Alclad polishing?

John P · Post by **John P** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:14 am

What can I use that's just around-the-house to polish my first-ever Alclad finish? Facial tissues? Eyeglass lens cloth? The dog?

Joseph Osborn · Post by **Joseph Osborn** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:56 am

Cotton T-shirt, used dryer sheet, flannel cloth...

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Wed May 21, 2014 1:20 pm

I use 100% cotton tee-shirt material.

i.e. what ever I have on.

John P · Post by **John P** » Wed May 21, 2014 4:41 pm

John P · Post by **John P** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:08 pm

Okay, I don't get it. I'm rubbing like crazy and there's no difference.

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:13 pm

Are you trying to polish the gloss black or the metal shiney stuff? 'Cause usually I only need to polish the metal if I've gotten a little far away and dusted the surface.

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:14 pm

And it's not like Testor's Metalizers. What you get is what you get.

John P · Post by **John P** » Wed May 21, 2014 9:21 pm

I thought you were supposed to do light dust coats and polish that.

The parts where I pout it on thick don't look any shinier, either.

Saturn · Post by **Saturn** » Thu May 22, 2014 9:30 am

What Kywell said. Alclad's not paint you can polish/buff like Testors Buffing Metalizer or SNJ Spray Metal. The metallic pigment in Alclad is ground so fine that polishing won't get you anywhere.

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Thu May 22, 2014 12:08 pm

Polishing the surface before paint is the trick.

The other one is figuring out the proper distance and fine light coats. The more you get the hang of Alclad the less you'll use in the long run. Back when I start I was spraying bottles of it @ a time, or so it seemed. Now a few passes and *bamf* it's done.

John P · Post by **John P** » Thu May 22, 2014 6:41 pm

Well. I was proceeding from a completely incorrect assumption. As usual.

John P · Post by **John P** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 8:49 pm

Aaaaand I give up.

Second attempt at a Luna.
Bought Alclad Chrome.
Bought Tamiya gloss black spray.
Got nice shiny black finish.
Airbrushed a couple of light coats of chrome. Looking good. Model is supported by a stick up its ass so I don't touch the finish.

At some point during the spraying of the 2nd or 3rd light coat of chrome, it becomes evident that the Alclad is not sticking to a large mass of finger prints that I somehow got on the model. Also on a couple of points of the wings.

Well. I let it dry overnight. Before trying to add more coats, I wipe down the model with a soft facial tissue - and it takes more chrome off and exposes more black fingerprints.

Obviously I was not meant to apply smooth glossy finishes on anything.

So.
SCREW THIS!!!!!!

Kylwell · Post by **Kylwell** » Thu Jun 19, 2014 9:37 pm

Fingerprints are an issue. I paint with nitril gloves to avoid this. You should be able to do all the spraying @ once. Alclad dries super quick, makes acrylics look like pikers.

It also why I've taken to using Alclad's gloss black, more resistant to fingerprints, and usually polish the black with Tamiya plastic polish before the Alclad.

Post by **TER-OR** » Wed Jun 25, 2014 8:39 pm

GLOVES! ALWAYS GLOVES!

(Caps intended) You would not believe (or maybe you would) how many models get bounced from awards by fingerprints.

TurkeyVolumeGuessingMan · Mon Nov 10, 2014 9:44 pm

I've been slowly working on a 1:35 scale 1970 Mitsubishi Galant by ARII as a side project for quite a while. I've used Alclad Chrome before on models, but this one has had the paint rub off on the bumpers twice now. The first time it came off a bit I just reshot it with chrome, but after resuming work on it again last night, the black was starting to show through again. Can I just wipe it down real well with a tissue and reshoot the chrome again? This is annoying because I will have to re-mask the area again. The bumpers come molded onto the car's body.

karim · Post by **karim** » Tue Nov 11, 2014 10:01 am

You definitely need to do all your work on the surface and the primer. You want the black primer coat to look like a mirror BEFORE you shoot the Alclad.

I had really good luck using the following process:

1. polish raw plastic surface to 800 grit.
2. shoot Mr. Surfacer 1000
3. polish from 1200–6000 grit
4. shoot Gloss Black Alclad primer
5. polish to from 8000–12,000 grit. If any surface imperfections repeat from step 3
6. shoot Alclad.