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Metallic paint for jet engines


Maxwellphillips

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Hi everyone, 

 

I'm looking for a bit of advice for painting jet engines and exhausts. I've done a bit of digging around and seen people recommending Alclad and MIG metallic paints for painting engines, but wondered if anyone has first had experience with them? 

 

I need to paint the engines of my F-15, and ideally would like to stick to airbrushed acrylic for ease of use and clean up etc, but would be open to solvent based paints if they really are that much better. 

 

What other recommendations do people have? 

 

Cheers

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AK Interactive Xtreme Metal (the ones in the 30ml glass bottle). Those are enamels, spray beautifully straight from the bottle, the flake is very small, looks great and they're fairly resilient to normal handling. The smell is better (to my nose) than the classical Revell enamels but they still stink.

MRP acrylic lacquer paints (30ml glass bottle as well). They're lacquer based so they stink to high heaven, but they spray even better than AK's stuff. However be very careful to how much you spray on a single pass. If the undercoat is too weak the paint can actually eat into it and you'll make a mess of everything.

Last but not least Model Master has a very nice range of solvent based metallic paints (can't remember from the top of my head if they're enamels of lacquers). Even if you don't go for their paints I strongly advise you to get a bottle of their sealer, that stuff is great.

 

Haven't used them myself but many people say Vallejo's Metal Color are very good if you want to stick to the low odour acrylics. 

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Vallejo Metal Colour, they do several 'exhaust' colours. Notably burnt iron, jet exhaust, magnesium, dark aluminium. There are about 18 colours in the range.

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Cheers @Rogue., @bmwh548.

 

I don't think I'm too keen on lacquer based paints, they sound like a bit of a nightmare, especially if they can start eating away at other paint/plastic. Interested in giving the AK and Vallejo ones a go though, especially if they are usable straight from the bottle in the case of AK. I'll take a look at the model master sealer too, as I'm after some at the minute. 

 

I'm thinking maybe I should branch out into solvent based, I'm just a bit wary because of stories about the damage it can do to airbrush o rings, as I only have a super cheap and cheerful one whilst I get to grips with it. 

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I still have two Chinese airbrushes that I use, one of them is reserved for Mr. Surfacer and that stuff is pretty much lacquer based if I remember correctly. As long as you don't soak the o-rings in thinner you'll be fine.

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20 minutes ago, bmwh548 said:

I still have two Chinese airbrushes that I use, one of them is reserved for Mr. Surfacer and that stuff is pretty much lacquer based if I remember correctly. As long as you don't soak the o-rings in thinner you'll be fine.

Fair enough, thanks for the advice! 

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On 28/03/2019 at 20:53, Steve Noble said:

Nothing wrong with lacquer paints and no reason to be afraid of them. Proper preparation is key, a good primer and no problem with them eating through to the plastic. 

I think once I've got more experience I would be OK with using them, but I've only had my airbrush for a month, so I think it's best if I hone my skills on 'easier' paints first. I also don't have any kit to protect from fumes at the min :(

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  • 2 weeks later...

Went for Vallejo in the end. Used the steel for a couple of F-15 fans and I'm pretty impressed. Sprayed it on top of gloss back and I think it gives a pretty realistic metal colour. Didn't take any photos though 🤦‍♂️

 

Thanks for the advice 

Edited by Maxwellphillips
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Another vote for Vallejo, their Metal Colour range is fantastic, the paint is airbrush ready, flakes are very, very small and the result is very realistic. They are also pretty robust and can be masked without much risk of paint peeling off. The range is quite wide and paints can be mixed together to achiee any variation. They are today my go-to paint for natural metal finishes

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These are the results using the Model Air metallic. I had trouble with intermittent spraying though. Had to have the needle nearly all the way back to get any paint, and even then it wasn't consistent. I ended up having to do an all over brass dusting rather than specific areas like I wanted. 

Having researched, I think ill give some flow aid or retarder a go, see if that fixes the problem. 

 

IMG_20190417_171729

 

IMG_20190417_171755

 

 

 

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