Pc Polycarbonate Brush-on Bottle Paints For Frog

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Well my PC1 White and PC5 Black turned up from the Channel Islands and I did some tests. Good news and bad.

First the good news. The PC1 White is excellent, takes quite a while to dry, albeit slightly tricky to apply, but the surface equalises and there is no tonal variation. Coverage is solid and NO brush marks. I am well impressed with this one and the pink one.

The bad news is the PC5 Black which I wanted to start the painting of the Frog with. Basically it dries way too fast, is very tricky to apply because you can't really tell when you haven't put enough on, and as a result coverage is patchy. However it doesn't seem to show brush marks, at least on the gloss side.

Basically it would appear to be quite simple, the Silver and Black and Blue are in dire need of an Acrylic Retarder to stop the drying process happening so fast. More thinner would just affect coverage so I need a retarder not a thinner I feel.

Does anyone know of a compatible brand of Acrylic retarder for these Tamiya PC paints?

I will be going to the art shop on Monday and buying a few brands of Acrylic retarder (I'm nearly pennyless ATM so it'll be tricky LOL). I am determined to get the black to dry slower and for the surface to equalise and make a nice job of it just like the pink and the white. Wish me luck LOL.

Pic's below show the white and black from the painted side of the Lexan, under Tungsten light, then with the flash. The colors used left to right are white (sorry about the finger mark I put on it LOL) then black, silver, and blue.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

These pic's show how much the coverage varies in them.

Cheers,

ARG.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Now for what the gloss side of the Polycarbonate looks like. The pink and white are most satisfactory.

Tunsten light first, then flash.

Cheers,

ARG

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Found a compatible brand of Acrylic Retarder for Tamiya Acrylic paints (and probably therefore for these PC paints which seem to be Acrylic in nature) ;-

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/...ad.php?t=120387

...I'll see if the art shop has some tomorrow. Why do I get the feeling it's going to be an ebay job? LOL.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Well I'll be darned, it seems that Glycerin is a natural retarder, I'll test with some when I get a minute.

http://cs.finescale.com/forums/1035903/PrintPost.aspx

Cheers,

ARG

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Holy Cow!!! That fixed the problem with the PC5 black and the uneven finish

2 drops of Glycerin plus 5 drops of thinner, per 10 drops of paint, (roughly!) made one heck of a difference. Now it takes ages to dry and self levels perfectly.

Thoroughly recommended.

This is what it looks like whilst drying, first under energy saver kitchen light, then with flash. Painted side of course LOL. Compare with the above and the difference is frankly rediculous. Why on earth don't Tamiya notice these things? How anyone can be expected to paint with the **** that is stock PC5 I don't know.

I wonder how it looks when dry. I'll know in 1/2 hour LOL. Pic's to come.

BTW if it isn't already obvious LOL the modified black on left, stock black on right!

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Just had a look at the underside and the results are fabulous. Coverage solid even looking through at the kitchen room light, glossy finish, no brush marks. Problem solved methinks.

Cheers,

ARG

[Live Steam Mad 18]

WOW warning - 2 drops was way overkill on the Glycerin . The black didn't dry even after like 4 or more hours !!

However I then tested the silver and the blue with the Glycerin as the retarder. Bit less thinner as well, and only 1 drop of 'retarder'.

Results were great, much better on the drying time . Compared to the stock paint, the silver now has excellent coverage, much improved and much easier to apply now consistently. Same with the blue. The tonal variation with the blue also dissappeared which was nice to see . They both dried touch dry in about 45 minutes and were properly touch dry in about 3 hours so you could handle them by 'accident' without any fear of smearing.

On the glossy side of the lexan they look perfect now except for slight brush marks in the silver that can probably be removed altogether with an air gun application. That's the silver PC12 and blue PC4 fixed !

Now the only problem that remains seems to be the silver with slight brush marks in it. BTW I took Willy's advice and yes the silver was much improved after brushing the stock silver one way and then when dried the other way with another coat, but the modified ( acrylic retarded ) version only brushed one way was quite noticeably better.

Only the PC12 silver now shows any brush marks at all and it's almost acceptable to me but I think I would be applying the silver with an air gun just to be sure of getting no brush marks.

The PC1 white , PC11 pink , PC5 black , and PC4 blue now show no brush marks at all with my new modification.

Pic's to follow tomorrow.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Pic's of the modified silver . First tungsten light then flash. Painted side.

ARG.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Glossy side of lexan. Tungsten, then flash. Silver is better but still not perfect. Needs an air gun. Will have to try that some other time.

ARG.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Here's the modified blue in daylight. First the painted side ( PC4 blue on left, PC12 on right) then the glossy side. Sorry about the finger marks LOL. The blue is much improved, and very practical to use now. No color tone difference either!

Next will be to retest the black with 1 drop of Glycerin same as the silver and blue instead of 2 drops, I should get similar results (turns it from being a nightmare into being a practical paint that works well).

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Well I finally got hold of my Tamiya 87077 Lacquer Thinner ( yellow cap ) [ for paint stripping, this was before I found out recently about Fashine! http://www.tamiyaclub.com/forum/index.php?...st&p=343024 ] and my Tamiya Enamel paints and Enamel thinner for my Frog driver's helmet (bought 2 shades of green to try, yes I know the box art was red LOL), they have a very shiny finish, I used ToyEastUK on the bay. The price was right, and initially they said if you want Surface mail, use our ToyEast website but surface was 25 USD for just a 250ml bottle of thinners! So of course I used the bay and got it through the same people and instead it came to me in NW England , UK , within about a week via Airmail instead for a much cheaper price! The world is insane LOL.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Finally success with the PC5 black. This is because tonight I used 1 drop of glycerin instead of 2 drops which I used on my first " acrylic retarder " test where I was merely guessing. Now I use about a MINIMUM of 20 drops of paint and 1 drop ONLY of glycerin , plus about 7 drops of Tamiya Acrylic thinner is now my preferred mix. Check out the pic's. This is under Tungsten light first, then with a flash. Back side (painted side) of the polycarbonate . Note the relatively smooth surface (it looked way smoother when it was wet, and took about 35 minutes to dry. The brush marks where I was touching it up to get rid of bubbles make absolutely NO visible difference in the view from the other side, it looks perfect from the other side (see later pic's). Also included is a photo' of the coverage / transparency when held up to a desk light.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Here is the view of the glossy side of the lexan . First tungsten light, then flash. Looks essentially perfect. Paint dried so you can handle it without fear of smudging, I tested it. Thank goodness, problem solved. Now I can mask and paint the Frog rollcage...finally!

Cheers,

ARG.

[Cambodian Tire 0]

Hey steam nice tip about the plastic polish! Two questions; I don't understand why the outside of the lexan shell could ever look anything other than perfectly glossy? and 2. If if, especially on a small area, you get brush marks showing all you have to do is coat it enough times to make it opaque. An evenly translucent paint job is one's prerogative using spray cans but IMO I find it looks cheesy. I find that backing up light colours with silver or dark colours with black looks much better. IT makes the finished surface look more substantial and solid. In fact, just to be weird, I actually like white to be painted on thick (at least three coats) then backed with black. It becomes just a shade darker than the brightest white - much more like real automotive paint on metal -on 1;1's. Just my 2cents. BTW I always wanted a Frog and I'm totally envious!!

Take care ...Mark

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Hey steam nice tip about the plastic polish! Two questions; I don't understand why the outside of the lexan shell could ever look anything other than perfectly glossy? and 2. If if, especially on a small area, you get brush marks showing all you have to do is coat it enough times to make it opaque. An evenly translucent paint job is one's prerogative using spray cans but IMO I find it looks cheesy. I find that backing up light colours with silver or dark colours with black looks much better. IT makes the finished surface look more substantial and solid. In fact, just to be weird, I actually like white to be painted on thick (at least three coats) then backed with black. It becomes just a shade darker than the brightest white - much more like real automotive paint on metal -on 1;1's. Just my 2cents. BTW I always wanted a Frog and I'm totally envious!!

Take care ...Mark

What plastic polish?! My posts in this topic as far as I recall have nothing to do with polishing any plastic? Can you explain please?

As requested 2 answers, 1) yes of course the outside surface of the polycarbonate is completely unaffected by the paint and my posts do not concern the outside surface whatsoever, so of course it will always be glossy. I did not mention anything about the outside surface. I was referring to the paint finish visible looking through the glossy side. Without any modification, some of the PC paints as standard straight out of the bottle had several problems, such as coverage, brush marks, etc. which were plainly visible under domestic light when looking through the glossy side of the Polycarbonate. Hence the need to modify them to make them dry much slower to get rid of the brush marks and make them flow better and cover the surface etc. You can see the difference in the photo's.

2) You get brush marks in most of these paints even if you modify them to dry slower and flow better. When they are as used straight out of the bottle unmodified, these brush marks are visible and also result in patchy coverage in some of these paints , both effects being plainly visible even under modest domestic lighting. The glossy surface on the very outside of the lexan is irrelevant. Read the topic in full and look at all of the pictures and you will see what I mean. Unless you have ever used these exact paints then you may not be aware of what I mean.

Coating it over and over is a problem since the solvent in the next coat dissolves the paint in the 1st coat and you end up with a mess that still shows brush marks from the glossy side and still has patchy coverage. The problem is not that you have to add more coats. The problem is that the coats dry WAY too fast resulting in brush marks and patchy coverage. Again you'll see this if you refer to the relevant photo's.

Your suggestion of using spray cans to improve coverage would not help me. There are several problems with them (refer to my 1st post in this topic), including, a) you can't remove the paint if you get the slightest amount in an unwanted area (bleeding around masking) since there is no solvent for it that does not also damage the lexan and fog or dissolve or warp it, and I found personally that I could not apply the spray to the roll cage part of the Frog body (and thus the Fox etc as well) because the roll cage part contains round surfaces which are 50 or 60 degrees away from the spray flow so I found that the paint didn't stick properly and it looked very uneven. I did not encounter this problem with spraying my Top Force with PS paints as my TF did not contain surfaces that I had any difficulty with. To counter the problem with my Frog roll cage I sprayed on a lot more but that just made it run into a mess and ruined the job, which is why I embarked on the trial of seeing what these Polycarbonate brush on paints are like.

Some of these Tamiya brand brush on paints designed for lexan are perfect straight out of the bottle ( pink , white ), some are really bad IMHO ( black , blue , silver ) because they dry WAY too fast, creating brush marks and patchy coverage that are plainly visible from the gloss side under even domestic lighting, which I found to be completely unsatisfactory. Recoating only added to the messy finish for the reason that I mentioned above, and did not solve it for me.

After I had modified the paint with a retarder, the paint dried MUCH more slowly thus the surface got a chance to equalise in level and the patchy coverage and brush marks problems dissappeared and I got perfect results finally when looking from the glossy side.

If you ever get a Frog , then good luck with painting it. Some people have no problems with the sprays. I am not one of them. Some have replied to me with more or less the same findings as I found when trying to spray the Fox or Frog (both have roll cages in the shell ). In which case, I would recommend trying the PC5 black with ONLY a SINGLE drop of Acrylic retarder, and a few drops of Acrylic thinner, which seems to solve the problem since now you can brush or spray on with air gun, with no brush marks in either case, plus you can clean your air gun and get the paint off the shell easily with Tamiya Acrylic Thinner if mistakes are made, which is impossible with the PS sprays.

Regards,

Alistair G.

[Cambodian Tire 0]

ng

Where I had wiped hard with a cloth, almost nothing, but medium pressure with bog roll and there were deep scratches.

Days later I abraded the Polycarbonate with P400 Silicon Carbide used wet, then P600, then P800, then P1000, P1200, P1500, and P2000. Luckily I managed to remove the deep scratches completely it seems, and now only have a cloudy but quite see through window. I think that I can later on use Novus Plastic Polish no.2 or Turtle Wax Car Polish and it will probably go clear again once more, like it did on my F150 XLT window that I brought back from the dead i.e. where it was fogged up with superglue stains and scratches and I used P400 to P2000 and then Turtle Wax Car Polish and it came out perfectly clear, infact a bit too clear LOL so you couldn't hardly tell it had a window. Here's hoping I can fix the Frog body the same way. I can't apply the polish until after I have finished the paint job though, otherwise I might get polish on the body which the paint probably wouldn't stick to.

I Read the whole topic and it does seem quite troublesome, I really was just trying to help! I actually started my hobby with a Fox 24 years ago when I was just a kid and I painted the inside of that body with brush paints (which I still have - ratty though) I recently made a "all new Fox from Ebay over a couple of years and I had painted quite a few of those shells as my Fox "evolved", One paint job I decently reproduced was a copy of Phill Sroka's red and gold airbrush job in Radio Control Car Action Fall 1986 (still have that one too) It's the mag w. Chris Chianelli and the Black Foot on the cover. I don't know if you have access to Parma's line of Pactra Paint but I find them far superior in every way to Tamiya's. Adhesion, coverage...etc.

I have come across second coats "melting, if you will" the coat below and I found that the same bottle one year later is just a dream to work with. The problem is that they are too thin -ready for an airbrush. I leave my new paints, that I don't intend to shoot through an airbrush, sitting open for a few days allowing some of the thinner to evaporate. I do this specifically with detail paint colours, silver for trim, orange for marker lights, and yes actually black for the big "T's" roll bars. When I was younger the lower side of my lexan bodies looked atrocious, the beauty of painting lexan however is -no matter how bad the surface irregularities are on the bottom (provided they're opaque) the outside looks flawless!

BTW Metal polish (I use Brasso*) will remove paint spray or otherwise from the inside of lexan as Eventually it would (long time) polish through plastic as it basically sands off the paint....We all have had issues with paint bleeding -just as my 959 with painted stripes will tell you, and this has saved my but more than a few times! Take care... BTW member numbers don't always reflect "newbness"... I'm sorry if I offended you in anyway!...Take care ...Mark BTW I'm still envious of your Frog

[Live Steam Mad 18]

I Read the whole topic and it does seem quite troublesome, I really was just trying to help! I actually started my hobby with a Fox 24 years ago when I was just a kid and I painted the inside of that body with brush paints (which I still have - ratty though) I recently made a "all new Fox from Ebay over a couple of years and I had painted quite a few of those shells as my Fox "evolved", One paint job I decently reproduced was a copy of Phill Sroka's red and gold airbrush job in Radio Control Car Action Fall 1986 (still have that one too) It's the mag w. Chris Chianelli and the Black Foot on the cover. I don't know if you have access to Parma's line of Pactra Paint but I find them far superior in every way to Tamiya's. Adhesion, coverage...etc.

I have come across second coats "melting, if you will" the coat below and I found that the same bottle one year later is just a dream to work with. The problem is that they are too thin -ready for an airbrush. I leave my new paints, that I don't intend to shoot through an airbrush, sitting open for a few days allowing some of the thinner to evaporate. I do this specifically with detail paint colours, silver for trim, orange for marker lights, and yes actually black for the big "T's" roll bars. When I was younger the lower side of my lexan bodies looked atrocious, the beauty of painting lexan however is -no matter how bad the surface irregularities are on the bottom (provided they're opaque) the outside looks flawless!

BTW Metal polish (I use Brasso*) will remove paint spray or otherwise from the inside of lexan as Eventually it would (long time) polish through plastic as it basically sands off the paint....We all have had issues with paint bleeding -just as my 959 with painted stripes will tell you, and this has saved my but more than a few times! Take care... BTW member numbers don't always reflect "newbness"... I'm sorry if I offended you in anyway!...Take care ...Mark BTW I'm still envious of your Frog

LOL sorry I forgot I had put stuff in about getting the window smooth, albeit without any polishing, the polishing will come later when I have done the painting, as I will need to get that "ruined" window back clear again LOL.

I'll reply to your points in a mo.

Everyone is welcome to give their input, sorry if I seemed a little harsh, it's this paint and my Frog reception issues, my nerves were strung out yesterday. Thankfully I got my Frog working with excellent radio reception now on 27Meg AM finally, so I'm back in a better mood now LOL.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

@Cambodian Tire

> I actually started my hobby with a Fox 24 years ago when I was just a kid

Hi, Wow you had a Fox, man am I ever jealous. Way cool. I only had a Kyosho Raider and that was when I was 16. Before then I only ever had a radio controlled yellow truck toy from Tandy (Radio Shack) and an RC mini-METRO which I loved dearly but destroyed it when I drove it off the edge of our coal bunker and was heartbroken! (I got a couple of replacements off the bay a few years ago).

>and I painted the inside of that [Fox] body with brush paints

Cool. I'll bet the blue PC4 and silver PC 12 were a real challenge for you to get a decent finish on?!

>(which I still have - ratty though) I recently made a "all new Fox from Ebay over a couple of years and I had painted quite a few of those shells as my Fox "evolved"

Excellent, you have experience with these types of roll-cage-containing-body-shells, just the kind of guy I need to have around for valuable advice!

>One paint job I decently reproduced was a copy of Phill Sroka's red and gold airbrush job in Radio Control Car Action Fall 1986 (still have that one too) It's the mag w. Chris Chianelli and the Black Foot on the cover. I don't know if you have access to Parma's line of Pactra Paint but I find them far superior in every way to Tamiya's. Adhesion, coverage...etc.

Ahh yes interesting I have heard about those paints but of course I am mostly a Tamiya and Kyosho fanatic and always seem to want to be using the box art colors from the Tamiya ranges. Parma's color shades will be different I imagine. Good to hear that they are superior to Tamiya (actually Tamiya's pink PC11 and white PC1 are actually very good indeed but the black PC5 and blue PC4 and silver PC12 sucks as standard, but they are very good once you add a drop of retarder to them, but the silver is the odd one out, where you get brush marks no matter what you do, so you need to apply it with an air gun for best results.

>I have come across second coats "melting, if you will" the coat below

Yep same here with the Tamiya PC paints...but only when I recoated the PC paint as used straight from the bottle. I did not try recoating the acrylic retarded versions! If you are referring to the Pactra paint, it sounds like an excess of thinner in the paint is causing the dissolving of the 1st coat by the 2nd coat (always one of my worst nightmares when painting!).

>and I found that the same bottle one year later is just a dream to work with.

I assume that you are referring to the Pactra paint here?

> The problem is that they are too thin -ready for an airbrush.

Sounds like you are referring to the Pactra's. In which case all I can suggest is leave them with the top off and with your wrist watch's alarm set so you know when it beeps to come back and put the lid back on, which will dry them out a bit, you can always thin them later. However this might make them "go off" and start to cure which is bad.

>I leave my new paints, that I don't intend to shoot through an airbrush, sitting open for a few days allowing some of the thinner to evaporate.

Ahh yes, like I suggested above. Didn't realise it would take so long for the thinner to evaporate though! Good to hear it works.

>I do this specifically with detail paint colours, silver for trim, orange for marker lights, and yes actually black for the big "T's" roll bars.

You paint the roll bar with brush paints as well! That's quite a few of us that do that now.

>When I was younger the lower side of my lexan bodies looked atrocious, the beauty of painting lexan however is -no matter how bad the surface irregularities are on the bottom (provided they're opaque) the outside looks flawless!

Yep but unfortunately it did not work that way for me. Every time I used the PC11 pink and PC1 white the results were flawless no matter how I painted but the PC4 blue and PC5 black and PC12 silver were drying too fast and made for blotchy coverage with brush marks when looking from the gloss side of the lexan. Recoating just made it the same because the 1st coat was redissolving. I added a drop of retarder and a touch of acrylic thinner and it solved the issue, except for the silver where it still showed some marks but an air gun would solve that I hope. I'll have to do that test before I ever go near a Fox body!

>BTW Metal polish (I use Brasso*)

Yes I have some Brasso too

>will remove paint spray or otherwise from the inside of lexan

Ahh because it's an abrasive, that's a good point. Also it is a liquid abrasive and would be easy to apply. Why the heck didn't I think of that ?! An EXCELLENT suggestion, much appreciated EDIT: later on I realised that you can't use it to tidy up the edges of the paint on the inside of the roll cage of the Fox or Frog where it borders the windows as you'll end up making the windows cloudy. So I still can't use PS sprays for the roll cage.

>as Eventually it would (long time) polish through plastic as it basically sands off the paint....We all have had issues with paint bleeding -just as my 959 with painted stripes will tell you, and this has saved my but more than a few times!

Cool, an excellent method, so that's how it's done, I wish someone had told me about this one before. They should put info. like that into the Tamiya manuals.

>Take care... BTW member numbers don't always reflect "newbness"... I'm sorry if I offended you in anyway!...Take care ...Mark BTW I'm still envious of your Frog

LOL. Thanks for you're understanding. Sorry about my misunderstanding LOL.

Any chance of some pictures of your Fox?

Thanks for the valuble input and advice, it's appreciated.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Ironically I just noticed that Tamiya have a new item for sale on their news page, Acrylic Retarder !!

It's about time! It's in the same small square shaped glass bottle as the Extra Thin Cement.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

I sprayed on some Tamiya PS5 black spray can paint over the Tamiya PC5 bottle paint (on some spare scrap Frog shell) and there was no reaction, and so I have started to mask off and finish painting my Frog shell . It's working superbly with the Tamiya masking tape, really sharp clean straight edges. Finally LOL.

Also I just tried my new bottle of Tamiya brand Lacquer Thinner and I'll be darned it removes modern PS5 black Polycarbonate SPRAY paint easily WITHOUT fogging up the lexan, which stayed Crystal clear and flexible (scrap off my re-re Frog shell)

FINALLY we have a thinner for PS paints, which means that I can tidy up the edges of paint **** ups done with Tamiya PS spray cans.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[Live Steam Mad 18]

Curses. Just tried to remove PS5 that has been cured for a few weeks and it won't come off with the Tamiya Lacquer Thinner ! Looks like it's only removable for a couple of hours after painting... so I'll be sticking with PC paints for the roll bar and other tricky bits within the polycarboate bodyshells.

Cheers,

Alistair G.

[WillyChang 1818]

yea PS etches into the lexan as it cures

@ Alistair...

are you right for stocks on the PC bottles now?

if not, am happy to pickup any of in the above pic & post them off to ya @ cost... gotta let me know asap though, will be here only next 10d and there's no certainty as to when/where we'll get up to in that time

[Live Steam Mad 18]

yea PS etches into the lexan as it cures

@ Alistair...

are you right for stocks on the PC bottles now?

if not, am happy to pickup any of in the above pic & post them off to ya @ cost... gotta let me know asap though, will be here only next 10d and there's no certainty as to when/where we'll get up to in that time

That's OK my friend I have the ones that I need for the Frog and Fox, at least for now .

Thanks anyway, I really appreciate it. An excellent community we have here.

Regards,

Alistair G.

[WillyChang 1818]

np, just offering 'cos

1, they look like fairly fresh stock

2, travelling around asia at the mo & when i posted a registered airmail item last week, they no ask no questions what i was posting nor my ID