Stainless Steel Paint Color

[BCR751]

While we're on the subject of painting, what paint do you use to simulate stainless steel now that the Poly Scale Stainless Steel paint is no longer available?

Doug

[Missaberoad]

Lots of options depending on what you want your end result to be...

Sophisticated finishes makes a line of metallic surfacers Steel and Pewter are my favorite colors. Good for a quick application on details or structures.

http://www.patina.com/metallic-surfacers.html

They were available at Micheals when I bought mine.

Alcad is the tried and true method for a good finish on passenger cars, not sure which color is best but I've seen pretty good matches to Kato paint...
A bit of a process, but well worth it in the end.

http://alclad2.com/finishes/regular/

Testers Testors also has a line of metalizers, that I've had good results with... but I would use Alcad over Testors, it seems to get a superior finish... 

also if you're just hoping to represent dirty oxidized metal a greenish/grey primer is a good representation... Unless its taken care of metal stops looking "metallic" pretty quick... 

[peteski]

Stainless steel and plain steel are pretty much the same color. Stainless might have a glossier finish.  There are many steel color paints in the hobby market. I like using Alclad II paints (airbrush only).  They carry bot, plain steel and stainless. But if you need to clear coat them you need to use a non-organic-solvent-based clear as those will dull the finish.  Water-based clears are ok to use. Alclad carries a water-based clear.

[peteski]

Testers also has a line of metalizers

Auto-correction error?  It's always been Testors. 

[Missaberoad]

Auto-correction error?  It's always been Testors. 

Corrected... Hopefully nobody got Testy 

[Angus Shops]

I'm using Testors Model Master acrylic 'steel'. Looks pretty good to me... It's not from their line of metalizer paints; it's just a plain old acrylic paint so it's pretty simple to airbrush on.

Geoff

[amato1969]

For a water based option check out Vallejo:

http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/m/en_US/metal-color/family/33

  Frank

[BCR751]

For a water based option check out Vallejo:

http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/m/en_US/metal-color/family/33

  Frank

I was looking at the Vallejo stuff yesterday at our LHS.  Since they don't have an actual "stainless steel" color, I'm not really sure on which one to use.  I need to paint a passenger car body that is all stainless steel with fluting on the sides.  In photos, the fluting is quite shiny while the rest of the car body is somewhat dull.   My idea is to use one of the Vallejo colors, possibly one of the aluminum ones, on most of the car body and then, after decaling and a dull coat, re-paint the fluting with a gloss finish to give it the shiny appearance.  I've not used any of the Vallejo metal colors so I'm not sure how they would work in this application.  Anyone with experience may chime in anytime.

Doug

[peteski]

Doug,
regular silver paint usually depicts a neutral-silver (white-ish) color of aluminum.  Paints like steel are also metallic but with a warmer and slightly darker tone.  Steel and stainless steel colors (if a company sells them as separate colors) are very similar in color anyways. Maybe stainless steel has a bit more gloss.

If you want to duplicate the shiny stainless steel finish on the bodies of passenger cars I highly recommend airbrushing Alclad II stainless steel over gloss black undercoat. That results is a sheen and color tone very similar to a new and clean passenger car.  But clear-coating that finish will dull it a bit (even if using a water-based clear).

And of course, practice color tests on a plastic spoon before painting the actual model.

[BCR751]

The Alclad paint sounds promising but it's not available here.  Our LHS has a good stock of Vallejo so I think I'll go with that for now.  I will definitely do a bunch of testing prior to painting the models since I don't have much experience with the Vallejo brand.

Anyone have a suggestion for a spray pressure for the Vallejo paint?

Doug

[peteski]

Hmm..  Most US hobby shops carry Alclad II. There are also bunch of Canadien shops mentioned on http://alclad2.com/buy/canadian-retailers-distributors/
You could probably also order it directly from Alclad.  That paint is nothing like any paint you ever worked with.  It is more like very thin metallic coating than actual paint.  That is why it looks so realistic.