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Pete's Vampire T11

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Well John the Spraycraft AB cleaner certainly worked - pity it dissolved the plastic as well! It was like Tamiya Extra Thin in a spraycan!
Pete
 
Well John the Spraycraft AB cleaner certainly worked - pity it dissolved the plastic as well! It was like Tamiya Extra Thin in a spraycan!
Pete
My God , heavens knows what it does to seals then Pete.
I use VMS , seems a little more gentle!
 
Well John the Spraycraft AB cleaner certainly worked - pity it dissolved the plastic as well! It was like Tamiya Extra Thin in a spraycan!
Pete
To be fair, I did say Vallejo airbrush cleaner……that stuff sounds like cellulose thinners, which will take off the paint and then start on the plastic….glad you sorted it though. It was too good to bin.
 
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To be fair, I did say Vallejo airbrush cleaner……that stuff sounds like cellulose thinners, which will take off the paint and then start on the plastic….glad you sorted it though. It was too good to bin.
You did indeed Tim; Vallejo cleaner seemed to be having some effect, but very slowly, so I tried the mildest of my other AB cleaners, the Spraycraft, which is milder than either Mr Tool CLeaner or Liquid Reamer. It doesn't have the distinctive smell of cellulose thinners.
Just looked up the Safety Data Sheet and it seems to be based on acetone and xylene, so I'm not surprised it dissolves polystyrene! Filed under "Things I wish I'd known"...
Pete

Edit: Vallejo a/b cleaner contains 3-butoxyethanol.
 
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The Vampire woes continue...
I gave it a couple of coats of Mr Color aluminium, thinned with their standard thinners. Left it a few days to make sure it was really dry. Started masking this morning, and noticed a silver thumbprint on the first piece of tape I put down. Looked at my fingers, and they're covered with a thin layer of silver paint!
P1170588.JPG
I've given it a coat of Galeria gloss and will try masking again when that's had a chance to dry. I just hope the Mr Color fluorescent orange won't react with the Galeria.
What else can go wrong?

Pete
 
This is really fighting you Pete!

Was it Mr Metal Color by any chance? I have some of those and even once dry they can "shed" metallic particles as they are designed to be burnished / polished after application for a true metal finish.
 
This is really fighting you Pete!

Was it Mr Metal Color by any chance? I have some of those and even once dry they can "shed" metallic particles as they are designed to be burnished / polished after application for a true metal finish.
Good call Andy. The old Humbrol Metalcote range were similar I seem to remember…..
 
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Thanks Andy, it is indeed Mr Metal Color, so that explains it. Oh well, it's varnished now.

Tim, I knew Humbrol Metalcote could be polished, but I've never had it come off on my fingers.

Pete
 
I hope the gloss coat seals the aluminium. This is certainly testing your patience.
 
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I hope the gloss coat seals the aluminium.
It did - partly. Stopped it coming off on my fingers, but when I removed the masking patches of the silver came off as well. With hindsight, that was bound to happen wasn't it. Also a bit of the fluo orange came off as the tape lifted the silver underneath. I think I won't try to touch it up, I'll give it another coat of Galeria then add the decals, take a few pics then bin it.
P1170589.JPG
It looks a lot worse 'in the flesh'.
Pete
 
Like a true vampire this one has come back from the dead to bite you again pete ( although not in the neck :dizzy:;)) shame as it was looking nice , maybe best to look on the build as an experiment in paint properties , some valuable lessons to be taken from this for all of us . The good news is that these Airfix Vampires are plentiful so you can soon get another one:confounded:
 
Thread owner
Well, it was going to go in the bin, but I just couldn't bring myself to chuck it away - after all, I did splash out £3.99 on it!
I wasn't able to sand off all the damage to the plastic caused by the a/b cleaner, and some of the aluminium paint had come off with the masking tape, but the decals and a coat of satin varnish later, it doesn't look too bad from the usual viewing distance, if you squint a bit...
P1170590.JPG
I'll put some more pics up in Completed Aircraft.
Pete
 
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