Yellow Paint Problems

Your not alone... all of my yellow and i mean all of them do that... I would like to know the secret to getting a nice coat of yellow as well.

Yellow is one of the hardest colors to get good coverage with along with white. The first thing to do would be to lay down a primer coat of white or light gray. This will lighten the background and reduce the number of coats that you will need to apply to get a nice, even color. As far as it pooling along the edges and raised detail, try and lightly sand the edges to try and knock down that little 'lip' that always occurs along the edges. Lightly scuff the rest of the parts as well with some 400 or 600 grit sandpaper, being very careful around any raised detail. Roughing up the surface, along with the primer coat, will help the paint to adhere better and level out which will help with the build-up along panel lines, details, etc. The only other thing is to put the paint on in light coats and slowly build up the layers gradually until you get the coverage you need. Wet sanding in between coats can help as well. Hope that helps you out.

Ray

I agree with heylonghair.. i think most of us prime the plastic before painted it yellow or white. A always paint the part off-white before i paint with yellow or white. Light coat is needed for the priming but make sure it covers all the painting surface evenly.

heylonghair is right on the money. Primer is a MUST for white and yellow, or any light color. No one seems to have formulated a white or yellow paint that covers easily without a lot of work. I dread using those colors, but with patience it can be done.

My Tamiya White works great... Its all my other yellows and whites that suck. Maybe I just got a lucky bottle of white.

Yellow is terrible to cover for anything, that goes for interior flat latex house paint, alkyd enamel, exterior house paint, or anything. It's too prismatic. It doesn't cover, no matter what you paint it on. Always plan on multiple coats and primers do help.

I've re-painted many things on customers requests. No matter how many times you warn them, they still don't like it when it's done

Sorry guys - No problems here! All I do is spray and hold the airbrush a little further away than usual, so the paint doesn't soak the part. And yes, several light coats, is the rule, but as the paint is "dryer" than usual when it hits, a few minutes it all it takes. Now using a paint brush is another story. There the trick, if there is one, and I'm not too sure there is, is one stroke, one coat. A second brush stroke will kill the finish.

We are assuming the part to be painted in CLEAN, meaning oild and dust free, AND the paint is well mixed right?

BTW - I generally prefer air brushing the tip stipes on Blue Angle A/C, rather than using the decals.

Archer out.

Archer out/

Just adding my bit. At work most of the stuff we spray is yellow and everything that is to be yellow is done white first. if we leave any of the green or red/brown primer showing through the white it is totaly obvious once the yellow is on. the thickness of paint that we use is 350 microns or more (about three times the thickness on your car) if it shows through that it'll show through on your kits. the only way to get an even coverage is to do three to four light coats and that should stop any pooling from occuring and give youenough depth of color. hope this helps...Greg

as a professional painter and decorator my answer to this problem is this ,get yourself a litre tin of undercoat and for awkward colours(ive found red a lot worse than yellow for coverage)thin it down for spraying and add a few drops of your colour to make a "tint" undercoat then just use full strength yellow (or whatever colour)this works on my jobs and my kits!

QUOTE: Originally posted by almonkey as a professional painter and decorator my answer to this problem is this ,get yourself a litre tin of undercoat and for awkward colours(ive found red a lot worse than yellow for coverage)thin it down for spraying and add a few drops of your colour to make a "tint" undercoat then just use full strength yellow (or whatever colour)this works on my jobs and my kits!

Do you mean just regular ole' interior latex primer? Do you use the acrylic or oil (enamel?) based stuff? Could you use an aerosol can primer instead?

Ray

I've found that if you stay away from gloss white, yellow or red and use a flat instead, you'll have much better luck with coverage. You can then gloss up the paint with Future.
I once tried to paint the underside of a B-52D with gloss white. After about 10 coats I had build-up along the edges, runs on the side and still didn't have proper coverage. Stipped it all off and tried flat white. Only took 3 coats to do the job.

yeah,regular household undercoat/primer which can be water based or oilbased,the problem with aerosol is how do you mix it. this method gives you an undercoat almost the same as your finish colour, but should act as a primer/undercoat. in the 80,s we painted pub doors in a burgundy colour which was a nightmare to find undercoat for mixing the actual gloss finish coat with red undercoat was the only way we got them to cover,years later while trying to paint a fokker triplane with humbrol 19 red (the absolute bitch of bad covering paint, worse than that burgundy) this was the way i did it.on the other hand using matt colours then a gloss varnish is some thing i wondered about, im not surprised it worked.

I hate Testors yellow paint. I was working on a GHQ crane kit. I was lucky to strip the paint and start all over again.

i'm glad to know i'm not the only one having problems with freakin yellow...i always use a primer...but I'm going to try almonkey's tinted primer trick next...thanks for the tip!