Tamyia paint mixing help.

Space Ranger

 

 

oldermodelguy

Lacquer over lacquer should be fine. Assuming Tamiya wants the clear orange over the gun metal color. It's funny they call for X series paint. Tamiya clear orange lacquer is LP 53, I believe.

 

 

 

Lacquer over lacquer is NOT fine! Lacquer will dissolve any underlying lacquer; that's one of the basic characteristics of lacquer. If you're going to apply anything over a lacquer such as a clear coat make sure it's enamel or water-based!

 

LP, as lacquers goes, is not a hot lacquer. In fact , it's quite mild. There are reports in another forum , of it having been applied over fairly fresh enamel. And in the hot lacquer world that would be disasterous to the finish. In 1/1 I've even seen hot lacquer wrinkle aged enamel finishes. In fact you could pretty well count on at least a section here and there wrinkling. Also sand scratch swell to occur.

I would advise not flooding the second color application on, but I'd advise that anyway. And the first color should be well dried.

Space Ranger

Lacquer over lacquer is NOT fine! Lacquer will dissolve any underlying lacquer; that's one of the basic characteristics of lacquer. If you're going to apply anything over a lacquer such as a clear coat make sure it's enamel or water-based!

That's strange, because I have been using lacquers over lacquers for years and never had issues...and I rarely use enamel or water-based clearcoats...only lacquer clearcoats.  If the paint is being airbrushed, and not flooded on, it isn't a problem.  In that case, you can put any paint over any paint, as long as what's underneath has cured properly.  If you're not flooding the paint on, the solvents in that paint don't remain active long enough to attack what's underneath.  Now, brush painting is a different story.  Let's try to take the time to understand what is being discussed before yelling at people and "correcting" them.  

oldermodelguy

Lacquer over lacquer should be fine. Assuming Tamiya wants the clear orange over the gun metal color. It's funny they call for X series paint. Tamiya clear orange lacquer is LP 53, I believe.

Lacquer over lacquer is NOT fine! Lacquer will dissolve any underlying lacquer; that's one of the basic characteristics of lacquer. If you're going to apply anything over a lacquer such as a clear coat make sure it's enamel or water-based!

Thanks for clarifying the X paint over the LP is in the instructions. In thinking over my application, My finish that cracked was three layers with X as the base coat, then LP and finally X on top. Just fwiw.

If Tamiya is saying to put the X clear orange over LP, maybe just keep the X put down in light coats and leave it at that. Make sure the LP is well dried before hitting it with the X. Do a scrap test piece on a piece of plastic from the kit first. If Tamiya is saying to do this, it will probably be fine.

The tricky part to paint on my kit was the black lacquer fenders and those came out gorgeous in the LP black. The easier parts to paint is what I stripped, and those are all primed ready to go. But I'm using Testors enamel because it was a super easy color to mix in that medium, and I mixed up plenty of it so I won't have tonal issues. It will be enamel, enamel, enamel this time, all compatible in whatever order lol. Drying time is long with enamel but I push that in a heated drying box/dehydrator to a single day.

Sullack

Thank you oldermodelguy. That is a concern with the cracks I'll to a test piece and leave for a while. Can I ask have you had any experience with lacquer over lacquer by chance ? 

Kind regards David 

 

Lacquer over lacquer should be fine. Assuming Tamiya wants the clear orange over the gun metal color. It's funny they call for X series paint. Tamiya clear orange lacquer is LP 53, I believe.

You maybe should email Tamiya to find out for sure what they are looking for and get this ironed out.

Hi!

      I have usually interpreted that as the left color over the right color. That has worked for me so far. That doesn't mean that's right. I might just belucky so far! T.B.

Thank you oldermodelguy. That is a concern with the cracks I'll to a test piece and leave for a while. Can I ask have you had any experience with lacquer over lacquer by chance ? 

Kind regards David 

Hi Eaglecash thank you for your reply I found a description in the manual in the end I completely overlooked it. Kind regards David 

Hi thank you for your reply it's the Tamiya Superleggera v4. I was just about to take a photo of the part in question when I found a description written above the stage that I overlooked. Said to base coat with LP-19 and then coat over with X-26. I see what you mean as just getting into modelling I went and brought all the paints in the manual and now the more I look around there really is a abundance of paint to choose from. Hopefully I can figure out something. Kind regards David 

Just spit-ballin' here. knowing neither the kit nor the part.

LP-19 is lacquer gunmetal.  LP-44 is lacquer metallic orange.  X-26 is clear orange.  

IMO (and you know what they say about opinions), you're looking at a part which is a burnt metal; a jet exhaust, auto header, or similar.   Also possibly an engine fitting.   Not brass, not bronze, but a dark metallic with a bit of a rust orange tinge.

What I dislike about Tamiya's paint callouts are they are in their own proprietary paints.  Thats understandable - its business.  If they said that it was burnt metal, maybe with their recipe, you could go to your favorite paint brand. lacquer, enamel, or acrylic and either find an out of the bottle solution or mix your own.  

Well, the second option does look to mean to put X clear color over the LP. But I'm not a fan of X acrylics used with LP lacquers. I'm not sure of my exact sequence in so doing but it looked great. Fortunately, I had not assembled everything, because in 6 months when I went back to this build, the finish had cracked right down to the plastic, all over the thing. It had to be stripped. The good news is a Mason jar with 91% isopropyl with the various parts placed in it, capped and shaken, then a final rub and rinse, took the paint off to the plastic in about 10 minutes. Very easy to strip.

So my thing going forward is to use either LP or X or enamel. But not one over the other.

What kit are you working on?  Somebody might be able to interpolate what it means if they know what kit it is and what part the instructions are having you paint that color.  I have noticed in Tamiya and other kits that they have an occasional mis-print here and there for paint mixing instructions and sometimes you just end up having to take a stab at it and see if it looks right.