Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Halfords spray enamel

As a wise man said to a group of RC aircraft modellers last week, "When painting a large area you are probably better off with an aerosol can than an airbrush."

How right I am. Which is why when it came to paint a boat hull over a metre long for my Dad, we went shopping in the car paint aisle of Halford motor centre. In the past I've used their paints on boats to good effect, the range of colour is excellent and the cans are designed to be easy enough for the sort of bloke who aspires to being in the Top Gear audience but hasn't worked out the pretty ladies get pushed to the front while anyone who can reel off the specs for the Subaru range will be a long way from the presenters.

Anyway, colours were picked out and then I spotted on the other side of the aisle, a small range of spray enamels. Something made me swap the acrylics for these. After all, I use enamel on everything else and they had the colours I required, so why not give them a go? It's not more expensive than the car stuff and since it wasn't my boat, I wasn't paying anyway...

Working over a grey primer base coat, the paint went on well. A couple of reasonable coats didn't show any signs of running or sagging. I accelerated drying with a hairdrier but mostly because I was in a cold garage. Coverage was very good, although being blue over grey this probably isn't the toughest test in the world. The finish was nice and shiny - just what I wanted for the model being constructed. Even the smell wasn't as bad as the normal paint, although I wore a mask anyway.

OK, it's not Humbrol, but when if I need a spray paint when the local model shop is shut or out of stock, I think I'd be happy to give it go again.

Halfords Enamel Paint Range

3 comments:

Sam said...

Wilkinsons have a good range of spray paints for around a fiver, Its what I'm using to paint my model slipway tsekoa

Michael Campbell said...

I used the Halfords enamel (dark green) for my 014 Lister, it gave a very nice finish and covered well.

Phil Parker said...

British Spit-Bang green? :-)