I think it's on its deathbed. 

Does anyone know a good doctor?

Remember the Claude (and the zero ... ), don't give up!!

Blitzwing

I'm not sure if I'm a bit premature but does Tamiya X22 acrylic clear go cloudy as it dries? First time I' ve used the stuff and it has gone cloudy in patches.

Different product, but I had something similar happen on my Zero with MM acrylic clear flat. Cloudy, whitish patches on the decals. I poked around on the Web and found similar accounts. I sprayed it with a couple of light coats of Testor's rattle-can Dullcote and most of the cloudiness cleared right up.

I know one of the Tamiya flats is supposed to mixed with gloss paint to make it flat and not applied directly, I'm not sure what number is it is though. You might give SFs idea a try, I've heard other people have luck with that too.

x22 clear should not get cloudy, sounds like it may not have mixed well enough? X21 is the flat base that's meant to be mixed with other paint. 

Thanks Waikong, I wasn't sure which was the flat base and which isn't.

Thanks for the help guys, I looked on the web and seems to be a regular occurrence for some reason. Interestingly enough the fogginess clears up when I moisten it so hopefully it will clear up when I put another coat of clear over it. I'll proceed with the decals with fingers crossed.

Scientifically I have no idea how it works but as I was decalling, I used some Mr Mark Softer as usual and found that some of the fogginess had cleared where I brushed on too much. So I brushed Mr Mark Softer on the other affected areas and voila. 

I am over the moon. Now when I seal the decals should I tempt fate and try Tamiya clear again?

LOL

BW: whew! Glad to see your problems (literally) cleared up so well. Maybe you could go with a light spray of the clear and not too thick?

Funny, most of what I do at work is chemistry but honest working with paint is like voodoo to me. Sprayed some enamel on the zero last week that formerly had worked well and here a week later the enamel is still tacky.  

.. the curse of the "japanese GB"!!

There just isn't a perfect paint  is there? I've had that tacky problems sometimes with enamels as well, mainly with older jars although those were in my brush painting days. I haven't airbrushed with enamels yet, I'm reasonably happy with acrylics so far.

Blitzwing

There just isn't a perfect paint  is there? I've had that tacky problems sometimes with enamels as well, mainly with older jars although those were in my brush painting days. I haven't airbrushed with enamels yet, I'm reasonably happy with acrylics so far.

Yeah, I've had much better luck with acrylics. I hate enamels and don't use them unless I can't find the colour I need in acrylic. Generally I've had good luck with Model Master and Tamiya. My favorite Polly Scale I don't think is even made any more. I've heard enough good news about Gunze I may have to pick up some but the local hobby shop doesn't stock it so that I'd have to order.

Gamera

 

Blitzwing:

 

There just isn't a perfect paint  is there? I've had that tacky problems sometimes with enamels as well, mainly with older jars although those were in my brush painting days. I haven't airbrushed with enamels yet, I'm reasonably happy with acrylics so far.

 

 

Yeah, I've had much better luck with acrylics. I hate enamels and don't use them unless I can't find the colour I need in acrylic. Generally I've had good luck with Model Master and Tamiya. My favorite Polly Scale I don't think is even made any more. I've heard enough good news about Gunze I may have to pick up some but the local hobby shop doesn't stock it so that I'd have to order.

Yeah, perfect paint doesn't exist. And depending on application sometimes you HAVE to use a certain kind. With the N1K1, I had to use Tamiya over the chipping fluid. With the PV-1, I had to use enamels for salt fading because the salt stains Tamiya paint. Go figure.

Honestly, I hate the stuff, but my favorite all-around paint is Model Master enamel. It brushes well enough. Sprays well enough. In the blast furnace of summer, I can still shoot it without constantly worrying about dusting. But cleaning out the airbrush is the suck. And it can't do the super-thinning I really like to do. Adding some good lacquer thinner to the mix helps, but still.

Vallejo - great for brush painting and big coats. I've never been able to get a tight, fine spray out of it, though. 

Tamiya - love the stuff, especially with lacquer thinner, but the dusting problems are just ridiculous for me in the summer months. 

Gunze - LOVE LOVE LOVE Gunze. Really. Very similar properties to Tamiya, but doesn't seem to suffer the same tip dry/dusting issues. But I hate having to order blind.

Thanks Doogs!

My hobby shop stocks Model Master and sporadically gets in a shipment of Tamiya. When I start something I normally just grab a kit out of my stash and instead of paying S&H and waiting for a couple of bottles of paint I'll just use what the LHS has.

I've used Vallejo for years painting figures, it's so heavy in pigment I swear by the stuff, haven't tried it in the airbrush though but I'm thinking of giving it a try.

And yeah, everybody seems to love Gunze! Tried it a few times and it seemed to be yeah much like Tamiya. Since they're a Japanese company they do make Japanese colours unlike some companies out there.

Funny, it's the MM enamel that I used that's still tacky, I brushed some acrylic gloss over it so crossing my fingers it will be ok.

My biggest gripe here is that Mitsubishi, Nakajima, Kawanishi, etc used different shades for their IJN green and grey. The same with IJA aircraft. The only company I've seen that made a line for each is White Ensign, which is both enamel and in the UK and I don't think they have a US/Canada distributer so it's a bit of a bother to order from them. I've seen Tamiya has come out with a few new paints to be closer to the different shades now but haven't had a chance to try them. I might just have to put together a big order to White Ensign to save the S&H charges.

Mid-Tenn Hobbies stocks White Ensign. To be honest, though, while I love the color fidelity of their stuff, I'm not a big fan of the way it handles or the drying time, which makes MM enamels look like Tamiya by comparison.

Used White Ensign about a year and a half ago when I built Eduard's Yak-3 and Zvezda's La-5, and had all kinds of problems with the paint falling out of suspension, with silly putty and white tack literally staining the paint, and so on. 

Late last year I gave it another shot - 4BO Green on a T-34/85.

This time I thinned it with lacquer thinner, which did a much better job in terms of mixing, performance and drying. But it still doesn't reduce very well beyond maybe 2:1 thinner/paint. so a lot of the shading work I like to do is a lot harder to pull off.

Might be worth picking up a bottle or two to try out, but I'd be hesitant about putting too much stock into it.

Interesting Doogs. The few times I've used the White Ensign it seemed to work ok. I've found it gloopy and thick in the tin making it harder to mix and having a really long drying time I'm much more likely to end up with dust and a couple of fingerprints in the model. I like acrylics since generally I can put down several quick coats without much drying time in the middle.

Oddly, I've been using the White Ensign more as reference colour chips to match other paints against. I may just order a few bottles of Gunze and then see which WE paints they match best.

And thanks for telling me about Mid-Tenn hobby, if I should order any more I'll give 'em a try.   

I use WEM for color-matching too!

If you get any Gunze, for love of god get their Olive Drab. Best OD I've ever used...

I gotta agree that Gunze is definately the paint I find that gives the best results and have had some success with brush painting. Tamiya sprays well too but it seems to randomly decide when to hit that "sweet spot" while spraying to give the best results. 

I've found Lifecolour to be quite good too and for some reason the online shop I purchase from sells them at the same price as Tamiya and Gunze paints even though the Lifecolour pot is larger. 

Almost done decalling my Frank and one aspect that I have found quite refreshing on an airplane is the almost complete lack of data stencils. I find individual link tracks less frustrating than decalling data stencils. 

Ya know it's funny how fate operates sometimes..... Our club had a swap meet last night and one of the guys brought by several boxes of models and a big box of paint the wife of a deceased member of our club was trying to clean out. I ended up buying about a dozen bottles of Gunze that look like they've hardly been used for a quarter a bottle. I feel bad for Tommy Carr, who passed away with all this stuff unbuilt but hopefully I can honour his memory by putting it to good use.

BW: Looking forward to the photos, not a big fan of stencils myself.

Bsyamato: New guy came by the club and is thinking about joining. He moved to the US from Italy!

Heading into the final straight now with just the two wing guns and a couple of small clear pieces to go on after a matt coat. 

Great job Blitzwing- moving into the home stretch now, the chipping looks even better to me from the front.

And this is the final result.

Strangely, it still fogs up occasionally even though it has a second coat of clear and matt over the first coat so go figure? Mr Surfacer still works so not too hard to clear it up whenever it fogs up. 

Sorry i havent been able to post recently still flowing but took half an hour tobay durring the typhoon and finished the Yamato the complete photos will follow.

Blitzwing: She looks great! Love the yellow drop-tanks, the white spinner, and the tail pattern. Hopefully the fogging will finally clear up as the paint goes 100% completly dry. I should be able to get your photo posted to the roster tonight. I'm assuming the first photo is ok by you?

Frightful: Sounds nasty, I hope you and your family are safe. Love to see photos when things calm down. 

Blitzwing, thats really nice work. i cant tell you had any issues what so ever

Great finish Blitzwing  it looks great at the end

Bad things to hear Frightful6_7 hope all goes right there

Very nice work, the chipping is just perfect and adds to the realism. I really love the cockpit too, great work there. Many kudos

Oh everything is fine our house is from world war 2 when they built the stuff as bunkers so no harm.  The last one came in right over us, last august, and knocked a tree over in to our neighbors and barely dented the roofing lol.

Blitzwing: Ok got your photo up on the roster - right at the top! If you'd like me to change anything let me know. Again- beautiful model, the chipping is superb!

And we've still got two weeks to go if you want to do a second model

Frightful: Good to hear, sounded pretty rough, glad to hear everything and everyone is fine.