Nail varnish as paint...?

[Ian M]

Silly season is upon us so its silly question time :-)

Our local super market has a huge amount of really freaky coloured nail varnish on offer.

Some of the colours are rather wicked and I can so see a few cars that would look way cool. The question is this; Does any one know if you can a; use them to paint a kit with. b; if they can be airbrushed.

The idea of an Aston Martin in "Green forest pearl" or a Lambo in "funky lemon" is almost to much. What about a beetle in pearl pink candy!

Ian M

[Dave W]

My daughter uses false nails which are plastic.And she uses nail varnish on them.So it would probably be ok on a model.As always its best to experiment first.will have a go myself.

[Centurion3RTR]

Hi Ian, try it and see on some scrap mate. I did it once and it melted the plastic and when the missis takes the nail varnish off it smells just like cellulose thinners.

Have fun, John

[Guest]

yes you can. Use cellulose thinners to thin. DO NOT under any circumstances use nail polish remover, it contains acetone and will melt all plastic into a gooey puddle in seconds. Ideally you'd spray over a primer coat otherwise very light layers.

[Guest]

Heres a how to i found on the web some time ago.

How To Paint Models With Nail Polish :: BMC

Also make sure your AB is cellulose safe, Teflon seals and the like

[Centurion3RTR]

Heres a how to i found on the web some time ago.How To Paint Models With Nail Polish :: BMC

Also make sure your AB is cellulose safe, Teflon seals and the like

Great find that is, i must of done something wrong when i did it. The site is now in the favorites and the daughter has some nail polish that glows in the dark lol.

Ian mate, a funky lemon Aston Martin is on the cards next then?

Have fun, John

[Guest]

It's a great site isn't it, I found that ages ago and have scoured many of tutorials on there, some really useful stuff which can be applied to various models.

I wouldn't say you did anything wrong, some of the varnishes will have a cellulose base and as it's a hot solvent laying it on thickly will start to melt plastic, some styrene is softer and less resilient than others as well. This is why when using celluloe based stuff it's important to lay on a couple of mist coats which flash off quickly first, this coats the model without giving enough time to bite into the plastic and creating a protective barrier for the wet coats.

As mentioned, if you got Acetone anywhere ner it then you can kiss the plastic goodbye, that stuff is utterly vicious and should be banned, the very fact it's used to strip polish off of nails beggars belief, I wouldn't want to be wiping that on any part of me.

My wife messed around with the whole false nails thing, they're made of a thick hard plastic and the acetone melts them (it's what they use to remove flase nail tips as they're superglued on)

Now, glow in the dark nail polish, that could be interesting.

[Ian M]

Well it looks like I'm going to be having some fun some time later.

My airbrush can handle just about anything so no worries there.

A funky lemon Aston? An Aston would get the Forest green pearl, the funky lemon was for a Lambo. Think I might just go shopping tomorrow.

Ian M

[Guest]

Look forward to the results.

Glow in the dark aston?

[Ian M]

Look forward to the results.Glow in the dark aston?

I wonder if you could get the dashboard lighted up with that?!!?

Hmm, what about a toffee apple 911?

Ian M

[AFC]

I used some orange nail varnish for a couple of truck indicators and it worked great! And it was applied on top of the paint with no medium coat in between.

Good luck for your Aston and Lambo ... def my vote goes to the glow in the dark aston...brilliant! :-)