Hi all.

Just got a jar of tamiya clear acrylic paint and I have never used it before, does it dry as a gloss finish or a matt finish?

Hi David, it dries as a gloss. Real nice trick for the pibber mast running lights is paint them whitr first, then the clear color over them. Inside head light I'd paint silver 1st,a whtie dot in the middle followed by a dot of yellow clear over the white. For tail lights the green plastic of most allied vehc's. painted with the red gives a good impression of the dark red lens.

It all depends on which one you've got. X35 is semi gloss clear which does dry as a semi gloss. XF85 is flat clear but I've found that it's somewhere between satin and matt as it's not a true matt finish so have gone back to Vallejo matt varnish. I tend to use flat acrylic for figures mainly so it does need to be flat proper not some sort of in between finish. On a positive though the Tamiya clear does go on nicely and no need to thin it down unlike their paints.

X22 is gloss. Sprays very well, especially thinned with Tamiya lacquer thinner, although even X20A thins it just fine.

As noted above, it really depends on whether you have their gloss, semi gloss or matt clear.

yeah that's what i have x-22 and i#m using x-20a thinners

didn't know there was 2 types. thanks for bringing that to my attention.

The clear gloss gives a nice smooth finish and is pretty durable. It tends to stay tacky a bit longer so give it a good 24-48 hrs to dry.