Detailing a 1 piece chassis

[vintagestang]

How do I detail a one piece chassis?

[Dave Mikrut]

If you really don't plan on hacking it up so you can add more detailed suspension parts, front aframes and rear leafs or coils with a seperate rear axle (no easy tasks but they can be done) or grind away a single exhaust and fill it so you can add dual exhaust, try detailing with paint. Lotsa guys are choosing gray or flat black for the whole chassis but then detail painting with different color or shades or semi flats and then dry brushing with silver or grays to make the molded in details pop. Many fellows are shooting a bit of body color overspray down the sides after that to simulate when the car is painted in the factory.

Here's just a quickie example of removing some single exhaust and some detail painting. All these added parts did not come from the kit.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Dave Mikrut

[62rebel]

paint; careful painting. different colors and finishes for various parts. some areas can be undercut and provide a 3-plus D visual representation, on most kits with a platform chassis. long before there were decent donor kits, i did an AMT '64 Mercury chassis that way, cutting away "extra" plastic and painting areas i didn't want "seen" in dead flat black.

[62rebel]

hey! Dave is using an AMT '55 Chevy chassis to explain exactly what we're saying... i'm looking at that exact kit right now...

[Nick Winter]

I did what the other guys said, with the exception of that I started by priming with red oxide, then I sprayed a bit of my body color around the edges, I then took a good brush and did the rest.

[Dave Mikrut]

Now see, that's what I'm talkin about, you made that nicely detailed just with paint!

[Ben]

One trick for detailing a one piece chassis using just paint is to use Silly Putty as a masking agent. You can tuck the Silly Putty down into areas where you don't want a color to be and spray the whole thing. Afterwords the Silly Putty pulls right up.

[Bill Eh?]

Thanks for that tip Ben. I've used Silly Putty to mask small parts off the sprue, but never thought of using it to mask a chassis. Sure will save using a lot of tape! LOL

[Nick Notarangelo]

you can do wonders Pat with a one piece chassis with a little creative painting and some basic running of lines like fuel and brake lines if you want,or a nice light wash to bring out the recess details also.

Take for example revells mid 70s Monte Carlo snap kit for example,all the detail is there you just got to be creative with your paints and washes and it jumps out at you.

Edited December 28, 2011 by riknight1972

[stulee11]

i do mine simlar to nicks but i prime, then paint the whole thing body colour, and just pick out detial after.

hope it helps mate.

stu

[Guest]

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Edited February 16, 2012 by plowboy

[Draggon]

Some very nice examples there! This is what I did to Revell's 34 Ford snapper. Just careful painting, a bit of BMF on the front axle and Future on the rear end. I just wish I had gotten rid of that screw in the oilpan..........

[vintagestang]

I'm also gonna need to cut the top part of the rear differential away from the floor and cut the muffler out of the floor.

[Evil Appetite]

I just go over then molded in lines and nuts/botls, then drybrush the heck out of it with diff shades of black, some steel and other metalizers