Ammo Bare Metal Aircraft Colors (Acrylic A.MIG.7216)

[Mike]

Bare Metal Aircraft Colors (A.MIG.7216)

AMMO by Mig Jiménez

 

 

Bare metal colours are a fairly personal choice and some folks swear by a brand that other folks swear at.  AMMO have come up with set of acrylic metal colours that will be useful for some of the latest releases, as well as old faithfuls.  They arrive in a clear clamshell box with four colours inside, all of which are in 17ml dropper bottles that have yellow caps and mixing balls inside to help distribute the pigment.  Like most AMMO paints they separate quite quickly when left unagitated, but a quick shake will soon bring them back to the correct shade.  Included in the pack are the following colours, although this is slightly at variance with the website, which substitutes Polished Metal for the included Burnt Iron that was found in my set:

 

A.MIG-045 Gun Metal, A.MIG-194 Matt Aluminium, A.MIG-195 Silver, A.MIG-187 Burnt Iron

 

 

The paint dispenses readily from the droppers, and once thinned either with water, AMMO thinners or my preferred one-size-fits-all Ultimate Thinners, sprays nicely through my 0.2mm Mr Hobby airbrush, so it should cope with all the larger sizes with ease.  It goes down nicely, and has a fine pigment size, so won't appear toy-like when it hits the photo-booth, as you can see from the examples applied to the spare fuselage half from the recent Eduard Royal Class Fw.190A kit.  I didn't mask anything up, as I was keen to crack on, so you'll have to forgive the hazy transitions between the colours as I was having issues with my own skills.  The Burnt Iron appears more metallic and has a more reddish tint in the flesh than on the photo, but as I was trying to capture the full range from dark to light, it appears a little dark and not quite so burned in the picture.

 

 

The instructions on the bottle advise leaving the paint to dry for a day, but it was touch-dry within 10 minutes, although I wouldn't recommend handling that early normally.  The next day I performed a gloss varnish test with an acrylic varnish, and the colours stayed bright and didn't react one bit.  It's a subjective thing, but if anything I feel that it slightly improved the lustre of the bright metallics, and brought out the reddish tone in the Burnt Iron.

 

 

Conclusion

An excellent starter set of metallic shades from the Ammo range, despite the slight confusion on what's included.  They go down well without covering detail, are robust once dry, and stay metallic under gloss varnish.  That ticks all the boxes for airbrushing, which is by far the best method for applying metallic if you have the facilities.

 

Highly recommended

 

 

Review sample courtesy of

 

 

[Julien]

I have this set and mine does have Polished Metal in there, so suspect you got a wrong bottle in yours.

 

Julien

[Mike]

Good to know, thanks Julien

[GranddadAl]

Morning. Are these any good for brush painting?

 

[Mike]

They're marked as "Air Colors" but state they're suitable for brush or airbrush, but I've just prepped another fuselage half with Tamiya grey primer and will try brushing out a few samples in a minute, because I suspected someone would ask

[Mike]

Ok - a quick test showed that with a high quality flat brush (W&N One Stroke) the paint is too thin to work effectively with one coat, and would take a number of applications to become opaque, although it is looking better after a second coat.  I would suggest that if you're thinking of buying these, you test one first - I'm not a brush-painter myself, so have no experience in that respect.  It always strikes me as odd how such thin paint can give an opaque finish when airbrushed, but be watery and translucent when brushes.  I guess it's the atomisation and evaporation of the carrier during the airbrushing that does it

 

My colleague Julien has volunteered to investigate further - he sometimes brush-paints still, so knows more about it than me.

 

 

[bootneck]

39 minutes ago, Julien said:

I have this set and mine does have Polished Metal in there, so suspect you got a wrong bottle in yours.

Which colour would you both have preferred in the set, Polished metal or Burnt iron?  Just a general query as you probably don't get that choice, but I'm thinking of changing from the enamel Alclad metallics to acrylic metallics.

 

Mike

[Mike]

It's supposed to be polished metal Mike - looks like someone just picked up the wrong bottle when they were making up my pack.  Burnt Iron is a nice colour though, but it's not polished metal

[bootneck]

Thanks Mike.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

I find if i let my Ammo paints evaporate a little for maybe 5-10 minutes after i put them in a tray/cup. They brush much better after the small wait. 

[Mike]

13 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

I find if i let my Ammo paints evaporate a little for maybe 5-10 minutes after i put them in a tray/cup. They brush much better after the small wait. 

They dry to the touch fairly quickly, so it's probably just a little evaporation of the thinners that's giving it a bit of extra thickness.  Good idea