Tamiya Spray-can question.

[306s16]

I'm in the process of painting my McLaren MP 4/4. What's the best course of action: Spray the whole body white, wait a while and then spray the fluorescent red after masking OVER the white? Or will the white and red react with each other so that it's wiser to mask the area to be red, spray white, mask the white and then spray red?

Thanks!!
Erik.

[Kosmonaut]

i don't see why you cant spray red on top of white
test on scrap first, but i'm pretty sure painting over white will not cause any problems
and as a plus, it should make the red look brighter (if you arent already using white primer... which you should if you have any white on the car)

[Del-R]

There's an interesting article on modelers site about painting a MP4/7 using those colours... here's the quote as I cant get the link as its in a frame:-

About the Tamiya TS36 can

Well, lets instead use the Tamiya TS36, which is a very close match.

WARNING number 2 - this TS spray can NOT be recommended. Why ? Well, I found out about that the hard way. First disaster was the classic one. As you properly know shall you always use a white primer as "basic" before using a fluorescent colour. But TS36 does not like that. I found out that even though the paint job looks spot on the first couple of weeks, after some months it "converts" into wine red non-fluorescent red.

Total disaster. Well, now we know this hurdle and I made a new attempt - spraying the TS 36 directly on the white plastic. This solved the problem. I did not "seal" the TS 36 with clear coat, since it was very shiny. The disaster stroke after about one year. What had looked wonderful and glass smooth in the beginning had now "reacted" with the air or light (even though is was behind glasses) - the result was terrible.

I have also tried another "trick". First you spray the gloss white area and then a couple of days later you spray the TS 36 area. Now in order to seal you use the Tamiya TS clear coat. It looks promising the first couple of minutes, then the red starts to "migrate" into the gloss white spoiling days of work. Well, my conclusion was simple. The TS 36 is not up to the job.

The real-life colour used by McLaren is RAL 3024. Problem is you can't just go down to your local car paint shop and buy it, since it (at least in Denmark) is only used for ambulances. I called a lot of car paint companies and now my luck changed. I found a company importing the RAL 3024. Well that was the good news. The price was the bad news. Minimum sales is one litre and the price is (are you sitting down?) more than US$ 100 including a hardener. But let me tell you one thing - it is perfect, easy to apply and long-time "steady".

You shall always use a white primer and you shall always give it a top clear coat. It is also possible to polish the RAL 3024 before you give it the clear coat. Just perfect. And one litre will cover an endless number of scale models.