Alclad II paint

Glad to hear it Bob. I should mention one or two more things, first experiment on old parts first with the primers and Alclad, Alclad is pretty easy to spray but I found with my Iwata HP-M2 I was constantly getting dry tip no matter what I did, the HP.Cplus worked fine.

Again I emphasize if you use there grey primer make sure you get a perfect finish, it will look like semi gloss when dry. I found a good almost to wet coat gives best results. I liked my old A470 Aztek with the grey tip (.040) in single action mode for primer,

Look forward to seeing your photo's.

Cheers Bob and good luck in retirement.

Thanks, Mick.  I really liked your pictures, they helped a lot.  I am still tidying up the details and haven't started on the metal paint job yet, but it will be coming soon and I'll post photos.  I think I need to retire to devote enough time to my hobbies!

cheers, Bob

I just started using Alclad for a P51 but decided to experiment with various primers to see what would happen. The Alclad site says other model enamels our compatible so I tried Humbrol gloss black under polished aluminium and Chrome and it worked great, I also used the grey primer under aluminium (ALC-101) and it works fine BUT make sure the primer is perfectly smooth and I mean perfect, there site also says it recommends polishing there grey primer with 1200 or finer micromesh or wet and dry and I can see why, I had the smallest amount of over spray that I didn't even notice and it showed up like the proverbial 3rd you know what on a greyhound. The best and most forgiving primer I found that worked fantastically well was Humbrol clear, I think its Humbrols version of Future but I have never used future so I can' say for sure. Humbrol clear also self levels very well, even if you use a brush you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between hand or airbrush. Alclad primer also made details like rivets, lines etc stand out noticeably more than Clear,  I assume because its a micro filler as well.

I put some photo's of these tests on my page if anyone is interested in having a look.

snibs.net/Metalizerpage.html

Cheers from Mick.

I use exactly the procedure and the materials you mention for Alclad.  Works fine. An advanced variation  to create some different shaded panels is to do some of the panels in a gloss medium gray instead of the black.

Nathan T

You also need gloss black for Airframe Aluminum. No need to seal the alclad before masking over it. I would mask what you can first off, then spray the alclad.

You also need gloss black for Airframe Aluminum. No need to seal the alclad before masking over it. I would mask what you can first off, then spray the alclad.

Yes, this would work but the gloss black step is unnecessary.  You only need the gloss black undercoat if you are going to use Alclad's high shine colors like Polished Aluminum, Chrome, etc.  If you're going to use the regular Alclad II Aluminum then a smooth surface is all you need.

You can mask the regular Alclad II colors with no problem.  The high shine colors need to be sealed, though.