Need your advice on which Alclad to use

Hi, Eric - I am rather new to Alclad myself, so with only three builds finished with it so far I'll lend my limited experience. I replicate military aluminum finish in service, well maintained but not polished. Personally, I didn't care as much for the gloss black primer coat as I do the Alclad gray primer, that seems more in line with what I try to get when the NMF is applied. So far I prefer Aluminum 101, compared to the others.

I think Pawel is correct, when you have the NMF to your liking you have several clear coats available, to make the end result as you want it. And I think a clear coat for protection against handling is needed, as well as for sealing decals. For me, Alclad has been easy to get familiar with and user friendly, but a SMOOTH primer finish is a definite must. Best of luck with it.

Patrick  

Duraluminum is nice and doesn't require a gloss black base. Its not too shiny and not overly dull. A gloss black base would act as preshading though, if you skip around some panel lines with the airbrush.

Hello!

While I don't have so much experience with alclad paints, I'd recomment going for the glossiest thing there is, and should it ever get too bright for you, you can always overcoat it with different clear coats to tone it down as you please - you always need a clear coat on your alclad to prevent it from deteriorating - and it wears down every time the model is handled, and so on.

Hope it helps, good luck with your project, and have a nice day

Paweł

Hi Eric,

Since you want a shiny but not brilliant finish my advice is use either polished aluminum (less shiny ) or airframe alum ( more shiny but not chrome looking ). over a gloss black undercoat.  Spend some time on the undercoat cuz the better that is ,the better your finish will look.  Sand/polish all the boogers and orange peel etc. with 2000 to 6000 grit wet paper.

i1371.photobucket.com/.../DSC00046_zps598418aa.jpg  My P-47 WIP in Polished Alum.  before weathering.