- but the ends most definitely justify the means....I had a hard time initially- but will never do anything else from now on...

how long do you let Alcald 2 cure before masking/painting over it?

It goes on in very thin coats as it is a pretty thin paint to begin with....but I always go the full 48 hours to be sure...... the thing I like most is you can mask over it and not affect it at all....last night I painted my red fuselage and cowling bands on my SBD-1 after using some painters masking tape on the Alclad...and it was a crisp mask with no problems taking the tape off after...

I've had a lot of luck with Testors MM Acryl metalic paints. They usually go down in one coat and look good to me.

OTOH, the Alcad stuff looks fantastic. I haven't used it yet, but I may need to give it a try.

Regards,

Alclad II is a great product for Natural Metal Finish, but it is a Lacquer base, not Acrylic.

I always use the Model Master metalisers, enemal based, very good for airbrushing and a lot easier than Alclad.

Okay... Where would you find this Alclad II stuff (the hardware, DIY shops, Auto paint stores)? Was it purposefully meant for scale models or is there a "real world" application to it? Also, is it available online?

Is there a general consensus that the Acrylics are somehow better for modeling than Enamels/Lacquers? I've always used the enamels myself. Used the MM buffing metalizers to great effect too (or at least so I thought - haven't tried the alclad stuff yet). Does the alclad come in different colors or just aluminum?

Bri~

Shrikes....

I just received my order of Alclad today from Squadron.com I also bought Alclad Grey primer from them.

http://www.squadron.com/SearchResults.asp?ScaleList=everything&TypeList=16&ManuList=AK&Key=&Submit=Go

For metallic paints the solvent based paints are better than acrylics. Polly Scale has pretty good acrylic metalic paints, but now you can only fine them in their railroad line. They've discontinued the metalic paints from their excellent military line of paints. I suggest priming if you want to spray acrylic based metallic paints.

Alclad is a lacquer so wear a respirator if you want to spray this. Alclad is from a British company. It's for hobby usuage so you would normally find them in hobby stores. You probably won't be able to find them very easily in the PI. Alclad dries very fast and has a very tough finish. You can start masking in less than an hour and work on another layer! There's a ton of different metallic tones in Alclad.

Spoke to some excellent modelers at the local shop and they use Tamiya spray " silver flake" for their natural metal finishes. Easy to use, can tape over it and dries completely in hours.

Tamiya gloss aluminium spray cans.
if you build up LIGHT layers , you will not be disappointed.

Paul