Need help with the steps of painting

Hello,
I'm new here to this forum, and I've read all the FAQ for the newbies. I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing before I paint my tamiya mini cooper.

I'd like to paint it mini cooper red using automotive paint with white roof.

According to Jay, the moderator here:
1. Solid colour (non-metallic):
a) primer
b) sanding the primer if necessary
c) paint (several coats)
d) sanding (if rough orange peel)
e) cutting/rubbing/polishing - whatever you call it - compound. By the end of this step the paint should be smooth as a baby's butt!)
f) decals
g) wax

My questions are:

1. Do I need to sand the body before I use the primer?
2. Can I use Meguiar's Scratch X for polishing?
3 Is clear coat necessary? If yes, when do apply it?
4. Are all these painting steps recommeneded for the small parts as well?

Thank you!:screwy:

My questions are:

1. Do I need to sand the body before I use the primer?
2. Can I use Meguiar's Scratch X for polishing?
3 Is clear coat necessary? If yes, when do apply it?
4. Are all these painting steps recommeneded for the small parts as well?

Thank you!:screwy:

Answers

1: I always lightly sand the body with very fine wet and dry paper used wet.This will give the surface of the model some 'key' for the paint to adhere to.Also make sure you remove any molding seams as well.The primer will show up any imperfections in the plastic that you can fix later.

2: You can use the 'Scratch X' for polishing,but I prefer the Tamiya or Finisher's brand ones myself.It's my personal preference but yes 'Scratch X' will do the job for you.

3: If you are using a gloss colour that dries to a gloss/shiny finish you don't need to add a clear coat if you don't want to.If you are just starting out you may find it easier to not clear coat.It adds another step to the painting process and can complicate matters.Keep it simple whenever you can.Certain colours need a clear coat.Some automotive type paints are designed to be clear coated as they dry to a satin or matt finish so they must have clear applied to attain a nice gloss.

4: This is personal preference.Some people primer everything on the kit.Me personally I only use primer on the body parts and any body colour parts or what I consider major parts.Most other parts I airbrush straight over the plastic with Tamiya acrylics or any other good model paint.The only real exception to this is if the colour of the kit plastic will affect the colour you paint.An example would be a part molded in black plastic that has to be painted red.For this I would use primer because if you paint red onto the black plastic it will dull the red considerably.

Hope this helps.

Great advice from Steve! If you follow that way, you should have no problems! good luck and have fun!

Welcome to AF!

Some other points:

You must sand the primer. And then put more on, and sand it. Again. The primer finish above all else will determine the quality of the final finish. If your primer is perfect, it's easy to put a perfect paint job over it. If your primer is imperfect, no amount of paint will hide the imperfections. Primer should take 60-70% of your time and effort while painting. Sand it until it shines- and if it doesn't keep at it. It just takes patience.

After you have a good base of primer, put on enough paint to build full opacity, and no more. If you have texture/flaws/debris in the color paint, wait for it to harden, sand it out, and apply more paint. DO NOT leave flaws to the end to fix. Apply paint in light, thin, even mistcoats.

Clearcoat is better to polish out than paint. Again apply the clearcoat in slow, light mistcoats. Build it up, but build it slowly. If flaws/texture appear, fix them with light sanding before continuing. It is always better to put the paint on well than to hope you can somehow fix it after it's all applied with sanding.

If you get the paint on smooth, you don't have to mess with micromesh sanding- and believe me, you want to avoid it if at all possible. Micromesh polishing is a poor substitute for putting the paint on right.

ScratchX is great for polishing- I prefer it to Tamiya medium compound. But it doesn't have quite as much 'bite' as Tamiya coarse- so I use coarse and then ScratchX.

These steps are really applicable only for body painting. There isn't really anything else in modeling that requires this level of effort to paint. For everything else (engines, interiors, suspensions, etc), I just airbrush paint straight on to bare (cleaned!) plastic.

I'm going to say that it's worth doing a little research on how classic car restorers work when they strip a car to bare metal to fix body panels and re-paint.

the amount of work that goes into the body before primer and during the primer stages is much more than the work that goes into painting and I find that it is the same for car modelling.

Most of my painting time is spent on working the primer stage.

As for micromesh; I've recently bought myself a set and I use it on my primer....

thank you so much everyone for your input. I'm so glad everyone is helpful here on this forum.

Welcome to AF!

Some other points:

You must sand the primer. And then put more on, and sand it. Again. The primer finish above all else will determine the quality of the final finish. If your primer is perfect, it's easy to put a perfect paint job over it. If your primer is imperfect, no amount of paint will hide the imperfections. Primer should take 60-70% of your time and effort while painting. Sand it until it shines- and if it doesn't keep at it. It just takes patience.

After you have a good base of primer, put on enough paint to build full opacity, and no more. If you have texture/flaws/debris in the color paint, wait for it to harden, sand it out, and apply more paint. DO NOT leave flaws to the end to fix. Apply paint in light, thin, even mistcoats.

Clearcoat is better to polish out than paint. Again apply the clearcoat in slow, light mistcoats. Build it up, but build it slowly. If flaws/texture appear, fix them with light sanding before continuing. It is always better to put the paint on well than to hope you can somehow fix it after it's all applied with sanding.

If you get the paint on smooth, you don't have to mess with micromesh sanding- and believe me, you want to avoid it if at all possible. Micromesh polishing is a poor substitute for putting the paint on right.

ScratchX is great for polishing- I prefer it to Tamiya medium compound. But it doesn't have quite as much 'bite' as Tamiya coarse- so I use coarse and then ScratchX.

These steps are really applicable only for body painting. There isn't really anything else in modeling that requires this level of effort to paint. For everything else (engines, interiors, suspensions, etc), I just airbrush paint straight on to bare (cleaned!) plastic.

Excellent guide - thanks!

Just out of interest if I was building a racing vehicle at which point is it best to apply decals and racing livery? on top of the paint coat or on top of the closs coat ?

cheers

John

Just out of interest if I was building a racing vehicle at which point is it best to apply decals and racing livery? on top of the paint coat or on top of the gloss coat ?


You'll get some debate on this.

Personally, I always apply my decals over the paint and then spray clearcoat. This obviously protects the decals, but it must be done very carefully. It also can hide the carrier film if done properly- this makes the decals look perfectly painted on.

Here are the reasons not to overcoat the decals:
1. Applied improperly, clearcoat (especially lacquer clearcoat) can destroy decals that it's sprayed over. Tamiya TS-13 is especially notorious for this. Lacquer clearcoat definitely can be sprayed safely over decals, but it must always be done slowly and only in light mist applications- no wetcoats!! Leave an hour or three in between applications of mistcoats, and never try do do it all in one afternoon. :grinno:

2. Some builders (particularly builders of NASCAR kits) will insist that visible carrier film on decals is actually more realistic, because it simulates the printed vinyl decals that are used for sponsor logos on some full scale race cars. Personally, I think an uncovered kit decal on a model never looks like anything but an uncovered kit decal on a model. If I want visible edges to simulate printed logos in 1:1, I'll apply the kit decals and clearcoat like usual. Then after the clearcoat is cured and polished, I'll cut appropriate shapes for the logos out of clear decal film (the stuff you can buy for print your own decals), and apply those over the clearcoated decals. It looks much better in my opinion.

As for micromesh; I've recently bought myself a set and I use it on my primer....

Micromesh is terrific for use on primer, :grinyes: especially the rougher grades like 3200 and 3600. I also use 2000 automotive sandpaper.

Welcome to AF!

If you get the paint on smooth, you don't have to mess with micromesh sanding- and believe me, you want to avoid it if at all possible. Micromesh polishing is a poor substitute for putting the paint on right.

YES, a thousand times yes!

Ddms

Just out of interest if I was building a racing vehicle at which point is it best to apply decals and racing livery? on top of the paint coat or on top of the closs coat ?
I like to put the decals on top of the first gloss coat, but under the final gloss coats.

Be sure to let decals cure for at least three days before clearcoating over them! A week is better, actually. And do like MPWR says: start with light, dry coats. Some decals are fine, but others react badly to paint, especially synthetic lacquers (Tamiya) and, according to recent reports, urethanes. I'm working on a model right now whose decals turned to bubbly messes when clearcoated with Tamiya TS-13 that was too wet. Luckily, they were just numbers, so I could replace them, but it was a headache.

I don't know why some people worry about replicating 1:1 logo edges. Vinyl logos on 1:1 race cars are very thin; a decal scaled up from 1:24 would be pretty doggone thick, like 1/4" or 3/8". Plus, 1:1 vinyl logos are cut to the imprint, whereas decals have a clear but visible border. Is anyone really suggesting that we trim off the border of each and every decal?

In this case, perfection is unattainable, but who really cares?

Ddms

Thanks chaps - very useul info - much appreciated! I'm using zero paints and lacquer on a Revell 962C build, so my plan is to get the primer as smooth as possible, spray the main colours and lacqer, - apply decals and then a final lacquer coat as to my eye they should always look painted on, especially on a 1/24 scale car.

thanks again!

John