Opinions needed please

[69*Goat]

I am in the process of building both of the Bad Boy C6R's Corvettes. I have gotten all of the skull, and paint break decals on the cars. My question is this.....

Should I apply All of the decals then clear coat, or clear coat over the skulls and paint breaks and then add the rest of the decals. I know that I will probably get a bunch of different answers based on personal preference, but on real 1:1 race cars the car is cleared, and then the decals are put on.

I guess I am asking more from a contest standpoint. Yes the clear does blend the decals into the finish, but what do most judges look for?

Opinions requested.

[BigGary]

It really depends on the look you want. Decals on top of clearcoat make then stick better, however, clearcoat on top of throughly dry decals will hide the decal film and look more realistic. At least that's my opinion. Others may disagree.

Gary

[MR BIGGS]

What I do is add one light coat of clear to the car, and then add the decals to a nice smooth surface. If you just add the decals then clear it, anything under the decal that was flat will stay flat and not look good. A lot of guy's just add the decal after they clear it, that's the easy way out. Any mishandling of the model or cleaning it might ruin the decals later on. You need to have everything on that model protected. Because we all know decals have a tendency to dry up and flake off.

But that’s just my 2 cents.

Edited March 24, 2009 by MR BIGGS

[george 53]

Goat, It won't hurt to take Mr.Biggs advice. Have you ever seen 300? That's his custom Semi, an if you wanna see what a KILLER Profesional paint job looks like, you CAN'T go any better than that! Besides, he DOES make sense about protecting the decals under the clear.

[CAL]

Goat, It won't hurt to take Mr.Biggs advice. Have you ever seen 300? That's his custom Semi, an if you wanna see what a KILLER Profesional paint job looks like, you CAN'T go any better than that! Besides, he DOES make sense about protecting the decals under the clear.

To me they always look better cleared over the decals.

[69*Goat]

What I do is add one light coat of clear to the car, and then add the decals to a nice smooth surface. If you just add the decals then clear it, anything under the decal that was flat will stay flat and not look good. A lot of guy's just add the decal after they clear it, that's the easy way out. Any mishandling of the model or cleaning it might ruin the decals later on. You need to have everything on that model protected. Because we all know decals have a tendency to dry up and flake off.

But that’s just my 2 cents.

I did lay down a coat of TS-13 before I placed the decals on the cars. However, I DO NOT trust TS-13 to go over the decals.... I was going to lay a coat of 2K clear over the decals, but was worried about the scale appearance of the 2K clear. I have never used it before, but it looks to me like it may be too thick, if you know what I mean.

Any tricks to getting the correct appearance? I am guessing sanding and buffing?

[MR BIGGS]

I did lay down a coat of TS-13 before I placed the decals on the cars. However, I DO NOT trust TS-13 to go over the decals.... I was going to lay a coat of 2K clear over the decals, but was worried about the scale appearance of the 2K clear. I have never used it before, but it looks to me like it may be too thick, if you know what I mean.

Any tricks to getting the correct appearance? I am guessing sanding and buffing?

All the decals jobs that I have done, I used decal thin set this way you know they aren’t going to move, then I apply a nice coat of Urethane that goes over anything no sanding or buffing needed. I have never tried the stuff you use thou. So I can't really say.

[69*Goat]

All the decals jobs that I have done, I used decal thin set this way you know they aren’t going to move, then I apply a nice coat of Urethane that goes over anything no sanding or buffing needed. I have never tried the stuff you use thou. So I can't really say.

TS-13 is a Tamiya Spray Clear, I have seen it burn through decals. The 2K Clear is a two part Urethane Clear, which I think most everyone on here uses. I did use Micro-Sol to set the decals in place. I think that I am going to go ahead and put all of the decals on both cars and clear over them.

[Harry P.]

The answer to your question is pretty simple.

Do it the way the "real" car is done.

Real race cars don't have clear applied over the sponsor decals.

[Tommy Kortman]

I have to agree with Harry on this one. Using the clear over the graphics that would have been painted on the 1:1 cars and then leaving the sponsor & contingency decals uncleared would look more realistic. I like to use a urethane clear and give the car a light even coat. Then once that is dry about 24hrs, I will lightly wetsand with 2000 girt to get rid of the decal edge in the clear. Finally clear it again with 3 more thin coats of the urethane. Once that is dry, I'll wetsand with the 2k once more and polish with Mothers extra fine rubbing compoundand finally polish with their liquid gold polish. I am not sure how the vettes were actually done though. They may have been 'wrapped'. This is where the teams use large vyinl stickers to cover the entire car. This will actually give the car a more satin appearance. You would never notice it on TV though. I got a real eye opener as to how rough the surface of a actual race car looks up close when we went to the Grand-am race at T-bolt raceway last year. Up close those prototype cars are all banged up with racers tape and patches etc. All the repairs are just color matched so they dont show up on TV.

I would not recomend the satin finish though, it just wouldn't look right on the model. I would really like to see the photos of those cars when you finish them.