Hobby color - transparentní modrá

A clear blue for lights and glazes

Clear shades work differently from ordinary covering paints: they do not hide the surface underneath, they only change its tone. The blue glaze from the Hobby Color acrylic range is therefore applied over a silver, clear or very light surface and lets the detail and the shine show through.

It does most of its work on lighting. A clear position light part is painted over and at once has the right color without losing its transparency; the same goes for beacons, turn indicators, reflectors and the colored glass of instruments. The second large area is tinting metal: over polished silver it creates a cold steel cast, the kind that heat-stressed sheet metal or blued components have.

The strength is controlled by the number of coats, not by the thickness of the coat. One thin coat barely suggests the shade, three or four already give a deep tone, and full drying is needed between each of them. It is applied mainly with an airbrush; with a brush there is a risk of visible strokes, as clear binders do not hide brush marks.

The surface underneath decides. A smooth, perfectly polished surface belongs under a glaze; every scratch or flat spot stands out after application even more than it did before.

Two common pitfalls

The first is impatience. A further coat laid over a previous one that is still wet disturbs the film underneath and leaves blotches that can only be removed by sanding back and starting again. The second is too much paint in one place: the glaze runs, builds up along the lower edge and leaves a dark band there once dry. Lower air pressure, a greater distance from the part and above all a pause between passes will help.