Nail polish paint job

We have a short article about the from an old contributor, looking for in our archive he also built successfully several good models.

http://www.modelersite.com/Jun2002/English/Healthy_models_Eng.htm

The manufacturers of the nail polish have their own thinner. I would use the company brand thinner. As mentioned above the plastic has to be protected with some form of barrior to prevent the nail enamel, or lacquer, from "crazing" (a kind of wrinkle finish) the plastic. Note that any, repeart ANY, exposed plastice will be subject to crazing. Again, as stated above experiment. Try a lacquer based automotive primer applied in thin coats to protect the plastic. Be careful sanding the primer because if you break through the primer the exposed plastic may get crazed when the color coat is applied. It is also a good idea to apply the color coats in thin coats and let the coats get nearly dry between coats. If you have a friend or spouse that gets her nails sprayed by a nail salon you may want to go with her once and discuss thinning and spraying techniques with the nail person. I know it is a little wierd, but in the interest of the hobby why not! My 59 Caddy convertable was done in Revlon Hot Pink. The nail polish paint gives a us a wide variety of wild colors and that custom hot rod look.

I have not seen the House of Color paint colors for models yet but I hear they are spectacular. I also have heard that the House of Color paints are expensive. This would not surprise me because some of their real automotive colors are $5000 and up per gallon.

I use lacquer thinner. Medium temp usually. Some people use the cheap stuff you can get at a hardware or WalMart. I believe a good quality thinner makes a difference. If you happen to have Gunze's Mr Color, that works very well too. It's a lacquer so you'll need a decent primer. PlastiKote is what I normally use. DupliColor should be fine too. I normally thin 1:1 and then adjust for conditions. By my regulator I usually shoot at 20psi.

Some nail polish covers pretty well  and others are very translucent. As long as it isn't the tiny bottles, I believe they're 1/3 oz, I usually get by on one bottle. Pick up a couple just for good measure. With nail polish I normally shoot a basecoat. Think of it as a candy. I use white a lot, sometimes gold, silver or black. If you would rather not then I'd suggest using either a white or black primer depending on what color nail polish you use and the look you're after. Shooting over grey primer will change the color unless you shoot a lot more coats of nail polish.

Even the cheap brands of nail polish work fine. You can find some nice colors but yellows and greens are limited. There's even color changing/shifting nail polishes. If you want that 60s custom look some brands have decent flake. And, don't be embarrassed to buy it.

Out of time for now but tonite I'll post pics of a few builds I've used nail polish on.

Tony

  thanks for all the tips guys. here's a pic of a cobra in the color i'm looking to use, which i'll be using on a cobra. my wife got her nails done a few months back with an almost identical color, which is where i first thought of using nail polish

the paint job will be almost identical to this, only it'll have anthricite gray metallic stripes instead of silver

Oh and one more thing you need to do take your wife with you to the nail shop (Don't go by your self) Man the ladys will bug you some thing ruff. or my be that just me? LOL good luck I tryed to mix Lacquer Thinner with some and it did not mix well for me. but any way here's the car I messed up on.

I know that it looks bad but now I know where I went rong, you have to watch how much thinner you put in the nail polish and it will help if you clean out you air brush realy well. (I just got a new AB) as my old one is over 14 years old.

Here's some cars I painted with nail polish...

Tony

I don't have a real lot of experience using nail polish but would like to add my 2 cents anyway.

I realize a lot of folks use lacquer thinner as a thining agent for many types of paint without ill effects. But I would like to emphasize the importance that you "could" end up ruining a nice project if for some reason a batch of enamel nail polish didn't mix very well with the lacquer thinner.

Try to determine if the nail polish is enamel or lacquer. Usually I found that if it's enamel, it will say so on the bottle. Don't assume that the last bottle of Revelon you used was enamel so the new one must be, Revelon makes both.

It's really best if you thin enamel with mineral spirits and lacquer with lacquer reducer.

Same for priming the plastic, enamel primer for enamel top coat and lacquer primer for lacquer top coat.

I have seen very expensive automotive paint jobs ruined because the above rules or steps were not followed. I don't take any chances with 1:1 car paint jobs and I don't with my smaller scaled projects.

Better safe than sorry.

Wing man you work is awsome!!!!! I like the Saleen and the bug the most. He's right abotu the mixing of the paint thinner. But one thain I find that the NP that said Enamel (Like) some time will not thin with enamal thinner so I tryed Lacquer. As you saw it did not work well. but I will go back and try mineral spirits on the next NP project. Thank's

Vince

rangerj wrote:

I have not seen the House of Color paint colors for models yet but I hear they are spectacular. I also have heard that the House of Color paints are expensive. This would not surprise me because some of their real automotive colors are $5000 and up per gallon.

I just picked up a bunch of the 1 oz. bottles on clearance at Walmart. I played with one of the colors called "Caribben Surf" and it looks amazing. It is a flipflop or chameleon paint that is red but then turns green. I painted on of my kid's hot wheels cars. Used a brush so I can't tell you yet how it goes through my sprayer...They list around $4-5 a bottle. Got a bunch for $1. I can't wait to shoot it on this '65 Chevelle SS I picked up also on clearance for $5.

I remember swiping my mom's fingernail polish and painting up our hotwheels when I was a kid!! Those cars by Wingman are outrageous!! Great stuff!!