McLaren Project 4/6 - Page 6

John18d · 09-29-2011, 12:58 PM

Not so sure it's an isolated issue Scale Master - I've heard of this before and the Top Studio MP4/4 build is experiencing this too. It's definitely a chemical attack on the underlying paint coats. When I used to paint 1:1 motorcycles and cars I was told that paints can go off "too old" by many paint suppliers, but I always thought that was just their way to sell more product, but it could be true that VOC's can evaporate from the mixtures, but in a spray-can it's all sealed??? - John

Tibi Keke · 09-29-2011, 01:29 PM

@ John, are you shore the paints from the MP4/4 Build help are from Tamiya? I asked a couple of days ago in this topic : http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbul....php?t=1070828 but i got not a clear answer.
Well, i will be forced to do some tests to see how this two paints (TS 26, TS 36) and the Clear TS 13 work together.
@ scalemaster : how exactly did you paint the body? How much days, weeks or months between the colours? How did you paint / cleared ? Primer , TS 26, TS 13 , TS 36 and completlly cleared with TS 13 or Primer , TS 26, TS 36 and TS 13? You write somewhere your decals cleared with the Tamiya Clear (i suppose TS 13) are cracked, but that was on the white paint.
I ask you because i'm working on a Mclaren two and i sprayed the white color TS 26 and clearcoated with Tamiya TS13. Now i plan to use the Fluorescent red...Thanks in advance for your answer!

Scale-Master · 11-02-2011, 08:46 AM

To answer your question, I used Tamiya Fine White Primer as the base.
Then applied TS-26 over all parts that were to be white or Fl. Red.
The white was allowed to dry and cure fully before the TS-36 was applied.
Once the TS-36 was built up, I sprayed a few light "sealer" coats of TS-13 over all the white and Fl. Red areas. Not moderate, not heavy coats, and within the standard recoat safe timeframe.
All was fine, for several weeks while it sat in a closet to dry/cure.
Then it went wonky and I had to chase the problems as they presented themselves... Now onto the present...

Finally (!), I was able to fix the paint that was not drying correctly. I sanded out the cracked areas on the nose section and repainted it. You can see it was being problematic for a while and that I had tried to repaint it before by the “tree rings”. Here is how nasty it was looking while being sanded out and reworked…

As for the main red section of the body, I sanded out part of it and found that TS-36 can be successfully blended into finished areas of the same paint, so I only had to paint part of that big area. I applied the paint very, very slowly this time only by airbrush over an 8 hour period, lightly building it up and paying close attention to the blend lines. Once it proves to me that it is stable, I’ll move onto decals and clear coat…

Tibi Keke · 11-02-2011, 09:13 AM

Thank you for your answer. My personal opinion is that the clear (TS13) is your problem, not the paint.
I did some tests with the Tamiya TS 36 paint. I sprayed from the can on bare plastic. That was on 28 September. Today the paint is the same, no cracks and dryed complettly. I tryed to scratch the paint but i noticed the paint is hard. I don't have to much time to paint the Mclaren body in this weekend, i will travel a lot in the next weeks and i need to prepare my self and the car, but i hope i will spray this colour in 47 Week.

Wish you succes on your beautiful Senna/Mclaren.

Scale-Master · 11-02-2011, 10:14 AM

While you may be correct about the clear being the problem, (i.e. trigger), I still think the problem is actually rooted in the TS-36 being a slow to dry paint. The paint I have never seems to fully cure hard, whether it is applied from the can or decanted and airbrushed.
The nose section that was shot months ago, (prior to the blending of the main body area) is still soft. Even where I masked off the Fl. Red on the main part of the body while touching it up, the surface was slightly marred by the tape, and that paint was applied over a year ago.

I suspect the clear dries faster and harder than the Fl. Red and therein is the problem, they don't move together as they dry/cure and shrink/outgas.

Tibi Keke · 11-02-2011, 01:58 PM

Yes, the TS 36 dry slower, that's true! But my samples are completly dry, and hard! I tryed to scrach them with my fingernails, looks ok! Maybe you should leave the paint to dry completly and spray after that with the clear. Anyway, this threed was a good worning for me, and i will try to find a way to solv this problem because i use the same paints and clears.

Scale-Master · 04-13-2012, 05:42 PM

I left the body to dry in a closet for a little more than the last five months due to the paint wrinkling issue. It seemed like it had cured and might be stable…

So I sanded out the defects and reshot a white base and built up and blended the TS-36 Fluorescent Red into the rest of the rear section. It looks like I may be on my way to saving it as it still looks like this after about 24 hours… Only time will tell…

Scale-Master · 07-25-2014, 08:18 PM

OK, this thing has been sitting for a quite a while due to the paint fighting with itself on the main body. Most of the car is done; I just need to finish the body. A few times I sanded out the wrinkles (on the right rear) and touched up the paint only to have the issue come back a month or so later, so I stopped touching it up but continued to sand out the wrinkles as they appeared every few months. I thought I had won the battle back in April 2012, but sadly the same thing happened a little while after I painted it once again.
I continued to sand it as problems manifested, but I noticed it has been pretty stable all year.
It’s been about 6-8 months since I last sanded the problem area and it looked the same as when I last checked.
First I had to blend the white base in, and I found by tinting white primer with yellow and pink I could apply less paint and get an even blendable base. Then I started building up the Fluorescent Red.

You can see what I painted yesterday does not match, (it is too pale and lacking vibrancy, and not 100% uniform), but it is all the paint I can apply this round.

Today I built up some more TS-36. Still not there, but getting closer…

It still needs another round of paint, but I’ll probably let this dry for a while to make masking easier…

icon_modeler · 07-26-2014, 12:22 AM

Wow, It Lives!!!!

I hope you win this time around, Good Luck!!!

Shunter · 07-26-2014, 05:29 PM

This is a long drawn out project, i hope you get on top of it with all this hard work you are putting in.

John18d · 07-27-2014, 10:39 PM

Good to see you getting back on this one Scale Master
I will follow it to the end
John

Scale-Master · 09-04-2015, 01:28 PM

It’s been well over a year since I last updated the work I’ve been doing on the body. Every month or two I’d color sand the wrinkles and let it set only to have new ones appear. I’d sand them out and wait and repeat. Looks like it might have finally stabilized, but I won’t be too surprised if it reoccurs either. After all, it’s been the better part of five years since I started painting the body…
Last night I took another stab at it and after sanding out some ripples I blended in some red on the right side and sharpened up the lines on the front with some white.

Scale-Master · 08-04-2023, 04:45 PM

I started this in September of 2009. In January of 2011 I started noticing paint issues like cracking on the nose. At that point it was all TS paints including the clear. I fixed the nose by hand painting the damaged decals and then I sealed it in urethane. Then the paint on the rear wing went bad and I had to make new decals as replacements were not available. For five years I chased the paint on the main body. In my mind I had to keep using the same TS paints until I could get a stable finish and apply the decals. Then the plan was to clear it with urethane. I would get it looking nice and a few to several months later it would pick up waves or even wrinkles. I'd sand and buff them out, wait until the paint seemed cured and stable only to have it happen somewhere else.

Scale-Master · 08-04-2023, 06:21 PM

Well, the paint never stabilized as of 2016 so I went on to several bigger and better projects and let the body sit in a safe place. Out of sight, out of mind... And it really got bad; wavy, wrinkly and just plain wonky over the years. The body actually cracked somehow. I'm not sure if it was due to the paint, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Here is what I'm re-starting with after I peeled some of the clear off. I'm surprised it shed that so easily.

Scale-Master · 09-06-2023, 10:33 AM

I washed it up to get a better idea of what I was dealing with.
The only option, as I see it, is to strip it. Unfortunately the many layers of paint might as well be a combination of CA and stucco. About 15% of it peeled off to what appears to be the base white. I guess I forgot how many layers of both white and red paint I applied trying to get this to look decent and most of the red is now hard as glass and really well adhered. (So it does eventually cure.)

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