Pre-shading with Alclad

Getting highlights or shading from a base coat works with Alclad II as long as the Alclad is applied thin enough that you get show through. My experience is that the base coat doesn't show through at all if you have solid coverage with Alclad. I think with a little practice you might get some pretty good results. I don't know if there would be any benefit to using the different color bases for highlights as the thickness of the Alclad covering is what would produce the effects. Also partial area coverage with the base would have an area of over spray that would have texture that would show up in your final Alclad finish.

Jim Bright

(snip)

Hmmm... Jim Bright, huh?....

Alclad, huh?....

Are you a stockholder?!?!? ;-)

For what it's worth, my experiences mimic Jim's. How heavily you apply the final color coat will determine the opaqueness of the finish and the visibility of the pre-shading.

Frank Kranick

Definitely yes. You can get some interesting variations by using gloss light brown, red or blue instead of black.

FWIW Some of the variations we see in natural metal aircraft are due to differing surface textures of the surfaces of the various panels. While conventional wisdom is that you need a very smooth surface finish for a natural metal, using varying mixtures of smooth and matt undercoat will also make for varying surface appearance.

Bill shuey

FWIW Some of the variations we see in natural metal aircraft are due to differing surface textures of the surfaces of the various panels. While conventional wisdom is that you need a very smooth surface finish for a natural metal, using varying mixtures of smooth and matt undercoat will also make for varying surface appearance.

Bill shuey

You're right -- I left a couple words out of my statement. I said "color" where I should have said "shade of color". We were talking about getting highlights by pre-shading with dark and light colors. Since Alclad II NMF is opaque it will block out the underlying colors unless it is applied thinly so coverage isn't complete and some of the underlying color still shows. That's how I'd get my highlights with Alclad -- undercoat with the shade and color you want for your highlights then apply the top coat of Alclad to get the effects you want. I'd say it would probably take a bit of practice to get predictable and consistent results. I've applied Alclad (polished finish) over black, white, blue, yellow, silver and gray and the effects are very different and quite interesting with partial coverage. I was always going for complete coverage so partial coverage wasn't of concern, but I noticed that getting a uniform partial coverage would probably be very difficult to do if it was a large area. Once I had complete coverage there was no hint of the underlying paint or color except for the paint's texture.

Jim Bright

True, but it's a riskier method, since a coat of Alclad on a matt surface is easily damaged.