Small Scale Military Headquarters

Hay all
just need to know, can i spray the plastic on the 1/18 tbm avenger with testers paint or will it do that weird thing where it dose not dry right and it stays tacky.
need to know before i buy my paint tomorrow

Tough question to answer. You need to do a sample first. They used the same type paint through out the model . If you test the topedo bay you can find out . If it messes up the paint at least it will be hidden and you wont ruin the whole thing. Acrylics are the safest to use. The solvent in the enamles could do bad things.

ok thanks

You should be fine, I've done many repaints of my 1/18 aircraft using testors spray paint and they have all turned out fine. I think you get that semi-dry tacky effect when you try to use enamel based paints on the softer plastic of the figures. The vehicles and the figures use different types of plastic.

I've used testors enamel paints (both spray and bottle) on almost every XD or BBI airplane I own and there's no issue. However, the tires on all these planes will not take enamels. The paint will forever be sticky. Use acrylics only on tires or on the figures (same plastics)

I have used it too, but I usually prime first.

Paint that doesn't dry is actually reacitng poorly to the plastic and it's a chemical breakdown. It's more melting than not drying, is the point.

Stiff rigid plastic, such as ABS "styrene", takes well to most spray paints. It's PVC, which figures are made of, that doesn't react well to spray paints and oil based paints and things. Some action figures have more rigid styrene type plastics on them here and there, but anymore more figures are made entirely of poly-vinyl PVC type plastics from head to toe.