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I'm hoping someone here has a little more experience with this stuff then I do. I picked up several Alclad paints a few weeks ago to start a new project. I had used some spare figures I had to do some testing of the paints, and I was quite pleased with the outcome. So I went ahead and sprayed three tanks last night, a predator, a Deimos rhino, and a spartan. The results are less then what I was hoping for. It seems to be dull in spots, grainy in others. In a few parts of resin it looks like the paint bubbled, or blushed on others. The spartan seems to have gotten the worst of it, with many imperfections, the grit, blushing, dull spots, spots where it looks like paint never touched, and what look like gouges in the resin itself.

I sprayed the coat on at around 10 psi, like I did with my test figures. I used the same set up as then, so I'm not sure what happened. I would appreciate any advice or suggestions. Or if anyone knows a safe way to remove lacquer paint from resin and plastic incase I need to start over.

What kind of prep work did you do to the resin models before you painted them? Alclad paints are super finicky and any issues with the surface they're painted on can ruin them.

For prep I cleaned off the figures, soap/water and then rinsed. Waited untill they dried then started to spray. I had heard mixed reviews, to use a primer coat, and also that it doesn't need one. I did not use a separate primer for it, neither did I with my test peice, but that turned out fine.

The manufacturer recommends an appropriate primer. This should minimize the issues you are having. Were your test models also Forgeworld Resin?

You absolutely MUST prep surfaces properly before using alclad. Prime, sand, prime, sand. Then a good very high gloss black. Very labour intesive on surface-detailed pieces.


Edit: As for stripping, no idea. Most stuff that'll attack lacquers will eat polyurethene resin or plastics.

If you're using Alcad's gloss black that I've used, it sucks. It is huuuugely susceptible to any sort of contamination on the model, like way more than any other paint I've used. It also is very soft and doesn't seem to dry to a hard shell like most glosses and it sometimes crazes depending on what you spray over it.

Alclad's actual metallics are good, but I do not recommend using Alclad's gloss black as a base for them. I use Tamiya gloss black.

When you're spraying glosses you have to remember to spray wet on wet, if you let an area partially dry and then spray it again you'll get a grainy finish. Spray from a closer distance with a lower pressure and try to keep the model wet.

If you're using a fine detail airbrush, forget about getting a good gloss finish, it's damned near impossible. Paul Budzik covers it in a lot of his videos, but here's one he just uploaded yesterday that covers some of the topics of why you can't get a good gloss finish using a fine detail brush (answer: too much "overspray")...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u49PW-pOS0w

Then once you have a nice gloss black base, well, it depends what alclads you're using, if you're using one of the high gloss paints, you just want to lightly mist it on, letting it build up gradually over the gloss black base.

But yeah, after screwing up a few models and wondering why my alclads were coming out terrible I realised it was because of the alclad gloss black that I was using as a basecoat.

The test figures were spare plastics I had sitting around, so maybe that's the reason for the difference in outcome of the gloss black.

As for the resin itself, I brought some scotch bright home and made some light passes over the offending areas and it. Leaned right off, it actually surprised me how thin the paint layer is. I'll be scuffing off most of what I need to, and then give the tanks a proper primer coat. I may look into an alternate gloss black aswell.

The metals themselves were a joy to work with on my test piece, as well as the candy red color. Seems it's the black that is a pain to deal with.

Resin has two issues when it comes to paint adhering well.

1. Mold release, which it seems you likely took care of. I use a Simple Green bath to really degrease resin kits.

2. The two part epoxy that resin is made up from. If the mix isn't perfect, sometimes the resin doesn't set correctly making paint flake off.

One or both of those was likely your culprit. Add to that the Alclad gloss is notoriously picky.