Paint pieces..THEN build body?

[spidereddie]

Has anyone had much experience in painting body pieces (fenders, bumpers, skirts) BEFORE putting them together on the body? It seams that the norm is just the opposite (as is what I usually do). The problem is that I can never really sand out the 'grooves' inbetween these pieces when built, so I thought that painiting and then polishing would be easier to do before I put the body together.

comments please?

[pre98zetec]

I don't like to do that because usually you get a darker, or lighter color on some parts.

[hirofkd]

You can assemble parts after painting if you know you can apply an equal amount of paint on all of the body-colored parts.

You can hold parts together by taping from the inside. Then, paint as you normally do, take them apart, polish and do the final assembly. That's how I'm making my Tamiya Enzo kit.

[Whumbachumba]

I painted my Torino parts seperatly and they look pretty close together. It might have been the garage's light that made them look like that, or I'm just a natural spray painter and I don't know it. =) For my integra and supra though, I'm going to put the body together then paint. As for individual parts inside the body, I like to glue all the parts that will be one color together during each step. So if the engine block had a silver tranny and a black block belts and stuff, I'll glue the block and anything else black together, and the tranny seperat. I then paint it, stratch off some of the paint where the pieces meet, then glue.

[Ferrari TR]

I've found multi piece painting to be a pain. I'm building a step-side pickup bed and all the parts that make up the bed have to be painted separately and one side at a time to boot!

[Lurchio]

Sometimes you have to paint them seperately for later assembly - then you get what I had last night - glue leaking through on joins and ruining paint job!

[Scale-Master]

Painting different parts the same color and having them match is not a big deal, even with metallics. Just paint them all at the same time. More important to me is making all parts fit nice. Depending on what the final assembly allows, I build all the body parts I can and fill whatever can, or needs to be filled prior to painting. Sometimes a bumper or valence has to be attached after the chassis and body are mated, but sometimes that's the way the real car is made too... - Mark

[mickbench]

I just tried to paint parts before attaching to the body, and it wasn't a great idea. I've got some CA glue to attach them with, but you do run the risk of glue leaking over the paint..!!

I therefore will always try and glue as much as possible before painting from now onwards.