BRUSHED Bare Metal

If you can spray with a rattle can, you can use a single action airbrush.

You might consider applying your favorite brush on paint, then use some of Hawkeye's Polishing Powders to give the surface a greater luster and sheen.

The trick with getting any sort of a good looking finish with a brush is to get the paint to go on as evenly as possible. It may require wet sanding and more than one coat but it can be done.

Once saw a lady paint a used car with a brush. After she got done wet sanding and rubbing it out it was spectacular looking! So it can be done, even on a model.

A big problem with airbrushing is that many folks set up the airbrush and immediately use it on a good kit.  The results are not that great, and that is quite discouraging.  Airbrushing takes a LOT of practice compared to most tools.

What you need to do if you still have your airbrush is try it on scrap material or really bad kits and not worry about the early results. You just need to practice till you get the feel.  You need to do at least an hour's worth of practice (that is a lot of spraying) before you tackle a good kit.

Also, were you using propellant cans?  You can't get good results with them.  The pressure constantly changes.  You can buy a small compressor at a hardware store for about seventy bucks or less.  Set it for about twenty pounds of pressure, and practice, practice, ....  Once you get the hang of it you can get wonderful metal finishes with stuff like Alclad.

i tried with my dads airbrush on an old typhoon kit that im not really planning on finishing. i use a compressor that he built but i dont know how even the airflow was or how powerful (no regulator and no pressure gauge and leaked like a seive) but i didnt really enjoy any part of it. and modeling for me is about enjoyment. i enjoy brush painting, so id prefer to stick with it. if i have to go to spray. i will, but im resisting for as long as possible.

Here is an article on bare metal finish without an airbrush.

Don

Legend mate, just what i wanted.

Scorpiomikey

Legend mate, just what i wanted.

No worries, mate.

Don

Scorpiomikey

i tried with my dads airbrush on an old typhoon kit that im not really planning on finishing. i use a compressor that he built but i dont know how even the airflow was or how powerful (no regulator and no pressure gauge and leaked like a seive) but i didnt really enjoy any part of it. and modeling for me is about enjoyment. i enjoy brush painting, so id prefer to stick with it. if i have to go to spray. i will, but im resisting for as long as possible.

No regulator, no pressure gauge is sort of like learning to drive a car that has four flat tires. I think once you have the airbrush, hose, compressor an necessary accessories set up properly you'll find yourself wondering "why the heck I didn't try this sooner!"

Scorpiomikey

Hey guys, ive been hunting around and alot of you recomend Alclad or metalizers and to spray them, what if i wanted to hand brush a natural metal finish? I dont do the airbrush thing, i just cant get the hang of it, but i want my thunderbolt to look really good. Are there any tutorials or anything out there? (and yes i have done a search about this but everyone says spray)

What about the Tamiya or Testors MM spray can? Yes, they are not as good as the Alclad-II or the Acrylic Talon. But the finish looks nice and all it need is another protective coat from a spray can. I have several airbrushes and still keep a few of those cans around. No cleaning afterward and is just very convinient.

There is a post on the same topic at ARC Forum. One guy said that he got good result using acrylic craft paint for hand painting metallic finish, specifically, Folk Art #662 - Metallic Silver Sterling

Scorpiomikey

i tried with my dads airbrush on an old typhoon kit that im not really planning on finishing. i use a compressor that he built but i dont know how even the airflow was or how powerful (no regulator and no pressure gauge and leaked like a seive) but i didnt really enjoy any part of it. and modeling for me is about enjoyment. i enjoy brush painting, so id prefer to stick with it. if i have to go to spray. i will, but im resisting for as long as possible.

I absolutely agree with you on the enjoyment part. You need the right equipments to enjoy airbrushing though. When your budget allows, take another look at it with the right kind of airbrush equipments. For the mean time, there are many airbrush modeling clips on YouTube that may change your mind. Here is one good example.