A MODELMAKER’S LIFE: HOT DAYS AND ACRYLIC PAINT

Tomorrow, I have a multitude of details that all have to be picked out with water-based acrylics, which will be no doubt as difficult to work with as my lacquers have been today as the warm weather continues

29th April 2025

with the unseasonably warm weather carrying on throughout this week, my studio, located under a flat roof at the end of the house, has started to become a little toastier of late. I’m certainly not complaining about that having suffered what seemed to be an endlessly miserable grey winter, but it does throw up some issues that temper the pleasure somewhat.

One of those is my use of acrylic paints, both for airbrushing and painting by hand. Now a ubiquitous part of our hobby, the quick drying times of paints such as Tamiya, Mr. Hobby, AK and Vallejo are part of their charm. Gone are those heady days of enamels where you counted periods of drying in days rather than hours, where gloss paints never dried properly and washes could only be applied over surfaces left to set rock hard for fear of unsettling them and ruining any surface over which you’d applied them. Yes, acrylics are a much more user-friendly material until the temperatures rise and they start to dry in seconds, with all of the accompanying headaches that that can cause…

My studio is certainly not as hot as it’s going to become throughout the summer but it’s getting there. So today I had to battle with paint that did what it does, but rather too quickly! Shall I explain? My job today was to spray a few components, lay on a basecoat or two and then add some cloudy highlights that will work with darker washes and then what I hope will be, plenty of painted details. 

First thing to mention here was that the paint was thin; second was that I used lacquer thinners, which may have been something of a mistake. Lacquer thinners help paint to dry very quickly, so when the paint was airbrushed onto the model, it went through something of a chemical reaction, changing from a liquid to a solid as the paint flowed through the tip of the airbrush through space and onto the eager surfaces of my model aircraft. Result? A very dusty finish that felt more like sandpaper than a smooth layer of paint. Cure? I had to smooth the finish over with Micromesh to remove that unwanted and frankly unwelcome texture – not difficult but not wanted, either.

What I should have done if I’d been paying attention and had the most basic of grasp of my own well-honed techniques, is swapped out the LT for acrylic thinner (Tamiya X-20A) and then added some Tamiya Retarder to the mix. All of this would have kept the paint thin and not encouraged it to dry before it was absolutely necessary. Of course, there will be modellers reading this who may be keen to point out that I should have used a proprietary lacquer thinner with a rewarder already in it: I did. It made no difference. I’ll also point out that the pressure was dropped as well, so that we can at least agree that heat, rather than my rubbish technique was to blame!

As it stands, despite my Battle Royale this morning, I have a collection of parts that look ready for further work. Tomorrow, I have a multitude of details that all have to be picked out with water-based acrylics, which will be no doubt as difficult to work with as my lacquers have been today as the warm weather continues. Still, mustn’t grumble, we’ll no doubt be in for some cold weather next week and that will lead me to wishing we were back under blue skies and sunshine, irrespective of how it affects my day to day work. We are never happy, are we?

See you tomorrow.

TODAY’S PLAYLIST…

Simple Minds: Live In The City Of Diamonds

Simple Minds: Live In The City Of Light

Marillion: Clutching At Straws