Natural Metal Finishes Featuring Alclad II First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Last year, we had a pleasant surprise with the premier release of an intensive 3+ hour DYI (do it yourself) video on how to build the Hasegawa 1/32 Bf 109G-6. While the title and the focus of the video was indeed on building that particular kit, the wealth of modeling techniques demonstrated in-depth by host Floyd Werner proved invaluable on a variety of other kit subjects. If you haven't seen this video yet, check out the review here.

Floyd is back with a new video. In this second release, he steps back from any subject specific modeling and covers the intimidating subject of bare metal finishes. As with his previous release, you watch each step as it unfolds so you won't miss any important steps along the way.

The video is about 1.5 hours in length and you can see on the screen shot to the right that it is subdivided into sections of interest so you can refer back to specific issues at any time.

As the title indicates, the techniques shown are based upon using the outstanding series of lacquer finishes from Alclad II. These finishes are virtually bulletproof and Floyd shows the proper steps for preparing, spraying, shading, and finishing a model using the Alclad II family of products.

For the purposes of the video, Floyd builds three different P-47s to demonstrate different aspects and techniques for attaining a nice finish. I saw these three models on display at their booth at the IPMS/USA National Convention in Kansas City and they look as impressive in person as they do on disc.

Floyd steps you through the process of accomplishing bare metal finishes from removing parts from the sprues, proper gluing and fitting, techniques for seam filling, sanding and polishing, masking, priming, applying the lacquer, fixing problems, and even weathering. The Alclad II system can also produce chrome-finishes using the black primer which is also demonstrated in-depth on this video (see the image below).

Floyd also demonstrates how to strip pre-chromed parts down to the bare styrene to reveal details lost in the chroming process, then how to apply the Alclad II chrome lacquers to achieve far better results. As a bonus, he also shows how to use Alclad II Gold and Transparent Green to create metallic brass finishes for ships' props, etc.

This video is another outstanding modeling resource and while books and photos can show some good techniques, there is nothing like a DYI video to walk you through the steps in the comfort of your living room or computer chair.

My sincere thanks to Master Class Model Building Videos for this review sample! This video is definitely recommended!