Veil from an airbrush. Good in theory, but...

[brick]

My Veil finally showed up so I gave it a shot with the airbrush. It might just be that I have a crappy brush, but it didn't work out so well. I had a hell of a time getting it to go through properly. When I finally got it to flow I ended up with more Veil in the air than on the plate. After I'd run for cover and aired out the room I gave it another shot on a different setting. This time I got plenty of veil on the plate...too much. The thing came out positively black. (It looked like I'd tried to paint it black to match the car but failed miserably. Very ugly.) I cleaned it off andtried again with the bristled brush but that came out the same...way to dark, very obvious. So I can definitely confirm what everyone else who's tried it already knows: it takes a few failed attempts to get it right.

What I've finally settled on, and looks very promising as it sits wet on the table, is a very light coating of Veil on the plate plus a plate cover that's coated on both sides. (I couldn't find a plate cover at Autozone so I just went with a spare piece of plexiglass from my remote display housing project.) I'll post pictures when it's done and on the car. It's going to be dark but hopefully not obvious. I think that the airbrush thing would work if one had a higher-quality piece than my 10 year old POS Testors kit that's meant for painting plastic models. Oh well. I guess it was worth the attempt.

[marlinspike]

Why paint the plate if youre putting on a cover?
Richard

[brick]

Good point. Maybe I'll just get it as clean as I can and put the cover on. The only reason I did anything to the plate the second time around is because I had veil left on the brush and nothing else to do with it...who knows. It's a work in progress.

[marlinspike]

My recommendation, clean that plate ASAP if you plan on ever cleaning it, unless you like a pink plate.
Richard

[SETITOFF]

Good try brick. You may still be onto something with the airbrush testing though. Trial and error....

[brick]

It's looking OK now. I cleaned it off with rubbing alcohol last night and it's still a little pink but only a bit. This stuff stains fast, though. I only had it on the plate for a couple of hours. I don't think I'm going to touch this stuff again until I get a real plate cover or the weather warms up enough to do the headlights. Too expensive to do any more experimentation!

Incidentally, I did do the chrome grill successfully. I pulled it off the car and did it indoors. Using the foam brush I got a fairly even coating with only a few drips down the back. So that much actually worked, and I think that the darker color actually looks ok on the black car.