Postat 22 February 2005 - 12:29 PM
De pe Scalemodel.net, "Modeling F.A.Q.". Textul e in engleza si cam lung dar cred ca merita studiat:
"Q] What are these new "acrylic" paints I'm hearing about?
[A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 11/96)
Typical paints have 3 components:
- pigment : the material (often a metal compound) that gives the paint
its color.
- vehicle : the solid material that is left on the surface after the
paint dries. This is what gives the paint its protective
properties.
- solvent : the liquid that the "vehicle" is disolved in so as to
make the paint liquid in the bottle.
Paints are characterized by both the type of vehicle and solvent used,
and also as one of "enamel" or "lacquer".
An "enamel" is a paint that both "dries" and "cures". After applying
an enamel, the solvent evaporates, leaving a layer of the vehicle
material on the surface. The vehicle then "cures", undergoing a chemical
change that makes it much harder and usually less soluble in the original
solvent used in the paint. This is why it is so easy to finger print a fresh
coat of enamel paint even though it is dry to the touch - it hasn't
cured yet.
A "lacquer" on the other hand only "dries" - as soon as the solvent
evaporates the paint film is in its final state. Lacquers remain soluble
in the original solvent used in the paint - those solvents can be used to
remove a lacquer paint long after the paint has dried. Lacquers may
appear to "cure" - the surface will appear dry but the paint will still
be soft enough to fingerprint for some time after painting - but this
is because solvent is trapped under the dry surface and takes a little
while to completely evaporate.
These two ways of characterizing a paint are often mixed - for example
an "acrylic lacquer" is a lacquer type paint with an acrylic (plastic)
based vehicle. Since it is a lacquer, the solvent is implied to be
a petroleum based "lacquer thinner".
As you might expect, "enamels" and "lacquers" have various tradeoffs
that affect which you might want to use for a particular application.
The big advantage of lacquers is their lack of curing time - air dryed
enamels can take weeks to cure to full hardness, while lacquers dry
hard enough to handle/sand/polish within 24-48 hours. The vehicle and
pigments used in lacquer paints has (at least traditionally) been much
more opaque than that in enamels, so when using lacquers you can apply
a thinner paint film that doesn't obscure surface detail. Lacquers
also tend to dry harder than enamels (even after the enamel cures),
which makes them more durable. This means the paint doesn't wear off
the parts from handling during final assembly, and is less likely to
wear through during polishing.
The downside to lacquers is that the solvents used are usually pretty
nasty stuff that will attack kit styrene, brush bristles and brain cells
with equal glee. The other problem with lacquers is that painting one
color over another can result in the top coat re-disolving and mixing
with the base coat, resulting in muddy colors.
IMPORTANT NOTE: the word "enamel" is sometimes used to refer to any
glossy colored finish, regardless of it's chemistry. The most common
example of this "mis-naming" is on bottles of nail polish that tout
themselves as "nail enamel", when their behavior is usually more like
a lacquer. In fact model car builders sometimes use nail polish and
treat it just like a lacquer paint - even down to thinning it with
lacquer thinner.
Until recently, most paints intended for modeling - like the little
bottles of Testor's - were traditional enamels, using relatively mild
petroleum (or "oil") based solvents with "alkyld" based vehicles [no,
I don't know what an "alkyld" is - any paint chemists have a simple
explanation?] In addition to the obvious benefits for modeling - relatively
safe for plastic and humans, no problems with detail painting on top
of a base coat - these paints have drawbacks for the serious modeler:
they take a long time to cure, never cure very hard, and go on so
thick that they obscure molded in surface detail.
But technology marches on... Lacquers have been formulated with
more plastic-friendly solvents. Acrylic, and to a lesser extent
polyurethane derived "vehicles" make it possible to formulate an
"enamel" paint that covers as thin and dries and cures nearly as fast
and hard as a lacquer. The ultimate trend in this direction are
"aqueous acrylic enamels" - enamel paints with an acrylic vehicle that
use *water* as a solvent.
ANOTHER NOTE: Modelers often refer to "aqueous acrylics" as simply
"acrylics". This is a little dangerous, since there are also
"petroleum-based acrylic enamels" and "petroleum-based acrylic lacquers"
available, and you don't want to mix up the thinners for these 3
very different types of paints. "