Mid 60s Peterbilt Unilite COE

[Jürgen M.]

6 hours ago, Biggu said:

So , Ron are you telling us that there are a herd of ‘Nauga’s’ running around in the forest nekked???? ????

I agree we are neck and neck so to speak but….. you , my friend are WAY ahead of me, buddy. I’m just glueing stuff to plastic , where as you are doing major surgery and working with JM designing and  making your own parts, far exceeds what I’m doing. I’ glad the Nauga’s donated their hides to the look of your cab. Looks just right and yea that color is it for sure. Your surgery and tach-o- graphs are spot on and look Really COOL!  Your back dating skills are masterful. Love the update …. Can’t wait to see what’s next. 
Keep going, this is good stuff !

Jeff

Hey Jeff, I'd do the same for you Buddy! ?

[RoninUtah]

Getting closer! White paint is on, now I gotta let it dry and cure a while before I can do the red.

[Biggu]

44 minutes ago, RoninUtah said:

Getting closer! White paint is on, now I gotta let it dry and cure a while before I can do the red.

We are neck and neck Ron! I’m TRYING to figure the masking of my cab ….what a nerve wracking exercise this is !  I can’t wait to see what you are going to do with yours ….. you are flying through this build. I’m really lovin what I’m seeing !!

[RoninUtah]

I’m literally waiting for paint to dry! So I’ve been busying myself with piddling little things in the meantime like painting fan belts and such. But here’s a fun thing- I’ve never been that crazy about AMT’s grilles- on the real trucks, the grille was really just a bug screen and you usually could see the radiator shutters behind it. So I decided to do something similar to what I did on my California Hauler a few months back, but it was complicated by the fact that the 352 grille is designed to attach to the front of the radiator. No detail on the radiator itself, and certainly no shutters! But I remembered that I had a bunch of leftover Peterbilt wrecker parts… and there was my radiator shutters! Too big, of course since it’s for a 359, but not to worry, it’s easy enough to cut to size:

And attach to the 352 radiator core:

I carefully cut the grille out of the frame:

I then painted the shutters aluminum, rechromed the grille surround and attached some vinyl mesh to the back. Viola!

I’ll attach the grille to the radiator after the cab is installed because it needs to fit just right. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will fit easily and I didn’t add too much depth to the radiator assembly.

More work on the chassis next…

[BK9300]

Great use of some extra parts!

[Jürgen M.]

Nice work! Good idea, looks very authentic! 

[Biggu]

The bar goes up TWO notches for this one Ron ….. exceptionally nice job and well thought out… I’m very impressed, the end result looks really good! 

[Pete68]

This is going to be a good looking truck your hard work is paying off. Thanks for sharing.  

[Rockford]

Good work around on the Kysor Air Grille. 

[RoninUtah]

Thanks for all the kind comments thus far! But I think now you all will see me for the rank amateur I really am... painting, where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

I've had good luck in the past using Scotch Magic Tape for masking: It's thin, flexible, transparent, and it hugs tight; also, it's easy to trim to exact shapes with a razor blade. So, I thought I'd try it on this build; I use kraft paper to cover and block out larger areas.

That little blemish you see above the left headlight is where I sanded down a high spot; I didn't want to repaint the white over that spot, figuring that the red will hide it. Also, when I pulled away the excess tape after trimming it, it pulled off some of the white, as you can see on the door. Again, that area will be red, though. But still, it's not a good sign of things to come!

After shooting the red paint, the blemishes still show through.  I'll wait a couple of hours and hit it with another coat to see if that helps, or I can brush it with unthinned paint after it dries. But frankly, right now this is looking like it's going to be a disaster.  We'll see whether I can salvage it when I pull the masks off.

BTW, I use enamel paints; the white is Tamiya from a rattle can, and the red is Testors from the tiny bottle, thinned down with regular paint thinner. I've never had good luck with acrylics, and once I ruined a good airbrush shooting acrylic when it started to set up too fast and clogged the airbrush. I usually give enamel about 72 hours to dry before messing with it; I've never thought that waiting for weeks or months for it to fully cure made sense, especially since I don't polish my models. Perhaps I've been wrong about that. But patience was never my strong suit.

Anyway, my fingers are crossed hoping that this won't be a total disaster and that I'll somehow be able to pull it off. But right now, I'm not optimistic.

[Pete68]

Looking good I think. I also use Scotch Tape for years but this weekend I found out after all these years using it the tape pulled some black primer and some silver off of the Black Primer. I think I didn’t let it set up good lesson learned. Thanks for sharing. 

[Biggu]

Ron, my fingers are crossed for a positive outcome. I have never tried the Scotch tape thing,  I used to use regular masking tape but that had a hot or miss result.  Lately I have opted to the. Tamiya kubuki tape, with careful placing and well burnishing done have had reasonable results. I used it on my Hayes which I shot the other day and am hoping for decent results….. maybe unmasking tomorrow….. depending on how the paint is cured. Like you, my experience hasn’t been stellar with acrylics. My go to was always Model Master enamels but now that someone thought to discontinue those, I am trying my had at lacquers, in the bottle with my airbrush, and so far excellent results …

I am really looking forward to your unmasking, Ron, and my fingers are well crossed for a clean and happy result to your specifications ……???

[Jürgen M.]

Hey Ron, also keeping Fingers crossed!

I always use the yellow Revell tape and I 've made some good experiences with it. 

If I get impatient and tear it off too early or too quickly I regret it but normally I have good results.

When I masked everything I of course put the same color on first that's been masked in order to close gaps. Let cure then the new color! The trick is to pull off the tape before the new color has totally cured. In fact you only wait till it's not completely wet anymore. That way you avoid pulling off the paint as a film at the edges of the tape. Then pull off the tape flat and close (almost parallel) to the surface and really slowly without touching the surface.

But what am I playing instructor. You surely know how it works!

Keep going! It'll look great!

[Rockford]

Paint is my nemesis. There's so many chances for disaster, I dread it. That's why my paint schemes are so boring. So, you're not on your own but at least you're brave enough to try! I'm sure it will look great when you're done.

[Bronzekeg]

nice work!

[Old Buckaroo]

It looking great, I'm with you on acrylics and never cared much for them. 

If you all can find it "Frisket Film" is a low tack adhesive film that I always liked for masking or making designs on models.  It was originally designed for making photographs for airbrush touch ups. (sorry cousin Eddy - your out of the Christmas photo" ?)

Another good trick is to use blue painters tape and stick it to a piece of clean glass or a hobby mat to remove some of the sticky then its not as apt to pull paint off.  I did this when painting resin trucks as that's always a iffy surface.

Keep the momentum going on this Pete !

[RoninUtah]

Thanks for all the supportive comments and advice, it is very much appreciated!

Well, here is the grand unmasking!

As you can see, there was some lift-off of the white, as I feared, as well as the usual (at least for me) bleed-through and misaligned masks. You can still see those blemishes in the red paint, but they're hardly visible. I'll probably hit them with a brush, at least the ones on the doors where you won't see the brush strokes as much. As for the white, I'll touch that up as best I can with a brush; I've got some Revell white paint that hopefully is opaque enough to do the trick. That's my best hope to salvage this thing.

So, in all, it's far from perfect, but it could be much worse. I hope I can pull it out; to me, dunking it in stripper and starting over from scratch is always a last resort.

[Rockford]

To be honest with you, the paint lift areas look like a weathered old truck really. Maybe give it a rub down with fine wet and dry paper to fade it and make it look like sunbleaching. I say that knowing that I'd be kicking my virtual dog all over the apartment at this point, you're demonstrating excellent restraint. 

[Old Buckaroo]

Ron sorry that happened, but it is savable. Let the red cure, lightly sand and feather in the white, mask the red and respray the white again.

I blew it big on a paint job trying new tape - you can see the nightmare here, but it worked out.

 

 

[Biggu]

Well, shucks !  That does look salvageable. It may take some thought for a new direction …. And an old truck with the paint coming off is a good thought …… this can be frustrating for sure but don’t let it stop this stop what is a very cool build. May just have to change direction a bit. I just unmasked my Hayes and have similar issues …. Keep going Ron. 

[BK9300]

I've had bleed through when taping on a flat surface, so I can imagine how difficult to get a good seal when masking across rivets and along drip rails.  Like Steve said, you're sounding very patient - hope your repairs go well.

[RoninUtah]

Thanks, Sean, I checked out your Astro thread, looks like you saved that one nicely! I hope I have similar luck.

[Gary Chastain]

It happens to all of us, multi color paint jobs always stress me out. You got this, be watching. 

[RoninUtah]

1 hour ago, Gary Chastain said:

It happens to all of us, multi color paint jobs always stress me out. You got this, be watching. 

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Gary!  I'm still not so sure, but I'll be doing something soon... Wish it had come out as clean as Jeff's build!

[Jürgen M.]

I agree totally that there are good chances of saving this! The look of an old truck with paint coming off and being weathered is a good idea! 

I'm sure this is going to look even more realistic now than you thought. Keep going and stay patient.