paint still sticky

It is true that enamels are softer than lacquers, so it was hard to polish them (or, as we used to say when painting cars, to "rub out" the finish).  On the other hand, because of the slow drying time, enamels "self-level" more than faster drying paints and hence tend to be more glossy.  For the best polish finish, it is hard to beat lacquers that dry with an extremely hard surface and polish very nicely, even with fairly coarse polishes.

Why, I've heard that a trained monkey could be a painter! Loll!

Silver

Oil base enamels never dry .

   Not so in my considerable experience as a commercial/residential painter for many years.

Gary

Weather does have an effect on enamel drying.

I'm not sure what the deal is with enamels. Sometimes they dry overnight and other times over a week later they still have a slight tackiness to them. At times I may spray several colors on the same day and all but one dries overnight! Red usually takes days to dry for me. However, my most recent use of red saw it dry overnight, it was the exact same can that I had use before. I've thought maybe it had to do with how well I did or didn't shake the can prior to using.

I find that enamels take far longer to dry if they are not stirred thoroughly first. If they are hand brushed or airbrushed, proper stirring is a must. Shaking the bottle, jar, or tin does not insure proper mixing. nor does adding a bb or other small item in the paint container to assist mixing during shaking. Yes gloss paints take longer to dry. But in my experience Testors gloss paints never take more than an hour or so to be dry to the touch. The only enamel paints that I have come across with extended drying times is Xtracolour. They will remain tacky to the touch for up to a day or so. I do probably 2/3 or more of my work in enamels.

I've basically tested both Acrylic and Enamel paints... (I have two hind models, one I used the Enamel and the other with Acrylic gloss light blue and the drying times between both are significantly different from one another.

Cpt-Shmitt

I'm guessing gloss acrylic takes more time to dry than... Let's say flat black

Not in my experience Cpt-Shmitt. Many complain about acrylics drying too fast; in fact 'tip dry' is a very common complaint when ABing acrylics (i.e.  tiny drop of paint drys at the nozzle while spraying'. One of the slower to dry acrylics is Future used as a gloss clear coat and I find that a hair dryer can hasten that by a lot. In any event I find I dying times of acrylics from minutes to at most an hour - NOT days which has been my experience with enamels - I guess I've just not mastered enamels though others have.

A lot of factors can be the cause. Paint sprayed on too thick, weather, paint not thinned enough, bad paint, etc... The better question would be did you spray in several light coats and not let it dry in between?

I have used enamel spray paint and almost never have problems with them drying. Of course, in my younger years I spray painted (using rattle can type) in my parents' attic in the summer time, when it's God awful hot up there. From my experience, the paint typically dry pretty quick IMO.

I'm guessing gloss acrylic takes more time to dry than... Let's say flat black

Enamels can take a long time to 'dry' and that is one of the reasons I don't use them often. You might try acrylic paints instead. They dry quickly, come in many colors and AB nicely. Personally, I think using an AB is better than brush painting and I haven't brush painted anything but small details for years (I wasn't very good at brush painting - still not).

Would it be easier to use a brush instead of airbrush? What would be the best for regular paint as apposed to the airbrush?

That is normal drying time for enamels.  It depends a lot on the environmental conditions and how thick of a coat you put on.  Airbrushed coats dry faster than brush painted ones, but still take a long time.  Flats dry in several hours to a day, gloss takes several days.

There have been several threads here on paint drying boxes- take a look at the thread(s).

One way to speed things up is to use flats, then gloss coat the final finish for decals, then apply a final flat clearcoat.  Not a good way if your final objective is a gloss finish, as on cars or airliners, but it works fine for military aircraft and armor.