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Gunze gloss curing times


Mountain goat

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Hi,

There's some threads regarding paint drying times, but I've a question regarding the characteristics of specifically gloss Gunze aqueous paints.

I've sprayed a model with Gunze H1 -Gloss White- recently, and after almost a week, the paint is dry but it's apparent it still hasn't cured. I need to mask and spray some red ares on the model. I've read, here and there, that gloss Gunze might take a while to cure - weeks, a couple of months, even years.

Any tips how to deal with this - maybe how to speed up curing time?

Thanks, Jay

EDIT - I've stripped the paint, and repainted it. I used, as per Duncan B's suggestion, a coat or two of H11 flat white followed by one coat of H1 gloss white, and on inspection a few days on the paint was dry and fully cured.

Edited by Mountain goat
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I use Gunze paints 90% of the time and have been known to mask up the next colour within an hour but I usually leave it a day and get on with something else.

I painted some RLM02 about an hour ago and was handling it (albeit very carefully) within 15 minutes. Usually by the time I've cleaned the airbrush out ready for the next colour the paint is touch dry. What thinners are you using with it? I always use either the regular Mr Color thinners or the self levelling version, I don't use the thinners designed for the Aqueous paints.

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I use Gunze paints 90% of the time and have been known to mask up the next colour within an hour but I usually leave it a day and get on with something else.

I painted some RLM02 about an hour ago and was handling it (albeit very carefully) within 15 minutes. Usually by the time I've cleaned the airbrush out ready for the next colour the paint is touch dry. What thinners are you using with it? I always use either the regular Mr Color thinners or the self levelling version, I don't use the thinners designed for the Aqueous paints.

In this instance I used Gunze levelling thinner, mixed 1:1. I'm satisfied with the result, and to be sure: the paint is dry to the touch, but still slightly soft. Like cheese, if that makes any sense... To test if it's fully cured, I press something blunt on the surface of the paint, to see if it leaves a mark - if it does, I reckon the paint is still not done hardening. I've even left a finger print on it a few days ago, and that has now almost fully disappeared.

mix some of their flat base into it will make it dry properly..but it won't be gloss any more tho'

I think I'll do that from now on.

Jay

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1:1 might be a bit on the thin side, are you having to put lots of coats on to get coverage? I usually use a mix that is approx. 60/40 paint to thinners and get good coverage with two thin coats. I will use a thinner mix for mottling but I've never had a problem with excessive drying times.

I wonder if it is the gloss white that is the problem, a colour I rarely use on it's own but do mix it with others to lighten them? Have you experienced this with any other colours? If not I would suggest trying their matt white then spraying a coat of their super gloss (GX100) over it, that is the way I go for the gloss finish I decal onto. Their semi gloss colours dry very quickly too and can be decaled directly onto.

Duncan B

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I use Gunze paints with their own levelling thinners mixed to the consistency of semi skimmed milk and haven't noticed any excessive drying times.

Tom.

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1:1 might be a bit on the thin side, are you having to put lots of coats on to get coverage? I usually use a mix that is approx. 60/40 paint to thinners and get good coverage with two thin coats. I will use a thinner mix for mottling but I've never had a problem with excessive drying times.

I wonder if it is the gloss white that is the problem, a colour I rarely use on it's own but do mix it with others to lighten them? Have you experienced this with any other colours? If not I would suggest trying their matt white then spraying a coat of their super gloss (GX100) over it, that is the way I go for the gloss finish I decal onto. Their semi gloss colours dry very quickly too and can be decaled directly onto.

Duncan B

Thank you for the reply and the great tips. Indeed I may have thinned it too much then. I needed about five coats to achieve good coverage. I've never experienced this with other colours - first time I've used their gloss white. Semi-gloss gave me excellent results.

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I sprayed some Mr Hobby matt white today that i thinned to maybe slightly more than 60/40 and only needed 2 thin coats to cover a light blue coat. The paint was dry enough to spray yellow over after about 45 minutes. I left it from about noon today and have just looked and all the paint is dry and there is no smell coming from it, I'd call that dry.

Might be something unique to the gloss white, I have some and will give it a try next time I'm at the spray booth.

Duncan B

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If you use Xtracolor with this stuff, http://www.rustins.eu/Details.asp?ProductID=777

it is dry and maskable within 2-3hrs (none of that tackiness I have found with other gloss like the thread paint) , and with the excellent xtracolor gloss shine. Use Mr.Color thinner too and it can dry even quicker though it does not seem to go go on as smooth compared to enamel thinner.

David.

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If you use Xtracolor with this stuff, http://www.rustins.eu/Details.asp?ProductID=777

it is dry and maskable within 2-3hrs (none of that tackiness I have found with other gloss like the thread paint) , and with the excellent xtracolor gloss shine. Use Mr.Color thinner too and it can dry even quicker though it does not seem to go go on as smooth compared to enamel thinner.

David.

Thanks! In the linked blurb it says 'A special blend of chemicals to speed the drying of ... old paint and varnish that has been kept for a long time, and has become slow drying'. I'm probably just thick but I had no idea there was a correlation between paint age and drying time - good thing to know! I can tell the paint I used (and have yesterday stripped to go with Duncan's Gloss over Matt coats suggestion) had probably been on the shop's shelf for a long time, judging by the dust on the lid, layers of price labels, and gob on the bottom of the bottle. - Which was a lot, and getting hard. So probably the age, plus the fact I thinned it too much and kept adding coats to achieve best whiteness - are all ways to make your H1 cheese-like.

@Tom - Semi-skinned milk was indeed what I was going for, having read about it elsewhere on the forum. -So the only logical explanation for overthinning would be that the milk we use is probably watered down in the factory :whistle:

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Semi skimmed milk consistency is apparently the benchmark however I find that both Mr Color and Mr Hobby acrylics are actually quite user friendly and will spray without getting too scientific. When I first started using them I used to measure out the paint and the thinners, now I just squirt some thinners into the mixing pot and then add roughly the same amount of paint, mix and pour into the airbrush. I'll pay a bit more attention to the paint mix if I'm doing mottling on German WW2 fighters but that's it.

Other top tips, don't mix the paint in your airbrush, it'll only clog regardless of how much thinners you have in there because the neat paint will sink into the paint way before you can mix it through (if you do insist on mixing in the airbrush then back flush through a little before you start spraying). Buy those plastic shot glasses to mix paint in instead, there're cheap as chips and can be reused. I do pour the unused and thinned paint back into the paint pot and it doesn't seem to effect the Gunze paint at all other than thin it down a little. Eventually you end up with perfectly premixed paint in the pot ready to go. As I use the paint I'll top up the paint pot with thinners to get it to the ready to use stage, it seems to store ok like that with just a whiff of extra thinners sometimes if it hasn't been used for a while. Gunze do sell a product that can be added to the paint pots to revive them if they have dried out a bit but I've never needed it and some of my original Mr Color paints are now old enough to be well through Primary School!

I have tried a huge variety of acrylic paint ranges over the years (and still have most of them mostly unused) and have to say that I have not found any that match Gunze paints for user friendliness and durability, I'm a big fan of them.

Duncan B

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Other top tips, don't mix the paint in your airbrush, it'll only clog regardless of how much thinners you have in there because the neat paint will sink into the paint way before you can mix it through (if you do insist on mixing in the airbrush then back flush through a little before you start spraying). Buy those plastic shot glasses to mix paint in instead, there're cheap as chips and can be reused. I do pour the unused and thinned paint back into the paint pot and it doesn't seem to effect the Gunze paint at all other than thin it down a little. Eventually you end up with perfectly premixed paint in the pot ready to go. As I use the paint I'll top up the paint pot with thinners to get it to the ready to use stage, it seems to store ok like that with just a whiff of extra thinners sometimes if it hasn't been used for a while. Gunze do sell a product that can be added to the paint pots to revive them if they have dried out a bit but I've never needed it and some of my original Mr Color paints are now old enough to be well through Primary School!

I have tried a huge variety of acrylic paint ranges over the years (and still have most of them mostly unused) and have to say that I have not found any that match Gunze paints for user friendliness and durability, I'm a big fan of them.

Duncan B

Big thanks for the tips!

I have found Gunze to be very forgiving and seeing what others do with the paints, I gravitate towards Gunze. I'm apparently lucky as I've found a dependable and relatively cheap supplier of those paints.

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Gunze gloss will take a while to fully dry/harden, as you say it's touch dry very quickly but soft underneath. Have you got a airing cupboard or somewhere warm you can keep the model in (boxed) for a day or so this should speed up the curing.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the additional comments - learning by the minute! Karl Bordfunker :): don't the cellulose thinners eat into glue or putty?

Have you got a airing cupboard or somewhere warm you can keep the model in (boxed) for a day or so this should speed up the curing.

I'll remember that box tip for the next time. For now, after I decided I had sprayed the paint on too thick, it would be more expeditious to completely strip the paint and go for the *matt white base coat + gloss layer* route - which I duly did, both Gunze again and I must say it's worked a treat! It's smooth, dry and hardened, no problems at all.

Afterwards, after some experimenting, I found that a layer or two of Humbrol white primer (decanted from rattle can) followed by Gunze gloss white, will do equally nicely. Which is a good thing, considering prices.

Jay

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Hi Jay

I'm a regular user of cellulose thinners as per this post: As for your question, yes they will dissolve any compatible solvents in putties , I did some tests and they are here.

I use Mr Color paint/varnishes, the solvent ones, and it dries ready for masking in 30 minutes if sprayed with cellulose thinners. I tried the Mr Hobby aqueous with these thinners and they dry just as quickly but seem not be as durable as their solvent based versions.

I'm assuming you know how dangerous spraying this stuff is and have a VOC filtered face mask and and are spraying with an extractor/spray booth?

Anil

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Hi Jay

I'm a regular user of cellulose thinners as per this post:

Thanks Anil, great links, 'specially this line

"Though imagine my surprise when my car restoration painter tested Alclad grey primer and declared it to be prethinned 3M (or similar ) primer with some toluene to further damage the user. His comments on paying nearly $15 for 250ml of Mr Hobby levelling thinner were not repeatable but he did hand me some gloss thinner and asked me to see if I could tell the difference, I could, they work the same but the gloss thinner cost $15 a gallon.."

*Looks to his secret stash of Mr Levelling thinner* :banghead:

I'm assuming you know how dangerous spraying this stuff is

Anil

Ooooooh yes!! - Which is why I'm hesitant to use it for anything but cleaning airbrush parts. I prefer arcylics anyway, so no real advantage to be had with Mr Hobby aqueous, if, as you say, cellulose doesn't really speed curing up significantly there.

Jay

Edited by Mountain goat
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  • 5 years later...

I use Gunze and Tamiya acrylics and thinners. When spraying gloss or satin whites, they never seemed to cure, even when painting repeated light coats over some days.

Then last week I forgot to lower the air pressure after using Stynylrez and sprayed Tamiya gloss white at 28 psi on the intakes of a Kfir and it was cured in less than 48 hours.

The day after, I painted Gunze H316 (insignia white) on the underside of a Hellcat at my usual pressure (18 psi) and had to remove it, as it wasn't cured  over 5 days.

 

Decided yesterday to try at a higher pressure (28 psi still) and.... it's dry today!

Lucky twice or solution found? Still I wanted to immediately share my experience. 

 

 

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Good news, or so it seems. He's saying that the new formula has less coverage power. Also we don't know how long he let it cure. I'd like to see if the result is the same with alcohol based thinners.

Worth a try, still.

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I replenished my go to stock of H58 interior green from an online store yesterday. Got the new formula stuff. Both the bottle top and paint inside much more closely resemble Tamiya XF4 yellow green and bear absolutely no relation to the old H58. Several hundred shades lighter. Had I seen it in a shop I wouldn’t have bought it (2 actually!).

Just  a word of warning and can anyone recommend a good substitute interior green!

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On 30/09/2020 at 08:17, PattheCat said:

Good news, or so it seems. He's saying that the new formula has less coverage power. Also we don't know how long he let it cure. I'd like to see if the result is the same with alcohol based thinners.

Worth a try, still.

 

He did say that he let the first coat dry for a couple days and I think he did the same with the second coat.

 

 

 

Chris

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  • 2 years later...

Good morning!  I've just recently started to convert to both Gunze and Tamiya after a lifetime of using enamel (quite satisfactorily). Whilst I can mask a Tamiya XF/isopropyl coat of paint within minutes, I do find that (in my limited experience) I can leave fingerprints when handling any Gunze coat of paint for days or longer. I suppose I should always have worn gloves and this has helped, and masking after a day or two is ok (LIKE I USED TO DO WITH ENAMEL!) seems ok, I do find myself wishing Tamiya had a larger range!  It really seems faultless when thinned with iso. I've used isopropyl, cellulose car airgun thinner (modern this), and all the expensive 'Mr' thinners.

 

I'm ok with it, but I'm not sure it's the quantum leap forward that I find with Tamiya. Funny thing progress.....

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7 hours ago, modelmaker said:

I do find myself wishing Tamiya had a larger range!

Me too. I wish they also had their primary pigments in pure form in range to help with mixing, but I can get pretty close with a lot of military colors with proper mixes.

 

Are there any specific colors you are interested at?

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