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Varnish for a metallic vampire


Vinster

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Hey guys so, I'm at the stage im ready to paint my vampire and before i started i wanted to order the right varnish - obviously i have both a gloss and matt varnish but with a metallic I was wondering is there any special varnish I needed as on a previous metallic model I applied a humbrol gloss varnsih to finish and it ended up looking very glassy rather than proper metallic. So I was looking into investing into some more alclad products to go with their paints I bought and wondered if this would improve the finish of my kits. Thank you for reading this and the k you for allowing me to be a part of the modelling community 

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Presumably, you already have Alclad in your possession then?

I went looking for a non-laquer and am going to try AK ExtremeMetal. They have a black base gloss as well. As a sealant, MrHobby Topcoat for the final gloss layer.

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Keep in mind that Vampires were finished in aluminum paint, not in natural metal. A high shine metallic finish would be unrealistic here. When I built my latest Vampire I used a 50/50 mix of Vallejo gloss and satin varnishes as final coat 

Edited by Giorgio N
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10 hours ago, Vinster said:

Hey guys so, I'm at the stage im ready to paint my vampire and before i started i wanted to order the right varnish - obviously i have both a gloss and matt varnish but with a metallic I was wondering is there any special varnish I needed as on a previous metallic model I applied a humbrol gloss varnsih to finish and it ended up looking very glassy rather than proper metallic. So I was looking into investing into some more alclad products to go with their paints I bought and wondered if this would improve the finish of my kits. Thank you for reading this and the k you for allowing me to be a part of the modelling community 

The Vampire  pod was made from plywood so it didn't have a metallic finish. Vampires were painted High speed silver overall.

 

Selwyn 

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In`55 , 612 Sqd Vamp . 5s were grey/green upper half and silver below and were rather weathered and dull . However a Vamp squadron came

up to Dyce ( Aberdeen ) on summer camp from Anglesey . They had with them a new T 11 , silver with yellow training bands , that one had

quite a sheen to it , made everything else pretty drab ! , even our two Meteor T 7s which were a bit dull by that time .

 

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17 hours ago, alt-92 said:

Presumably, you already have Alclad in your possession then?

I went looking for a non-laquer and am going to try AK ExtremeMetal. They have a black base gloss as well. As a sealant, MrHobby Topcoat for the final gloss layer.

Thank you, I've heard mr hobby varnishes are very good.

Edited by Vinster
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12 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Keep in mind that Vampires were finished in aluminum paint, not in natural metal. A high shine metallic finish would be unrealistic here. When I built my latest Vampire I used a 50/50 mix of Vallejo gloss and satin varnishes as final coat 

Thank you, I did not pick up on that, would alclad airframe aluminium be ok for this finish 

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18 minutes ago, Don149 said:

In`55 , 612 Sqd Vamp . 5s were grey/green upper half and silver below and were rather weathered and dull . However a Vamp squadron came

up to Dyce ( Aberdeen ) on summer camp from Anglesey . They had with them a new T 11 , silver with yellow training bands , that one had

quite a sheen to it , made everything else pretty drab ! , even our two Meteor T 7s which were a bit dull by that time .

 

Thank you, Im doing the revell vampire and it was with 608 sqd in 51 with the airforce auxiliary. But in the future I'd like to do a actual camo scheme one 

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34 minutes ago, Vinster said:

Thank you, I did not pick up on that, would alclad airframe aluminium be ok for this finish 

Airframe Aluminum is a one of Alclad's glossiest shades, which may not matter if you're going to cover it with some sort of clear coat. Alclad has High Speed Silver in their line: ALC  125. It's somewhat glossy, but quite a bit less so than Airframe Aluminum and therefore probably less fragile as well.

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55 minutes ago, Seawinder said:

Airframe Aluminum is a one of Alclad's glossiest shades, which may not matter if you're going to cover it with some sort of clear coat. Alclad has High Speed Silver in their line: ALC  125. It's somewhat glossy, but quite a bit less so than Airframe Aluminum and therefore probably less fragile as well.

I think I may have this colour as well so it would be worth a try

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2 minutes ago, canberra kid said:

All the HSS panels I have are a satin finish. 

John

As John says.  

 

For an aluminium finish I have always used Alclad II's Duralumin.  It has the right degree of "dullness" and certainly looks like slightly used, so-called HSS.

 

Dennis

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2 hours ago, sloegin57 said:

As John says.  

 

For an aluminium finish I have always used Alclad II's Duralumin.  It has the right degree of "dullness" and certainly looks like slightly used, so-called HSS.

 

Dennis

That's my go-to shade as well. I'll sometimes mix in a bit of Alclad Semi-matte Aluminum if I want it duller.

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On 03/12/2019 at 04:50, Giorgio N said:

Keep in mind that Vampires were finished in aluminum paint, not in natural metal. A high shine metallic finish would be unrealistic here. When I built my latest Vampire I used a 50/50 mix of Vallejo gloss and satin varnishes as final coat 

Do you reckon high speed silver would be ok or is this too shiny

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30 minutes ago, Vinster said:

Do you reckon high speed silver would be ok or is this too shiny

As Giorgio said the finish is semi-matt, so if you’ve got a can of paint labelled “High Speed Silver” it should produce that semi-matt finish.  The “fun” will start when you get round to applying decals as most will settle best onto a gloss surface.  If you do apply a clear gloss coat you’ll need to apply a clear satin coal to achieve your desired finish.  Others here may be able to point you in the direction of suitable clear finishes that are compatible with your chosen paint: I tend to use Humbrol Matt Aluminium to replicate HighSpeed Silver with Future as the gloss coat as it doesn’t react with the silver enamel.

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High Speed Silver is the name sometime used for this finish, IIRC appears at some point in official documents and is colloquially used among modellers. And of course is used by a model paint manufacturer. So yes, this was the paint

Regarding shine, I look at this from a modeller perspective: to reproduce a surface painted in silver or aluminum I prefer to avoid a very shiny finish as these are the ones I use to reproduce natural metal aircraft. The original paint may have been gloss but an excessively gloss finish on a model is IMHO not realistic.

The original paint on the Vampire also tended to become dull after a while, one more reason to avoid a shiny finish 

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14 hours ago, stever219 said:

As Giorgio said the finish is semi-matt, so if you’ve got a can of paint labelled “High Speed Silver” it should produce that semi-matt finish.  The “fun” will start when you get round to applying decals as most will settle best onto a gloss surface.  If you do apply a clear gloss coat you’ll need to apply a clear satin coal to achieve your desired finish.  Others here may be able to point you in the direction of suitable clear finishes that are compatible with your chosen paint: I tend to use Humbrol Matt Aluminium to replicate HighSpeed Silver with Future as the gloss coat as it doesn’t react with the silver enamel.

Thank you - Alclad seem to have a good selection of varnishes to achieve each effects I think I'll use one of them

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2 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

High Speed Silver is the name sometime used for this finish, IIRC appears at some point in official documents and is colloquially used among modellers. And of course is used by a model paint manufacturer. So yes, this was the paint

Regarding shine, I look at this from a modeller perspective: to reproduce a surface painted in silver or aluminum I prefer to avoid a very shiny finish as these are the ones I use to reproduce natural metal aircraft. The original paint may have been gloss but an excessively gloss finish on a model is IMHO not realistic.

The original paint on the Vampire also tended to become dull after a while, one more reason to avoid a shiny finish 

Thank you, I'll try and find a good satin varnsih to remove this shine - i think alclad have some designed for their paint 

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