Hi Guys,

Has anyone used the AK Extreme Metal paints? I'm a bit confused and as they are pretty expensive so I thought I'd see if anyone here has experience with them. Not the True Metal in Tubes but the Extreme Metal in bottles.

I've seen a couple of Youtube vids both from AK and from a couple of users.

Main question is if these paints are impervious to a mineral spirits weathering wash, as seen in the AK video, then I'm presuming you can't use mineral spirits to clean your airbrush after use? Does anyone know the answer to that? Do you have to buy their thinner?

Second there are a couple of colors that are a "Polished" color and these have to go over a black base. I'm wondering if the non-polished colors do as well? They are listed as "Enamel" paints on Scale Hobbyist website which is my main supplier.

Thanks for any insight. The paints look great but I hate to spend $30 bucks for 3 bottles before I know more.

Thanks guys,

George

George, I don't know the answers to your questions from personal experience, but in the absence of any other responses... From what I have read, they can be cleaned with cellulose / lacquer thinners, so not white spirit. However, that type of stuff is particularly noxious to use, while I read that AK's cleaner worked very well but didn't smell too bad. However, it's possible that nail varnish remover may also work, which is cheap and not too poisonous. I think I'd go for buying the thinner, thing is, you know it's going to work, won't feel like you're about to ruin your airbrush, and it's a 100ml bottle so unless you're doing tons of metal painting it will last a long time. You can always try nail polish remover as well and let us know how it goes...

As for applying over black primer, AK state that it is recommended but not necessary to prime; personally I'd always apply primer, so why not? Perhaps try something like Plastikote or even just black auto primer.

Hope that helps... probably not.

Thanks for the reply Matthew,

Yes I've heard lacquer thinner to clean and I agree it's nasty stuff.

I'll probably buy their thinner, but another thing is the range of tonal colors (polished, white and normal aluminum). You can't really tell unless you see these in person. As most know, seeing them even in a good video is not the same thing.

It's going to be an expensive proposition seeing if these work for me or not.

They're very similar to Alclad in my experience. They spray very well with good coverage. I normally use acetone to clean my airbrush with. Smells terrible but I have a large exhaust fan pulling the fumes out and I think Ive gotten use to the smell. Probably killed off some brain cells inadvertently too. Hope this helps.

They are great, though they're not acrylic based as I understand. They smell like enamel based. The result is very convincing, the layer of color is ultra thinn, but stone hard. I used some typical enamel washings direct on the extreme metal layer, everything worked very nice. I also tried to handle my test with fingers for a while, to see if they're sensible to wear, but no, they're stiff.

My new favourite metallic colours, ready so spray out of the bottle

You think better then Alclad II?

Jeff

Sorry for reviving this thread.

Months ago I purchased AK Extreme Metal Copper and Brass. The pigment was badly separated from the binder and no matter how much mixing I did, I could never get the paint to mix properly.

I sent a couple of pictures to AK Interactive of the issue stated, and they responded very quickly by sending me new bottles. "No questions asked". They even threw in Chrome and Aluminium as a gift for my troubles.

Now, IMHO the AK Extreme Metal pigment (metal flakes) is coarser than Alclad II. I painted the props on a 1/350 ship with the AK Extreme Metal Brass and the metal flakes in the paint looked way out of scale (too big for a tiny prop). I've not used it on a 1/35 project yet. So take that into consideration when purchasing.

you may find this interesting

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=67413