Paint/Polish question...

[Jayson62]

Hey guys I have a question regarding the Blitz skyline model. I sanded the mold lines and have stopped because I was wondering what I should do. The body is molded in white so I dont HAVE to paint it but there are slight sand marks from the sanding. I dont want to prime it and paint it because I am worried it would get too thick and lose the detail in the wide fenders. Could I prime and paint it without losing detail? or could I get away with a polish and wax so the sand isnt that noticable? thanks for any help.

[MidMazar]

Sand, prime and paint please.

[wouter1981]

I agree with midmazar. Prime, paint and polish. If you use light coats of primer and paint, you shouldn't lose details.

[cyberkid]

Use 800~1200 grit to clean up before primering. Sand with 2000 or higher when the primer is dry. Then your color coat.

Around 70% of wet 'paint' is actually solvent, so unless you *pour* the paint on you shouldn't lose much detail. Let the paint breath for around 5-15 minutes between each coat and try not to paint too heavily. One thing that I used to muck up with is when I saw the paint wet I would think that it is too thick and it will lose detail. But, giving it a night to dry, the paint really 'hugs' the model and not much, if any, detail was lost. Even if you overdid it, you can always sand it down a little.

One other thing, primers have 3 main functions: 1. to change the base color. 2. To check up on the surface,(sanding marks, inperfections etc.) 3. To help the paint 'stick' better and more evenly.
So, I prime most of my parts.

[hirofkd]

Sand the bare plastic progressively all the way up to 2000 grit, and polish it to bring the sheen of clean plastic. Then apply decals, then clear-coat, sand and polish for the finishing touch if you like. If you aren't participating in any contest (often painting is required), that'll be enough to fool people's eyes.

Before applying decals, I recommend painting the inside of the body with silver to get rid of the translucent look of unpainted plastic, but that might darken the appearance, depending on the thickness of plastic, so do some experiment first.

[boostspike]

isn't the whole purpose of this hobby basically revolves around sand, prime, paint, and polish??? if your worry about painting then i suggest die-cast models...

[Jayson62]

Its not that I dont want to paint and polish its just that i wanted it to come out good and i didnt want to lose the detail on the car.

[ales]

Jayson, browse around this forum, there are thousands of threads where people show off their model that they've primed/painted/polished and didn't lose detail. No need to act like painting a model is so unique, it's been done before, millions of times. If you still don't want to do it - follow the steps given to you a couple of posts above, if you decide to go through the painting process - read the faq and the how-to section and ask more experienced builders on this board for specific advice. Get on with it.