MarkJ

With any luck I will be through decaling today. I need to take the body off and put two small decals on the dash. I also have to install the window net and then I can reattach the body after futureing the dash decals and then future the body and I will be ready for under glass forum finally. The body is made to snap on and off of the chassis. No glue required.

Thanks, Anton. Yes, that's all I use it for. And it's all I need it for. I'm glad I got it when I did because I don't think they sell them anymore. I use an inkjet for the colored decals. works better.

Been decaling. Had to go back and get rid of the door handle depressions. Wasn't going to work at all with the decals. These are the main decal sheets I'm using. Slowly but surely, I am getting them on. You have to cut them as closely as you can because they are home made. the future will help in hiding the edges somewhat.

Yes, Bill. It hasn't been the same since they started the ludicrous playoff system back in 2004, I think it was. After Kenseth won the championship strictly on points and won it way before the end of the season. Who cares? It was a legitimate championship. No other automobile racing association has a playoff system. As it should be.

Wow, Ken. This is looking amazing already. The hoses and the shock redo look like the real thing.

Thanks for stopping by Helmut and Bruce. Always great to hear from you guys. I'm actually pretty excited about laying down the decals. I made them a year and a half ago and hope they look good on the model. Might have to double up on them but since the paint is not that dark maybe I won't have to. The colored ones will have to have a white inlay decal under them so those will have to be doubled. The white decals are laser jet, and the colored ones are ink jet because the inkjet makes clearer and more defined decals than the laser jet does.

Got the glass and the hood and deck pins installed. I decided not to polish the paint because it would not look much better than this and I would probably be going down the rabbit hole of re needing to refinish it once again. So, I will decal it, future it. and be done with it. I can use the stuff I learned on it to make a better next model, hopefully. Sometimes you have to know when to cut bait and try for a better fish. The next photos you see will hopefully be in the under-glass forum, or whatever it's called in here.

Paint looks awesome. Did you use an airbrush? Oh, the rest of the model looks awesome too.

Really happy with how the clear turned out with the flow improver. Last time I used it, the clear was like I had painted grains of sand on the surface. This time its smooth and glossy and I'm really debating on whether I need to polish it at all. One thing is for sure I will be adding the glass and the hood and deck pins and decaling soon and finishing this thing up.

Yes, Ken. It's been getting really low in the afternoons. I missed out on today but I'm hoping tomorrow is still low. We've been in fire danger for the last week or, so which is really weird for us to worry about. Thanks for stopping by.

The entry above was an edited picture I had of the real car that I wanted to see what it looked like posted. it was way too big. That's why I semi deleted it and will post another one when I cut the size of it down a little bit. I will clear the model today and hope it turns out better with the flow improver.

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Thanks, Anton. I might clear the model today if I have time.

Good news. The flow improver did its job, and I got a nice smooth finish on the repaint of the roof. It went on glossy and with some small bumps but after it dried the bumps levelled out smooth and flat like acrylic paint is supposed to dry. When I sand it this time with 4000 to shoot the clear it will look a lot better too because I will use the flow improver in it as well. I think I will clear the whole model body again this time with the flow improver. 2 of the shots below are out of order. 3 and 4 should be switched. The third picture shows where I do my painting outdoors. it's a fenced in area behind the exterior garage wall. It's kind of a place to store stuff I might need in the future like left over pieces of wood and empty plant pots. Its kind of protected from the wind in there and i can just store my chair and table against the garage wall when not in use.

All primed up and ready for the repaint. Just hope for good conditions outside to get it done. I'm curious how the flow improver I made from watching various you tube videos is going to work. Hoping it's a good alternative to the Mr. Paint levelling thinner, that is impossible to get.

Thanks, Pierre. I have been doing a lot of research and have come to the conclusion I need to use a flow improver made of a small amount of dish detergent and Vallejo retarder. You mix up a 10% solution of it with distilled water and put a couple of drops of it in the 50/50 mix of paint and thinner which can be either Vallejo thinner or Tamiya thinner. I will be using it when I do the refinish of the roof and see what happens. The blue on the model is a regular Vallejo model color paint mix I made at the beginning of the build. I plan on sticking with the Vallejo because it comes in convenient dropper bottles instead of jars and you can mix up just about any color in the rainbow as you know. I had trouble with Vallejo retarder and their clear varnish because I used way too much retarder and the clear never really dried enough to ever polish it or do anything with it for that matter. Thanks again for the recommendation about the thinner.

Somehow, I got silver paint on the roof, and it went right through the paint all the way past the primer. I kept trying to get it off without creating too much damage but now I will have to refinish the roof. This build is jinxed for sure or I'm just an idiot.

Great looking pair, Billy. Who cares if they are incorrect? Nobody will know if you don't tell them.

Some more work on the hood and trunk pins. Also, I found an old body from a build I did in the seventy's that half the stuff is lost off of it so it will make a great test body for trying out different thinners for acrylic paint. There was talk back in 2019 and 2020 about how some people thought that denatured alchohol was just like mr. color levelling thinner. Lots of talk but nobody actually did a test and posted pictures of what they got. I will sand and prime this body and then use some acrylic paint and some acrylic clear with the denatured alcohol and see what I get. I also heard that plain old lacquer thinner will also work well with acrylic paint and give you a gloss shine that you won't have to polish it either. I shall try that too.

Got started on the hood and trunk pins.

Thanks, Anton. It will have to do. It's time to wrap this baby up.

Well, I'm going to call the painting and polishing done on the build. Without being able to get any Mr. hobby, Mr. color leveling thinner I cannot improve on what I have here so I will put on the hood and trunk fasteners. Add the park light covers and mesh grille. Add the Windshield and back glass and I will be able to start decaling the model. Once that's done I can future it and call this build complete. Oh yeah, I won't be able to add the door handles because the real car did not have any. So, I made them for nothing. Well actually I needed to make the area of the door where they fasten look right, so it wasn't a complete loss of effort. The color is more what I wanted after the clear and polish happened to it. Not so powdery blue anymore.

I polished the clear with 6000 through 12000 pads and helped the finish immensely but I went through to the primer in certain areas. I touched up those spots with a small brush and will reclear those spots with a small brush as well. It's not what I was hoping for, but I would need Mr. hobby, Mr. color levelling thinner to do that and nobody, I mean nobody has it in stock. Supposedly it has just the right amount of retarder in it to make the paint level out to a very smooth and glossy finish. It's just like when the Revell chrom was so popular you could not get it. I can't wait any more so I'm going to go ahead and finish this one and hope to get that levelling thinner for my next project.

Thanks, Pierre. I realized that I had bumped the roof with the airbrush and knocked a spot in it down to the primer so I think I will try sanding with the 6000 today to see what happens and touch up that spot and reclear the whole model again. I'm not getting orange peel but more like a sandy look. I might increase my thinner to a 1.5/1 ratio instead of a 1/1 like I used yesterday. That would be 6 grams of thinner to 4 grams of clear. Maybe it will flow out a little better. Now I'm starting to remember why I went to brush painting in the first place. You watch these guys on you tube using the airbrush and they make it look so simple and get beautiful results but when I try to mimic them, I don't get the same results. I guess I'm paint challenged no matter what I try to use.

I shot the Tamiya x-22a acrylic clear today and its glossy, but it still needs to be polished. Have any of you guys ever polished it and how long for it to cure before you can polish it? I don't want to rub through it to the paint and especially not to the primer. I was thinking about 6000, 8000 and 12000 grit polishing pads. Thanks in advance for any replies. I'm antsy to get the decals on and future this baby.