Acrysion - ocel

A metallic cast for barrels, tracks and exhausts

Steel is not silver. It has a cool, slightly grayed tone with a fine sheen that on a model instantly tells a metal component apart from sprayed sheet. This shade therefore comes into its own on gun barrels, on the ends of exhausts, on track links, on the edge of a dozer blade, on forged tools and in places where the paint has gone from the touch of the crew.

Metallic pigment behaves differently from an opaque color. It calls for a smooth and preferably darker base, because every scratch and every mark of sandpaper shows more strongly under fine metal particles than it does with flat tones. It is laid on lightly and slowly, so that the pigment lies parallel to the surface; that is exactly what gives the typical metallic reflection.

The binder is acrylic and soluble in water until it dries, so the gun and the stirrer are rinsed without solvents and the work does not fill the workshop with fumes. It is a good idea to let a dry layer cure thoroughly and only then polish it with a cotton bud or a dry graphite lead; polishing can raise the sheen to a genuinely metallic impression.

Finally a dark wash helps, picking out the shape of the part and taking the newness off the metal.

It is worth adding to your equipment a small glass jar in which the paint is mixed with a few drops of water before work. Metallic shades settle to the bottom faster than pigmented tones, and an unmixed residue at the bottom of the bottle tends to be the most common cause of an uneven spray.

On tracks it pays to combine: a dark brown base and then the steel tone only with a dry brush on the edges of the teeth and on the face over which the tank has slid.