Q about Tamiya's coloured bodies

[DarchAngel]

Got a question about the range of Tamiya models that come pre-coloured, such as the "Modena Yellow Version", the "metal plated body" versions of a bunch of cars, etc. Since you are suppossed to prime the shell before painting to add something for the colour coat to stick to, whats the point of pre-colouring the shell? I mean, if I want the metal-plated version of the 350Z to be silver, for example, wouldn't I still just prime with grey and spray with silver as normal? What am I missing?

Or are the precoloured bodies for those ppl willing to accept the factory finishes by just not painting the body? My silver-plated 350Z has a nice silver colour to it, but its far from being the P-Man shine...

[freakray]

As far as the 'yellow version' goes, I don't think that has anything to do with the body being painted by the factory, I believe it just means it's molded in yellow instead of red like the other Ferrari kits are.

The metal plated bodies are meant so that you don't have to paint the body and you get this fancy looking finish, stupid thing about it is they don't clean the bodies before plating them so you get the mold lines and all the other possible imperfections highlighted by the plating.

[DarchAngel]

Yeah, the plating finish definately isn't acceptable as the final finish, IMO anyway.

So whats the point of molding the model in yellow plastic instead of red? I mean, it could be pink with purple polkadots for all I care, since you just paint over the top of it anyway...So how do they justify re-releasing the model in yellow, or the slight price increase if it makes jack all difference in the final model? I'm just trying to understand why, is all

[s2peed13]

IMO and what my modellets tell me is with the metal plated body the final result could be better, but I never tried it.

for yellow version, I do the painting without primerin and it works on yellow color but I dont think I can spray it yellow on the red version without primering it.

[DarchAngel]

Wouldn't you then get trouble with no teeth to take the colour coat? Or do you just sand it up good and proper?

The metal plated body seems to suggest the same thing, you just sand it up and then paint with silver.

Has anyone actually done this, or am I the only one dumb enough to fork out the extra $15 for plating???

[hirofkd]

You can take advantage of color molded model. You can sand and polish the mold line, coat the inside with white, silver or gray to block the light from going through to get rid of cheap plastic look, then polish the body, or clear coat and polish the body to finish. You can get excellent finish that way. If you have seen Helpa's 1/43 Ferrari model in person, you know what I mean.

As for yellow body, it's easy to paint it in white, yellow and red without using primer. Again, if you omit priming, you'd better paint the inside.

[DarchAngel]

Ok, cheers for the info dude.

[hirofkd]

You can take advantage of color molded model. You can sand and polish the mold line, coat the inside with white, silver or gray to block the light from going through to get rid of cheap plastic look, then polish the body, or clear coat and polish the body to finish. You can get excellent finish that way. If you have seen Helpa's 1/43 Ferrari model in person, you know what I mean.

As for yellow body, it's easy to paint it in white, yellow and red without using primer. Again, if you omit priming, you'd better paint the inside.

[DarchAngel]

Ummm, thank you again