Fujimi 1970 Le Mans #23 917K - Attwood\Herrmann

[LeeABC]

Looking really nice, especially the seats. keep up the good work!

Lee.

[MidMazar]

Looking good.

[ianc911]

Just another post to keep up to date. I think most of the major work as far as building the various subassemblies on this car is done; what remains is the paint and decal work on the body. Here are some more pics of pieces painted but waiting for final assembly:







I did manage to get a little final paintwork done on the belly pan and fan cover, but they both look somewhat orange-peely for some reason, so I will need to sand them back to smooth and have another go. Not sure why, I thinned the paint adequately, waited for a warm dry day and shot relatively close at about 18 PSI, but the paint just did not level adequately while drying. Anyone hazard a guess as to why?







Ah well, the weather forecast is rain all week long, so I'll concentrate on finishing the last couple of small bits that need attention on the body and hopefully come the weekend I'll be ready to put some orange peel, er... paint on it.

In the interim to keep busy, I've begun work on a 1:43 MA scale models (http://www.mamodels.com/) 914-6, the 6th place Sonauto car in the 1970 Le Mans. I'd heard some tales about MA's quality, but this body has more pin holes than a dart board; what a nightmare! Should be starting a WIP on that one soon...

Ta, and thanks for looking,

ianc

[ewestra]

Nice progress man. Your paintproblem could be the paint is still to thick. It must have th esame thicknes as milk. Would love the build on the 914-6. I used to be building a lot of 43rd but now I'm having more fun in 24rd.

Eric

[ianc911]

OK, well, another small update. I've actually gotten off my arse and painted the body, but of course it was all orange-peely as I expected. I cannot seem to get a smooth coat of paint to lay down for the life of me! I think you may be right Eric, in that I'm not thinning the paint enough. I've already sanded it back again and will be adding another couple coats shortly, so this time I'm going to thin the crap out of it first. Here's some shots of a mockup before I sanded it back:



Note the peel on the left rear fin; it's pretty much all over...



The rear:



ianc

[5spdstang]

I think it looks pretty good....keep in mind....No matter how awesome a race car looks...few are ever 100% perfect in fit finish and paint. A lil orange peel adds to the scale authenticity

[ianc911]

A lil orange peel adds to the scale authenticity

Ha, I'm inclined to agree with you, but bumps this big would look like grapes on the real car!

ianc

[5spdstang]

Originally Posted by ianc911

Ha, I'm inclined to agree with you, but bumps this big would look like grapes on the real car!

ianc

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!

True.....maybe paint it white and tell eveyone its team GOLF, instead of GULF

[rgriffs]

please excuse me for telling you stuff you probably know, but, if you are having a problem with any process in modelling, have a practice first on some scrap.
i have had similar problems with my airbrushing, so i took myself off to my garage to practice. as in previous posts, thin the paint right down. make sure you are using compatible thinners. paint the edges, inner wheel arches, panel lines, headlamp cut outs and glass apertures first, then concenrate on the panels. thin paint will tend to run away from edges, so coat them first.
if you need to get rid of orage peel, it should be ok to rub it down with wet 2000 grit paper. it should polish up fine.
your model looks good, and you enjoy it. seems good to me.

[LeeABC]

I think it looks fine, nothing that a few hours polishing won't sort out. I think it's more important to get a flaw free finish at this stage i.e no hairs or particles and if your going to clear coat that will help. I spent 8 hours polishing the top coat on my DBR1, the base coat was clean but being matt it wasn't that smooth and for authenticity I think a pre thinned clear coat looks best on a race car. These cars never had glassy smooth wet look paint.

Cheers,
Lee.

[ewestra]

Looking really nice there Ian. Good progress you've made sofar. It's time to do the decals

Eric

[ianc911]

Thanks for the good words rgriffs; I think the advice to thin the paint down further was spot on. I've added another two coats to it since sanding it back and both times I've thinned the paint much more than I had been previously. The paint does not cover that well when very thin (hence a lot of coats needed), but it likes to flow much better after being sprayed and is leveling nicely. I think another coat or two might do it.

I'm hoping that thinning the paint more may help it to dry faster as well. These Tamiya acryls seem to be taking forever to dry. Before, I was still getting fingerprints in my test strips almost a week later. Can anyone comment on that? How long do you wait before decaling, or rubbing it down with high grit paper?

ianc

[ianc911]

Well, here's a little further progress to report. Finally managed to get a decent coat of paint on the body. I think I've got the proper thinning of the paint sorted out now. It's been curing for about a week and a half, so it's probably close to being fingerprint proof. I'm thinking it's a good idea to try to mask and paint the headlight buckets before diving into the decalling in case I screw it up. Not sure how I'm going to mask that though. I have only the Tamiya tape and it's not too good at masking rounded corners and shapes... I do have some Micro Mask, but when I tested it on one of my test strips, it marred the paint when I peeled it off...





Also finally got the lower body shell painted and cleared with flat so I could start building it up with the motor, cockpit and suspension components:







I'm thinking I won't use a gloss for the final clear over the decals, but maybe only a semi-gloss, since I'll be attempting some weathering on this once it's together. Not sure exactly how I'll proceed with that, but Eric Westra has given me some good ideas.

Slowly but surely... 'Til next time,

ianc

[ewestra]

Going well there Ian. The paint looks good. When masking the headlights see how I did it in my WIP on the 917. It should be OK. The rest of the build looks very nice and clean. Best of luck with the decalling.

Eric

[ianc911]

Hey Eric, thanks for the good word! I went and checked back over your WIP again, but couldn't find any reference to the headlight masking. Suddenly, they were just painted.

Did I miss something? Any advice? I saw Scratchbuilt used a kind of 3M plastic masking tape that can conform to curves very well when he was finishing up his 908. I looked around for it on ebay, but could only find one seller in the UK offering it and it was rather expensive, so I gave it a miss. Maybe I need to take another look. I'll probably have a go with the Tamiya tape first though if no better idea presents itself...

ianc