Lead City Customs

[Cool Hand]

On 2/26/2025 at 4:07 AM, Zippi said:

Looking pretty good there Luke.  That pearl color coat will look pretty sweet. 

Thanks as always for commenting Bob. Yeah turned out pretty good I reckon.

 

On 2/26/2025 at 10:38 AM, BK9300 said:

Your paint jobs are just killer, Luke - pleasure to see!

Thankyou Brain, good fun trying some different colours for change. But I still like black the most.

 

On 2/26/2025 at 2:57 PM, Steve H said:

Those wheels are absolutely stunning!! Any chance you can explain the reverse wash technique? I can’t quite get my head around it…🤓🤷🏻‍♂️ Those are about the most beautifully painted wheels I’ve seen. It’s awesome to see you getting paint on these builds, hoping we get to see them come together later. I really do need to break down and buy a couple of the DDA cars. Great work as always my friend. 

Thanks Steve. They are cool looking wheels, great for modern and old school big wheel cars.

The reverse wash is nothing overly complicated, it's basically the same technique as the paint over BMF.  But its enamel over lacquer,  wheels were painted with lacquer Mr Hobby Super Chrome Silver 2 and clear coated. After that dried it was then overcoated with Alclad gloss black base(enamel). Once dry, used Tamiya small cotton swabs soaked in Tamiya enamel thinner and wipe the black off the raised detail. I will show in better detail a couple examples soon.

Im in a mood where I just want to paint while its the great Aussie summer weather, it has been lots of fun trying out some different colours other than black 😄 

Most of my builds do get completed eventually. Thats why I like having my own mega thread, I dont have to worry about being committed to one build and I can follow the muse to where ever it takes me at any given time.  I have so many kits and idea's, its hard to stayed focused. But in time I will settle and get some builds done 😉

Hope you do get some DDA kits, be great to see your take on some of the Aussie cars.

 

[Cool Hand]

Fresh out the spray booth.

Applied the pearl colour coat to the HQ.

 

Edited February 28 by Cool Hand
added more pictures

[STU111]

G’day Luke, you seem to use the SMS paints fairly regularly, I’ve wanted to ask, how are they in terms of user friendliness and quality of finish? I’ve not used them before but have purchased some to replicate the factory colours on my HQ build. I’ll be spraying them through my trusty Iwata airbrush. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 👍🏻

[Lobo2me]

Sweet! Great idea for a forum topic. Some very cool builds in cue. I just finished two wild and crazy Five-Window coups. Look for them soon

 

[Zippi]

That's looking might fine there Luke.  Man that color is some nice eye candy.  

[Cool Hand]

15 hours ago, STU111 said:

G’day Luke, you seem to use the SMS paints fairly regularly, I’ve wanted to ask, how are they in terms of user friendliness and quality of finish? I’ve not used them before but have purchased some to replicate the factory colours on my HQ build. I’ll be spraying them through my trusty Iwata airbrush. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 👍🏻

Yeah Stu, I have become a fan of the SMS paints. I would say they very user friendly and produce a good quality finish. They have a slightly hotter thinner based solvent, so you need to apply in thin light coats and gradually build up to full coverage. I fill the cup to just about full and add an extra 2ml of SMS thinner and 1ml of SMS leveller, this just helps with my spray technique. And I find that painting in temps between 20-25'c is best. I recommend do some testing to become familiar with the paint. 

If you have any drama's or questions just send me message

 

15 hours ago, Lobo2me said:

Sweet! Great idea for a forum topic. Some very cool builds in cue. I just finished two wild and crazy Five-Window coups. Look for them soon

 

Thanks for commenting Steve, yeah mega thread keeps it interesting when builds stall or get side lined when new idea's and inspiration comes along.

 

1 hour ago, Zippi said:

That's looking might fine there Luke.  Man that color is some nice eye candy.  

Cheers Bob, very nice colour that should come to life a bit more with the clear coat.

[Cool Hand]

On 2/26/2025 at 2:57 PM, Steve H said:

Any chance you can explain the reverse wash technique?

Hope this helps @Steve H

Any part that has well defined raised detail is best for the the technique.

Like these valve covers

 

Like always prime or as I use 1500 black surfacer.

 

Using any lacquer based paint apply the colour you want the raised detail to be.

 

And clear coat to seal the colour coat. And allow to fully dry/cure. 

 

 

 

For the over coat of the main colour, you can use enamel or acrylic(water or alcohol based)

The Holden valve cover I used Vallejo Mecha Primer black as it has a nice satin finish. And levels out to a very smooth finish.

 

On the 308 valve cover, I over coated with Alclad gloss black base.

I applied it a little too heavy, thankfully the detail didnt get buried.

 

Allow to dry for a couple hours, touch dry is best as it makes removal in the next step easy.

These cotton swabs are the best for precise removal of paint.

 

For the removal of the Mecha primer I used Vallejo thinner, but alcohol will work for acrylics.

Just moisten the cotton swab enough to lightly swipe away the paint of the raised detail.

 

And to remove the Alclad Gloss Black, I moisten the cotton swab with Tamiya Enamel thinner.

 

 

 

Edited February 28 by Cool Hand

[BK9300]

Very clear to follow your process - excellent results!

[Cool Hand]

On 2/18/2025 at 5:41 PM, Spottedlaurel said:

I 'need' to do this to one or two things in my stash, presumably just styrene sheet and a bit of filler?

Here you go Nigel  @Spottedlaurel 

First stage of body work done, have recoated in surfacer and need to fill in all the small imperfections and blend the nose extension with some Tamiya putty.

Stock oob bod

1.6mm styrene for the 12mm nose extension. 3.2x4.8mm strip to fill in the bumper recesses.

.5mm styrene to extend the centre ridged.

 

1mm styrene strip under the tail light panel recess and 4mm tube and 3.2mm rod to fill the cut away for the exhaust 

 

Edited February 28 by Cool Hand

[Mattilacken]

Cool look on that last one! I just saw some thing similar in a Swedish car mag. I saw that type of cars more back in the day when my friend was in to Japanese stuff.

[Spottedlaurel]

Many thanks Luke, very useful! Have saved them onto my PC for future reference.

[STU111]

On 3/1/2025 at 3:02 AM, Cool Hand said:

Yeah Stu, I have become a fan of the SMS paints. I would say they very user friendly and produce a good quality finish. They have a slightly hotter thinner based solvent, so you need to apply in thin light coats and gradually build up to full coverage. I fill the cup to just about full and add an extra 2ml of SMS thinner and 1ml of SMS leveller, this just helps with my spray technique. And I find that painting in temps between 20-25'c is best. I recommend do some testing to become familiar with the paint. 

If you have any drama's or questions just send me message

Cheers Luke, I usually spray car bodies with Tamiya rattle cans, but they don’t have a colour close to what l need. Thanks for sharing your advice on the SMS stuff. Still hoping to have some colour on my HQ before the cold weather hits. 👍🏻

Thanks for commenting Steve, yeah mega thread keeps it interesting when builds stall or get side lined when new idea's and inspiration comes along.

 

Cheers Bob, very nice colour that should come to life a bit more with the clear coat.

 

[Zippi]

On 2/28/2025 at 10:41 AM, Cool Hand said:

Hope this helps @Steve H

Any part that has well defined raised detail is best for the the technique.

Like these valve covers

 

Like always prime or as I use 1500 black surfacer.

 

Using any lacquer based paint apply the colour you want the raised detail to be.

 

And clear coat to seal the colour coat. And allow to fully dry/cure. 

 

 

 

For the over coat of the main colour, you can use enamel or acrylic(water or alcohol based)

The Holden valve cover I used Vallejo Mecha Primer black as it has a nice satin finish. And levels out to a very smooth finish.

 

On the 308 valve cover, I over coated with Alclad gloss black base.

I applied it a little too heavy, thankfully the detail didnt get buried.

 

Allow to dry for a couple hours, touch dry is best as it makes removal in the next step easy.

These cotton swabs are the best for precise removal of paint.

 

For the removal of the Mecha primer I used Vallejo thinner, but alcohol will work for acrylics.

Just moisten the cotton swab enough to lightly swipe away the paint of the raised detail.

 

And to remove the Alclad Gloss Black, I moisten the cotton swab with Tamiya Enamel thinner.

 

 

 

I'm liking this process on painting the valve covers Luke.  

[Mattilacken]

On 2/28/2025 at 5:41 PM, Cool Hand said:

For the removal of the Mecha primer I used Vallejo thinner, but alcohol will work for acrylics.

Watch out though. If you use Tamiya TS paints as the base coats don’t use isopropyl alcohol since that actually takes away Tamiya TS paints since they are not a full laquer some how.

[Cool Hand]

2 hours ago, Mattilacken said:

Watch out though. If you use Tamiya TS paints as the base coats don’t use isopropyl alcohol since that actually takes away Tamiya TS paints since they are not a full laquer some how.

Very true Anton, thanks for your input and mentioning.

My bad, I didnt think to bring up that up as I did not use TS Paints as an under base coat when doing over coat removal with alcohol.

[Cool Hand]

On 3/1/2025 at 11:22 AM, Mattilacken said:

Cool look on that last one! I just saw some thing similar in a Swedish car mag. I saw that type of cars more back in the day when my friend was in to Japanese stuff.

Cheers Anton, I like the Japanese car culture as its different and interesting to see how they go about modifying cars.

 

7 hours ago, Spottedlaurel said:

Many thanks Luke, very useful! Have saved them onto my PC for future reference.

Hope to see a shark nose build from you one day.

 

6 hours ago, STU111 said:

Cheers Luke, I usually spray car bodies with Tamiya rattle cans, but they don’t have a colour close to what l need. Thanks for sharing your advice on the SMS stuff. Still hoping to have some colour on my HQ before the cold weather hits. 👍🏻

No worries mate, like I mentioned have a practice and become familiar with the SMS paint before attempting to paint the HQ and any questions just send me a message.

 

3 hours ago, Zippi said:

I'm liking this process on painting the valve covers Luke.  

Very versatile technique Bob, works very well when parts have sharp crisp raised detail.

[Cool Hand]

Got a few more things painted. 7 in one day not a bad effort.

Applied a base coat of SMS jet black to 2 LJ's and a HQ.

LC painted with Outlaw paints Teal and another LC painted with Tamiya TS-86 Pure red

LJ and Camaro painted with TS-14 black

 

[Cool Hand]

Hope to get colour coats on these 2 LJ's and HQ over the next couple days.

 

I have had this build planned for awhile, good to finally make some progress getting the metallic colour coat applied.

 

And another idea and plan starting to come to life. Wheels and stance just for this mock up.

 

Not my best black paint job, but im glad to have replaced the one I painted before I gave away.

 

Unusual suspect.

[Zippi]

Just some fine looking rides Luke...mighty fine.

[Brockc]

17 hours ago, Cool Hand said:

Hope to get colour coats on these 2 LJ's and HQ over the next couple days.

 

I have had this build planned for awhile, good to finally make some progress getting the metallic colour coat applied.

 

And another idea and plan starting to come to life. Wheels and stance just for this mock up.

 

Not my best black paint job, but im glad to have replaced the one I painted before I gave away.

 

Unusual suspect.

Is the red LC Pro Street 1 because it looks perfect same as that blue Lc 

[Cool Hand]

22 hours ago, Zippi said:

Just some fine looking rides Luke...mighty fine.

Thanks Bob, I got way to may idea's. Nearly time to settle down and build.

 

5 hours ago, Brockc said:

Is the red LC Pro Street 1 because it looks perfect same as that blue Lc 

Yes mate, Pro Street 1 is the inspiration for the red LC, you know where im going with some of my idea's. Finally getting around to making them a reality.

[Cool Hand]

LJ's both got the colour coats applied.

Have other wheels chosen for both builds, just using these for mock up.

 

Fingers crossed the clear brings out more of the green the HQ.

[Cool Hand]

Finally applied some paint to the XY GT Falcon.

 

 

[Cool Hand]

Applied a few coats of Mr Color GX-100 super clear iii to the 2010 Camaro, Certainly brought the pearl to life.

 

[Steve H]

On 2/28/2025 at 8:41 AM, Cool Hand said:

Hope this helps @Steve H

Any part that has well defined raised detail is best for the the technique.

Like these valve covers

 

Like always prime or as I use 1500 black surfacer.

 

Using any lacquer based paint apply the colour you want the raised detail to be.

 

And clear coat to seal the colour coat. And allow to fully dry/cure. 

 

 

 

For the over coat of the main colour, you can use enamel or acrylic(water or alcohol based)

The Holden valve cover I used Vallejo Mecha Primer black as it has a nice satin finish. And levels out to a very smooth finish.

 

On the 308 valve cover, I over coated with Alclad gloss black base.

I applied it a little too heavy, thankfully the detail didnt get buried.

 

Allow to dry for a couple hours, touch dry is best as it makes removal in the next step easy.

These cotton swabs are the best for precise removal of paint.

 

For the removal of the Mecha primer I used Vallejo thinner, but alcohol will work for acrylics.

Just moisten the cotton swab enough to lightly swipe away the paint of the raised detail.

 

And to remove the Alclad Gloss Black, I moisten the cotton swab with Tamiya Enamel thinner.

 

 

 

G’day Luke! Thank you very much for taking the time to do a full detailed explanation, with photos!! This looks a bit more challenging than paint over foil, but the results are outstanding. May give it a go sometime when the foil isn’t an option. I believe this will be very useful for others on the forum here. Always admire your work, and your willingness to share techniques. Thanks again mate. 
No pressure, but I hope when you start assembling all these beautiful cars that the Camaro is close to the front of the assembly line.😉🤞😄