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Tamiya TS-79: replicating Pre-V finish = Awesome


Grimlocktime

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There've been tons of Pre-V posts recently. I'm loving it. In that spirit I thought I'd share some pics of a few of my dial finish jobs.

A few months back, I had a few FGD dials that needed refinishing. Projectologist shared a tip with me about Tamiya TS-79 semi gloss. What a great piece of advice. I've never held a gen dial but apparently those that have swear TS-79, when applied properly, produces the closest finish to gen.

The finish on the gen dial is produced by bead blasting the brass dial and then anodizing it. So to achieve that fine texture out of a spray can, the trick I use is to warm up the paint in warm tap water. I think this helps with lowering the viscosity of the paint and helping it to aerosolize. I use about 6 passes from about 12 inches away at several different directions to get a good even coat.

Here's my most recent it started out as a totally bare FGD 202. No paint fill, no finish only the printing. I sent it to a master on HF to work the non matching lume and then sprayed it with the TS-79.

BF4A03BA-130F-4B9A-A7ED-5321917A2F3C-193

0E5EAA4E-9F17-471F-B6B2-AD7A1AD33E2E-193

EBEA549E-67A5-444A-A50C-B9DADEDE3DC7-193

Same story on my FGD 203a

66347557-CCD4-470F-B4B3-5C0F1DDE9EF2-878

Get spraying!

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Looks really good, and even! 

 

I've done a few dials like this myself. I always had a problem of spatter, so I sprayed low and from about the same distance... painting with the 'side mist' instead of the actual spray as it is even finer. Looks like you got that effect too!

 

I still have a 1/4 can left... hopefully I'll get around to building another 202 one day ;)

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Looks really good, and even! 

 

I've done a few dials like this myself. I always had a problem of spatter, so I sprayed low and from about the same distance... painting with the 'side mist' instead of the actual spray as it is even finer. Looks like you got that effect too!

 

I still have a 1/4 can left... hopefully I'll get around to building another 202 one day ;)

Try warming the paint first. It does great things! Just 5 minutes in 105-110 (deg F) tap water and you're good to go! I've done four dials with this method. All with the same results.

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