Help with paint problem
 

Painting this Late Tiger 1 with a base coat of Tamiya TS3 over primer. The hulls, wheels, accessories all worked fine. The turret has "orange peeled" across the entire surface, zimmerit included. I used the same primer and paint on everything. Maybe I didn't let this primer dry long enough or the paint was too thick. Any ideas?
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...d36f70a808.jpg

Was this airbrush or rattlecan? What was the ambient temperature and humidity when you painted the top coat?

As far as fixing it, I would roll with it. Use a stiff brush to chip away the orange peel, then determine if you want to respray, or somehow incorporate the chips surface into your weathering.

​​​​​​If the orange peel is down to the plastic, though, that's another story. That would imply poor adhesion of the primer, possibly due to an oily surface? Or overly thinned paint or overly thick application of it. In any case, that would complicate your call to paint over, integrate as weathering, or strip and start from scratch.


Sometimes I'll use purposeful orange peel to accentuate weathering. Sometimes it can be used to mimic paint flaking, which I'll bring out with pigments, then sealed in several coats of lacquer.

Here's a work in progress I'm working on, below. Several areas were orange-peeled down to the primer with thick paint in a cold environment (outside at night). Before I chipped at it, it looked a lot like your photo in terms of pattern and severity. The sprocket and road wheels are intentionally loaded up with thinned paint for the top two coats, sprayed on each other when wet, to induce the surface cracking.

My point is, orange peel doesn't have to be a death knell.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...5c69ac9b55.jpg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...04441b9592.jpg
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.rcu...9be18d5b04.jpg

Nice looking KT, Alpha, are you by any chance in Hawaii?

Thanks, Crius, I'm not at the moment. I recognize most real KTs didn't last long enough in service to build up nearly as much surface wear as is often depicted on models, but sometimes I can't help myself. Dirt and dust, sure, but extensive chipping and deep pitting especially rust, not really.

You say you're not in Hawaii at the moment? Does that mean you are who I think you are? If you are indeed the general, it's very, very good to see you here, my friend. You have been sorely missed at the other forum and I thought that you really got the short end of the stick on that whole deal. So welcome, either way, but if you are the general I think that's just great.

That is nice work indeed. I sanded the ripples out and tried to repaint. It did it again. So, I must have some problem at the plastic level. I'd go with it if it was consistent across the tank. However, all the other parts came out smooth. So, I'm going to shelve it, move on to other projects, and come back to it after working on some other techniques. I do thank you for the suggestions and obvious knowledge of paint. Great work!

Even a factory paint job on a tank is not perfect. Most of the time it's done by a guy spraying it by hand unlike cars which are done by robots and come out perfect in completely dust free environments. There is usually overspray, spray on rubber parts, and lots of masking issues. Just saying tank paint doesn't need to be perfect and by the time you weather the tank afterward it may not even show up anyway. I had an effect like that happen when I used an oil based paint over an oil based primer on my track motorcycle fairings. I switched to a different primer and the paints didn't interract anymore.