a question about painting

[DroidHunter]

Painting has never been my thing, but I want to hand paint my helmet anyway. I know Testors recommends repainting either within 1st 3 hours or after 48. What amount of time do you guys generally allow between 1st and 2nd coats?

[A Master Builder]

I waited a few hours on mine, with the second coat. It dries very quickly. 

 

BTW TESTORS PAINT THINNER DOES NOT MELT YOUR ARMOR. 

 

If you do mess up, use that thinner to clean it up

[maxsteele[TK]]

I'm using Testors on my helmet.  

 

I only did one coat with my vocoder.  It covered well enough the first pass.

 

I waited 24 hours with the frown on a second coat.  I don't think I needed to, but it was just a stopping point for me and I couldn't get back to it for another 24 hours.  I probably would have been fine waiting a couple of hours.

 

The one thing I did notice is don't start trying to paint a new coat or put your brush over the new paint within the first 30 minutes or so.  The paint is still goopy and you'll start lifting the paint up and causing deep brush strokes in the drying paint.  I was able to clean mine up when I did that, but it's best to avoid it.

[Ales]

I used humbrol paint and wait about 10 hours between layers.

[Darth Voorhees[501st]]

Testors dries fast..id say an hour or 2 is plenty ....i just wait till its not tacky anymore and then recoat. I used testors 1138 for the grey. I use Humbrol matte black for the vocoder though.

[DroidHunter]

I appreciate all of the advice. I testing things out by painting the hovi-mics. They are small and mostly recessed, so minor errors won't show!  I waited about 2 to 2 1/2 hours before the recoat and all went well. Good practice before starting the teeth and tube stripes. And I used a mixture of Testors gloss black and flat black on them.

[maxsteele[TK]]

Just to chime in - I used Gray 1138 for the frown, and will use that for the traps and tears.  I used flat black for the vocoder and the mic tips.