Making progress on the AMT Kenworth W-925. Slowly but surely.

[Plumcrazy Preston]

The weather can slow me down. I live in SW Oaklhoma. Rain, thunderstorms, humidity. I was also slowed down also because it took me several months to find a vendor online to make satsfactory waterslide decals for me and I held up on model bulding until I got those secured. Now, construction is full bloom. It's summer and have good weather to paint parts outside. I can't spray paint inside my home. 

All the body parts to be painted in body color (purple) are now primed and wet sanded. The frame is complete and painted in semi-gloss black enamel. The engine is fully assembled and painted. There is minor orange peel on the frame rails but is evenly distributed and gives the impression of authetic texture on a real vehicles painted chassis. Real trucks don't generally have refined smooth paint jobs on chassis members and most of the frame parts will be obscured by bodywork, fuel tanks, splash guards and exterior accessories anyway. I will have to erect my paint booth tent to spray the body color laquer on the bodywork and the clearcoat that will seal everything off to get the finest paint job possible. The cab, sleeper and hood are the points of beauty on a truck. When I shot the frame with enamel, exposed on a table outside with no shelter, there was a slight breeze which I attribute to that slight orange peel effect. The frame was not primed but several even coats of black enamel went over it. The bare frame plastic was slightly sanded before painting. 

[Plumcrazy Preston]

Come to think of it, I will try to get the frame rails neater on paint texture. I have wet sanded them with 5000 grit to smooth out as much orange peel as I could since there are rivets and other protusions in the way along the rail side flats. I use Testors semi-gloss black enamel in cans and no primer for the frame. This time I will use my paniting tent to keep wind and dust off my work. The workpiece will warm up a while under the tent. The can will be immersed in hot tap water for about two minutes and have the devil shaken out of it. I spray about 12" from the work piece in rapid ocsillating strokes to prevent puddling in one spot. Using this method, the rattle-can lacquer primer on my body work came out nice an smooth. No aribrushes for me, only rattle cans. 

I just looked at freshly-painted new truck frames online. There should be no noticable pebbling at all. Bodies are a little eaier to wet sand because there's not much in the way of protruding parts to get in the way. The back of the truck cab and sleeper sheet metal has little rivets so one has to be careful not to sand them away. 

[David G.]

Looks like you're off to a decent start but for the paint issues.

I can sympathize as whenever I have trouble with something, chances are, it's paint related.

David G.

[kilrathy10]

You're looking pretty good, Man... This is going to look good...