Psychographic

You don't need a gravity feed, a decent siphon feed will work fine. What is your description of a desktop compressor? You also don't need a tank if you buy a quality compressor such as a Badger 180. I have two of these that get used quite often, one I added a 2 gallon tank to and one without, they both perform exactly the same. The one thing to be sure of if your buying a small compressor like this, get one with an automatic shut-off.

The pans are painted, now I can start assembling the engine. I got the flat clear on the seats and door panels. I left the center of the door panels shiny to represent a painted fiberglass panel. I've also got the rockers in primer and ready for the white base.

I mostly ran Dirt Modifieds with stock motors,and Sprint Cars with modified motors.I owned a lot of other cars for fun.

Actually I screwed up the paint, the fades are backwards. This was a paint scheme I used when I raced RC cars and originated around 1989. When I painted the black something looked wrong, I thought it might be because the original used fluorescent colors. When you guys posted, I thought I would try to find a pic of one of the RC cars to show you, that's when I noticed what was wrong. Unless I want to repaint all the parts I've done so far (which I don't), I'll just have to live with it. Here's one of the cars from back in the day with the correct color scheme.

It's an infectious little kit isn't it? I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this. It's funny looking at your pic with the ruler, you added about as much as I took out of mine.

I started to assemble the engine when I realized I forgot to paint the oil and trans pans. Good thing I only got as far as far as putting the timing cover and water pump on. I also just noticed that I made the transmission pan sideways, oh well, I've never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed!

Round 3 of painting interior parts. I'll hit these with some flat clear in a day or two. The Alclad re-do on the suspension parts was a success!

Round two of paint for these parts. I'm about to either fix the paint on some of the parts I did in Alclad, or ruin them. I'm going to repaint the front and rear suspension and possibly the zoomies. I didn't let the black set up enough before I sprayed the Alclad and the parts got a slight "Frosting" to them and look more aluminum than chrome. They are too fragile to strip, so I'm just going to do another coat of black and Alclad. Wish me luck, as I don't feel like making new parts. You can see the difference between the zoomies and the blower.

While waiting for the body to dry out, I thought I would try to screw up some more parts with paint.

Thanks for the comments everyone, they are greatly appreciated. Another "One step forward, two steps back" on this body. The ratio for the epoxy primer is, 3 parts primer, 1 part activator, and 1/2 part reducer if needed. To spray this through the airbrush, my ration was 3-1-8. I did a test piece from the kit and it worked fine. Unfortunately, I had some MEK trapped in the plastic of the rocker panels that I'm guessing was affected by the extra reducer in the primer. These areas bulged out pretty badly. As I thought I had trapped the gasses in the sealed rockers, I drilled a small hole in each panel and within a minute the bulges were almost level. I'll give it a day or two before sealing up the holes and re-priming. For a small little body, this thing is a lot of work.

Some Butterflies.

I'm getting tired of bodywork. Hopefully I'm at my last sanding before I give it a coat of epoxy primer. I'll be using my local supply house's, house brand, that when a reducer is added acts as a sealer. I would hate to have the yellow plastic show up on a white basecoat, and I'm hoping this will do the trick. Here's the colors I've picked for the paint. Pearl White, Pearl Yellow, Pearl Orange, Pearl Pink, and Black.

I boxed in the rockers to clean things up a bit.

As I've been laying on quite a few layers of primer, I noticed a spot that will need addressing before paint. I left the body open behind the frame as that's where the radiator is going. I'm never going to be able to do a decent paintjob into this open space. There's not much space back here to work with. Will the frame fit? Yup. I took the radiator and fan from the same Nascar kit I've been robbing from, sanded the fan shroud down, and made a hole in the new panel to fit it into. It's like the frame was made to fit the fan opening.

Even with the reconfigured floorpan the weak spot is still the weakest part of the body and started to crack again. This time I wrapped it with some strips of .010 and am keeping my fingers crossed that I don't have anymore problems. After redoing the floor, I had to go over a few things that were done, but could now be made better. I think re-gapping this door was the last thing that needs major work.

I'm tired of fixing, I think it's time to make something stupid and cool looking for no reason other than "Look at me!" I cut off the ends of the bus's tank, drilled some .040 scraps to fit a 3/16 tube, glued them all together, then sanded to shape. Using the same .040 scrap I fabbed up a pair of suspended mounts. For no good reason at all, I give you the suspended hollow gas tank.

The two cracks came back in the bottom rear corners of the door so it was time to address the weak rocker panels. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner, I cut about 3/16" off of each side of the floorpan and cemented them to the body. Not only did this strengthen the body, it made we getting the floorpan to fit better much easier. It will also allow me to install the interior as an assembled piece. After shimming the edges with strips of .010, I used two strips of .060 half round cemented with the middle of the .060 on the edge of the floorpan. The part that extends halfway covers the seam.

The Alcad is on. It's not my best job, but I haven't spray it in a couple of years. I've been busy doing the body work and breaking the body. I was working on the beltine on the drivers side and forgot to put the floor or door on the passenger side and broke it in two spots ( The rocker has no strength without either one). It's mending as I type. Here's the wonky beltline on the right side before any work. I ran a length of tape on both sides of the line and applied some finishing putty, let it start to harden and peel the tape to get a fairly clean edge to work with. After a little sanding the line looks good the me. I thought I had all the door jambs done, but looking at the body from head on something was not right. I think it's because the front edge on the body on one side was rounded a bit where the other side has a sharp angle. I ran a piece of tape for the Styrene Bondo to build on. I'm hoping this fixes the problem. Most of the body has been filled and blocked. I was hoping to get the base color on tonight, but I'll have to wait until the rocker repair dries.

You want HOK UK-18 Candy Pink. I would get in touch with Bob's Paint, he's a good guy to deal with and a member here.

Got the black enamel on, next is the Alclad.

What kind of Cobra is that????? I like it. Other than the body dimensions, what you built is where I originally intended to go with mine. When I dug out the Stingaree kit to steal the frame from, I went in a more radical direction.Mostly because of the extended wheelbase.

It's magenta, not purple. It's another one of those colors that needs a better camera than what I have. I had to adjust the color of the pic as straight from the camera it looked red. It's a little darker than this.

Candy pink over silver

The master cylinder is mounted, and I made an emergency brake handle. The engine , driveshaft, and frame are in the paintbooth.

Can I blame the Minions when I screw something up?