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nev
Established Member
Sporky McGuffin
Light entertainer
I've not used it on wood, but the Plastikote chrome spray does indeed produce a very convincing chrome. You can't do anything with it after spraying though - lacquer turns it grey on the spot.
nev":3kxi4rrm said:
The majority of 'chrome' model paints are only fit for looking vaguely metallic when painted on absolutely tiny bits of model, to be honest. Paint them on something bigger than 5mm across and they just look like lots of bits of powdered metal floating in grey paint. Because they're generally made by floating lots of bits of powdered metal in grey paint!
Plastikote chrome looks decent enough but it's also horribly fragile, in my experience. Maybe not a concern, if the intarsia in question is going to be left somewhere out of the way. There's at least one of those spray-on chrome paints that literally rubs off on your fingers and leaves a grey powdery mess behind!
I've never used it myself but I've seen some of this stuff applied:
http://modelshop.co.uk/Shop/Finishes/It ... ht/ITM4525
and it looks pretty good. As I understand it you burnish it down, though, so you'd probably want a grain-filling finish on the wood first even for something like beech.
Not acrylic, but Alclad do a lacquer chrome which looks awesome but IIRC may give you cancer if you paint it on without a respirator:
https://www.wonderlandmodels.com/produc ... ne-finish/
but as with most lacquer paints, it's pretty robust once it's on. Cheap gravity-feed airbrush kits are a lot better than you'd expect, these days, it's much cheaper than it used to be to set yourself up to spray small parts.
Again, make sure the surface to be chromed is absolutely smooth beforehand because it will show up a lot of surface blemishes you didn't notice were there. One approach I've used with success on sculpted modelling putty is to sand, then paint with a thick coat of paint (acrylic is fine), then wet sand that. Repeat a couple of times just to be sure. Acrylic paint will flow into all the tiny scratches and pits, but sands away much faster than more or less anything (even wood!) so you'll find it easy with high-grit wet'n'dry to bring it to a super-smooth finish. Most chrome paints go on best over black anyway, so do this step with black acrylic and you're already halfway there. ;-)
(Be aware, however, that some types of paint interact badly with other types of paint - react and produce unwanted blemishes, or re-activate the layer below. If you do undercoat and then chrome paint over the top, it's absolutely critical that you test it on something else first to make sure that the two paints are compatible... and leave it a couple of days after the chrome goes on to be sure.)
Kalimna
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Another vote for AlClad - spectacular chrome effect, but absolutely needs spraying. I think you will find it nearly impossible to get a good chrome from a brush.
Another benefit with AlClad is the colour range - along with a large number of different metals,the transparent tints allow you to get that flared multi-colour look of heated chrome, such as you would get on engine exhaust pipes.
Adam S
Another benefit with AlClad is the colour range - along with a large number of different metals,the transparent tints allow you to get that flared multi-colour look of heated chrome, such as you would get on engine exhaust pipes.
Adam S
rafezetter
Troll Hunter
Claymore":1n2s2bmz said:
A bit late to the party but I should echo that the advise on spraying alclad over gloss black that has been polished within an inch of it's life is imperative for the chrome effect to work well. Absolutely NO blemishes of any kind in the black as the alclad is a "paint" only in so much as it has a medium in a liquid tranfer solution, but the the ratio of medium to solution (looking at the bottle of alclad chrome in my hand which has settled) is maybe 2% medium 98% solution so the coating that is sprayed on is literally microscopically thin. It's more like a reverse dye than a paint.
However upon thinking about this - it may be possible, with care, to spray on just 1 coat of gloss black and then the alclad so the grain pattern at least still shows through.
If you don't want to go to the effort of buying spray equipement etc you could join a modellers forum and ask one of them to maybe do it for you - the alclad effects are widely used by aircraft modellers for the polished bare metal effect present on some aircraft like the boeing B-29 superfortress.
PS it's £5 a pop for the alclad.
a helpful link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AKxXZXTcY4
Droogs
Not the Sharpest Moderator in the box
Although not spraying, I once used a technique years ago when I was making a RC B17. It involved using Bacofoil and fish glue to create the riveted panels for the body. Once the skin was completed we basically hammer veneered panel sized pieces of foil onto it using a cloth wrapped "hammer". It was very effective and really made the model look like it was made of metal. Was a very slow process though to get right
You can get chrome effect paint from a few sources (for spraying), they're all similar with broadly similar techniques. With the custom car/bike stuff at least the process is get a flawless gloss black finish first, as above. The chrome goes on very sparingly with a higher air pressure, just dusted on. Then a waterbase clearcoat (no solvent), then normal clearcoat (might not need that for indoors things).
It looks more like stainless steel though not a bad shine, and is pretty delicate, the layers aren't keyed, fine for a decorative thing though.
It looks more like stainless steel though not a bad shine, and is pretty delicate, the layers aren't keyed, fine for a decorative thing though.
