This article by Scott Lowther first appeared on his
The Unwanted Blog. It is reposted here with the author's kind permission.
by Scott Lowther
For several years I’ve been looking for a cost effective way to “gold plate” display models without actually plating them in gold. I know it’s possible…. cheap plastic toys are often “gold plated” by way of vapour-depositing aluminium on them, then putting a yellow-tinted clear coat over that. The results can be quite successful. For example:
Aluminium plating these things is cost effective because it’s done on an industrial scale. Getting it done on an individual part scale? Meh.
I’ve tried every “gold paint” that I can find, and not a one of ‘em actually looks like gold. The best of them looks like… gold paint. So, yellow-clear-coating “chrome” seems about the only way to go.
The closest you can come to “chrome” without actual metal plating is one of a few speciality paints. I’ve heard good things about “Spaz Stix Ultimate Mirror Chrome,” but have not tried it.
One thing I have used with some notable success is Alclad II Chrome in an airbrush. Applied properly, it’s not quite an actual mirror surface, but it looks pretty damned good. So, I decided to try yellow-clear-coating Alclad Chrome to see what I get.
First up… I took a 1/24 Dyna Soar display model and chromed it. This was a model built from all the parts that stink… the original body mold was seriously flawed (and has been replaced with a mold that’s great, producing awesome castings), and the smaller parts were early castings that were munged up in various and sundry way.
It was assembled as a fit check, and to be used in sizing things like the display stand and the packaging. Since it is and always will be a serious mess, I didn’t go overboard in surface prep. When using Alclad Chrome, proper surface prep is vital, but this was just a test… and on the whole the results looked pretty good anyway:
I then oversprayed part of that with Alclad clear yellow. The results:
Well, it’s better than gold paint, but it’s still far from being mistaken for actual gold. The yellow seemed to dull the chrome… I wonder if the yellow ate into the chrome and fuzzed it out some.
Perhaps yellow dye (food colouring?) in something like nitrocellulose lacquer might do the trick…
In any event, I liked the chrome enough that I think I might make me a chrome Dyna Soar one of these days. I’ll be the only kid on my block with one!
That was really imaginative. I have seen metal plated - using thin layers of self-adhesive metal foil - on aircraft models, but they all had a silver/chrome look about them. This is the first I've seen trying to replicate gold.
ReplyDeleteThere are spray on lacquers that give a mirror finish chrome effect, I had the cyberguns done (not cheap). Don't know if they do gold, but the chrome is excellent.
ReplyDelete