Painting chassis question

[STYRENE-SURFER]

Just asking for some advise, at some point I am going to get some paint on this project.

have been trying to plan ahead but perhaps made the dumb decision to glue the frame to the interior tub. 

Seemed like a good idea at the time because of its fragility. My plan is for a semi gloss black frame with aluminum tub/interior panels.

as typical of drag cars like this from the period.

historically Ive had bad luck with taping silver paint and having it remove with the tape. I normally use Lacquers like Alclad for Aluminum.

Thinking the taping would be much more possible spraying silver first then the black frame. Any ideas would be welcome.

 

 

[JollySipper]

Could you clear over the Alclad aluminum with their suggested clear? Then you could maybe mask over it without pulling it up...... I would probably mask with foil.

[DPNM]

I believe the general rule of thumb is to typically spray the lightest color first. From your picture you may be able to mask what would be the  aluminum color off with something like cut to fit sticky notes. I wouldn't think that they would remove the paint, as long as your surfaces have been prepped well, when you remove it. I'd overlap the pieces and use Scotch tape to seal the overlap. Or a low tack tape of some brand.

[Plowboy]

I just brush paint mine with Model Masters acrylic semi gloss black. Virtually no brush marks.

[Snake45]

I don't think there's any easy or particularly good way to do what you seem to want to do. If I were faced with this problem, I would just shoot the whole thing in the semigloss black. There's nothing saying that if something were made out of aluminum, it HAD to be left bare and unpainted. 

And, if the truth were told, there was a lot less bare sheet aluminum used in the interiors of the funny cars of the day that you're building (1965-66, right?) than we seem to think today. Most of these cars started as steel bodies (or full cars) and just had all the nonessential guts ripped out of them, with the bare steel structure remaining--sometimes painted semigloss black or in that "spatter" paint that was popular at the time. Somewhere I have an old magazine showing the interiors of about a dozen early funnies, and there's not much sheet aluminum in those pics. 

 

[Kit Basher]

8 hours ago, Plowboy said:

I just brush paint mine with Model Masters acrylic semi gloss black. Virtually no brush marks.

Same here. As an option, I've had pretty good success masking floor pans with Silly Putty. It works with MM Metalizers, I would think it would work with Alclad.

[Dave G.]

 If you didn't go nuts with glue maybe you can still pop the chassis back out of there.

[espo]

While you may have shot yourself in the foot to have the finishes you were desiring, that doesn't mean it can't be done. My thought is that you will have to brush paint all of the surfaces to get your desired color finishes.  I think trying to tape off the parts you're spray painting from one another would be a nightmare and overspray would be unavoidable. I would suggest trying to brush paint the floor boards in you chosen color. For masking the floor boards, since droplets from the chassis painting is a given, I have used small stick-m note pads. You might want to avoid using any part of the note pad that has adhesive on it since it could compromise the floor board finish. These small pieces of paper are just ridged enough to stay in place unless you're turning the assembly around a lot. These can slide in-between the frame and floor and leave in place until all is dry. There still may be some touch up but it will still be better than trying to completely removing the frame which you point out is on the weak side already. Hope this will help. 

[STYRENE-SURFER]

Thanx all, for the suggestions. I'm afraid that photo was not the best one to use for this query.

I just shot this pic hopefully showing better what my plan was. the separate cross members etc

I was planning on painting separately and gluing in after the basic chassis/sheetmetal were complete.

I'm afraid showing all that other mocked up business probably not the best way to ask the question clearly?

16 hours ago, Snake45 said:

sometimes painted semigloss black or in that "spatter" paint that was popular at the time

Snake, is that splatter paint Finnish something achievable with an airbrush?

[Dave G.]

Just me ( barring getting that frame out of there, it might pop out easier than you think depending what glue and how much was used) but I'd spray the floor pans with MM Metallizer aluminum plate buffing, then brush the frame with Stynylrez black primer, and finally spray a single pass of Metalizer clear on it all. That will give you a satin finish. The remaining chassis parts can be sprayed with Stynylrez and also clear coated.

[Snake45]

10 minutes ago, STYRENE-SURFER said:

Thanx all, for the suggestions. I'm afraid that photo was not the best one to use for this query.

I just shot this pic hopefully showing better what my plan was. the separate cross members etc

I was planning on painting separately and gluing in after the basic chassis/sheetmetal were complete.

I'm afraid showing all that other mocked up business probably not the best way to ask the question clearly?

Snake, is that splatter paint Finnish something achievable with an airbrush?

Hell, that doesn't look bad at all. If I wanted that in aluminum, I'd do the floorboards in the dull side of household kitchen foil (everything flat or simple curves, no compound curves to fool with), and then mask the foil off with common masking tape and shoot the black frame rails. A bit of work, but definitely do-able if you want to. 

I think the spatter paint might be possible. I'd lay down a layer of black, then go back over that with LIGHT coats, shot from a distance of a foot or more, of white, medium gray, and medium/light blue. You're looking for maybe 5% coverage with each color. You might be able to play around with the paint and pressure on your airbrush to get some droplet-type stuff to come out of it. Could be interesting to experiment with. 

Do you have any pics of the interior of the car you're building? I forget if you had any of those--will go see if I can find them. 

[STYRENE-SURFER]

20 minutes ago, Dave G. said:

Just me ( barring getting that frame out of there, it might pop out easier than you think depending what glue and how much was used) but I'd spray the floor pans with MM Metallizer aluminum plate buffing, then brush the frame with Stynylrez black primer, and finally spray a single pass of Metalizer clear on it all. That will give you a satin finish. The remaining chassis parts can be sprayed with Stynylrez and also clear coated.

Dave, I have some Stynalrez bought a couple of years ago and have only test sprayed it also a good selection of Tamiya acrylics.

I really need to just take the time to get the hang of acrylics thru an airbrush.

23 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

 

Do you have any pics of the interior of the car you're building? I forget if you had any of those--will go see if I can find them. 

My build has taken some twists and turns, now it will have a blown engine and be more of an match race type car? no longer

the Souza brother's (not enough documentation to do it correctly anyway). Oh and that dang Algon injection.

[Snake45]

23 hours ago, STYRENE-SURFER said:

the Souza brother's (not enough documentation to do it correctly anyway). Oh and that dang Algon injection.

Just went back through your build thread. Not many interior pics of the original, but from what I can tell, it did have both aluminum panels and red-orange paint on the inside.

[STYRENE-SURFER]

53 minutes ago, Snake45 said:

Just went back through your build thread. Not many interior pics of the original, but from what I can tell, it did have both aluminum panels and red-orange paint on the inside.

Yes, you can see some body color towards the rear interior and possibly the inside door skins. very hard to make out from black and white photos

but there are a few color pics Ive found.

That said, I'm just going to build as fantasy car to simplify things. Single brake pedal, rather than dual. Blown FE engine (manifold being easier to scratch build).

Trying to think of a viable livery for it, possibly keeping the Hayward Ford Dealership sponsorship with the dark red color like this Fairlane.

 

 

[Straightliner59]

On 2/2/2020 at 1:07 PM, STYRENE-SURFER said:

Snake, is that splatter paint Finnish something achievable with an airbrush?

It's Zolatone. I would guess it   could be done with an airbrush. I've done it with spray bombs. Here's are a couple of examples, along with the Zolatone color chart. I spray the base color, then, spray the spatter from a distance. It looks pretty convincing, I think!

Edited February 6, 2020 by Straightliner59

[espo]

1 hour ago, Straightliner59 said:

It's Zolatone. I would guess it   could be done with an airbrush. I've done it with spray bombs. Here's are a couple of examples, along with the Zolatone color chart. I spray the base color, then, spray the spatter from a distance. It looks pretty convincing, I think!

Some of those colors could be used for the inside of the trunk on some OEM type builds. 

[Straightliner59]

7 hours ago, espo said:

Some of those colors could be used for the inside of the trunk on some OEM type builds. 

Definitely! The manufacturers probably bought it from Zolatone.

[afx]

Several of the Trans-Am cars back in the day had zolotone painted interiors.

[yellowsportwagon]

Bud Moore used Zolotone a lot. Trans am and NASCAR cars.  I do it by spraying the part grey. Then white black and maybe light turquoise misted on from about 2 feet away. If you get too much of those colors on you can come back and mist some grey on.

[STYRENE-SURFER]

On 2/6/2020 at 7:28 AM, Straightliner59 said:

It's Zolatone.

Daniel, that effect looks great.

I lived around boats as a kid and can remember most fiberglas ones had that treatment on the inside.

JC and Tim thank you also. This is giving me something to think about?

[Straightliner59]

On 2/7/2020 at 2:46 PM, STYRENE-SURFER said:

Daniel, that effect looks great.

I lived around boats as a kid and can remember most fiberglas ones had that treatment on the inside.

JC and Tim thank you also. This is giving me something to think about?

Thanks, Kurt! That stuff used to be everywhere!