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Dealing with unclear instructions


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I noticed that instruction booklets tend to have awful angles sometimes, which makes it hard to work out where a part needs to go. In addition to this, sometimes the instructions say to put parts where they seemingly cant attach to. How do you guys deal with this? I'm relatively new to modeling, so it's hard to work that out on my own at times. Thank you in advance

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This is where test fitting everything is an absolute must! I strongly advise this especially before painting up and polishing the intended part. 

It's another BIG reason I never paint the body beforehand. I build up everything else first, then test fit the body to make sure there's no big clearance/fit issues before paint. I've seen countless stories where someone will complain that the body doesn't fit well-----this after they painted it.

HUGE no-no in my world-------that's one of the last things I do is paint the body. I may test fit the body on/off the chassis a dozen or more times to get an idea what will be the best way to get things together, so that in the end it'll minimize over-flexing/over-stressing the body much.

Also, instructions can't always be followed to the T---------I'm finding this out doing a box stock build of Tamiya's BMW 850i. Don't rush things.......think things through before semi-permanently attaching something only to have to rip it apart later. :(

Hope this can help!

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That's good to know. Sadly, I already painted the body on the car I'm working on. I'll keep this in mind for my next model, however. I do have one question, though. If you dont paint the body until everything is assembled, how do you paint the interior part of the body, like the roof? Also, how do you avoid getting paint on the windows?

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If you dont paint the body until everything is assembled, how do you paint the interior part of the body, like the roof? Also, how do you avoid getting paint on the windows?

The body is painted as a separate unit apart from everything else. The type of paint stand I use, I'm able to shoot paint to the underside of the roof to paint that. More than likely, especially if it's a detailed build, I'll make some kind of headliner and that'll get painted separately and attached later.

As far as the glass, that's another one of those final details that gets put in after the body's all painted and polished. The glass should never be installed into the body before painting. At least that's the way I do it.

Here are a couple pics showing my recently finished '59 Impala when it was undergoing its paint job..................

16:473034136721

P1035524

The glass was put in much later after the body was polished out. For this car, I did make a headliner for it, and it was painted to color match the interior.

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It's a paint stand from Tamiya------and it's really great as it can swivel around on its base. One drawback to it though is that the base doesn't always want to stay attached to the upper part holding the body. I put tape around it to minimize any surprises!

They can be found on eBay, Hobby Link Japan and other places. 

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As far as unclear instructions go, a lot of them are pretty good, and some of them have a potentially daunting disconnect between what the parts actually look like (and where they go) and how they're portrayed. 

If you stay in the hobby (and are interested) you'll undoubtedly learn enough about how cars actually work (and some of the general similarities between all of them) to have a pretty good idea of how to build your kits with no instructions at all.

And it's at that point you'll find that SOME of the instructions are just flat WRONG, and you have to trust your own judgment. :D

Doing a Google image search for the particular car you're working on can show you many things very clearly that the illustrators who did the instructions didn't understand either.

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As a follow up question - I see how you're painting the body but how do you go about painting the hood and the trunk pieces?  They both have to be painted top and bottom so one would have to clamp each piece somehow to paint it.  How is that done?

 

Thanks!

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As a follow up question - I see how you're painting the body but how do you go about painting the hood and the trunk pieces?  They both have to be painted top and bottom so one would have to clamp each piece somehow to paint it.  How is that done?

Different modelers will have different techniques.

If I have opening panels that have to be painted inside and out, I'll usually paint the INSIDE first by attaching the outside surface to a paint-stir-stick with double-sided tape.

Then (if it's a SOLID color) when it's thoroughly dry, turn it over and adhere the inside surface to a stick with double-sided tape and paint the outside.

If it's a METALLIC OR PEARL, to get an even color, I'll use masking tape to mount the panels in place on the body, and paint the outsides of the panels at the same time the body is painted. 

Edited by Ace-Garageguy
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In the case of the underside of the trunk/hood, if I know I'm going to be painting in the next week or so, I'll go ahead and paint the underside first so that by the time I'm ready to paint everything, the underside will be dry enough to mask off and paint the topside along with everything else. 

Same goes for opening doors and such. As Bill mentioned, the door jambs and door sills I may paint ahead of time to let those thoroughly dry and then everything can be attached as one unit and painted together. Yeah, for metallic colors this should be a must as you want to the metallics to have a even coating over the body, and not suffer from irregular "tiger stripes". That can be the case when you paint things separately---------candies can be the worst at this!

Solid colors you can get away with painting separate body panels on another stand as long as you can remember how many coats each part received. That's pretty much what I did on the '59 Chevy.

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