Aston Martin DBS "Carbon Black"

[ferrari87]

I will do that mustang! I'm going to hit up the store on Monday and start the process of chrome killing while I get the body painted and the first round of chassis colors done. I plan on doing a lot of painting Monday and some last detail bits built this weekend, like brake lines and the two hoses that connect to the throttle bodies.

[Matt Bacon]

If you've got some eye protection and some rubber or latex gloves, buy some "caustic soda" or "lye" (Sodium Hydroxide or NaOH) crystals for intended for cleaning up the kitchen. A teaspoon or two of crystals in a Hellmans jar half full of water will take all the "chrome" off your plastic in about a minute, and when you carefully pour it out, clean out your sink drainage into the bargain... Just add it carefully, and wash it out well...

bestest,

M.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Matt Bacon

[MeatMan]

Really nice start! I hope your redo works.

[ferrari87]

Happy weekend gents! An update and a choice for today. First, I've decided on Mica Red for the basecoat and gloss black for the rims. That leads to the update! After utilizing google to .00000000003% of its potential, i found out that bleach and coke can be used as well so I tried coke and i'm sure it works after a few days, but no thanks. So, into the bleach it went. This was just Clorox Household Cleaner bleach. After about 5 minutes, here are the results:

I should have some paint laid down tomorrow and some other updates.

[ferrari87]

happy Monday gents. First of a big update today! I painted the body, hood, and underbody Mica Red. It's still curing, but final pics will come. These are a few I snapped during painting. Unfortunately, I laid the paint on rather thick. There are several spots that gathered paint, particularly at the bottom of the doors. So much so that the panel line between the rocker panel and the door has almost disappeared. All of those areas that need attention will be wet sanded of course. All in the name of learning I suppose.

I'm off to paint the rims gloss black. Stay tuned!

[Twokidsnosleep]

Watching intently!

Great paint color

[ferrari87]

Ok folks, big updates here for you guys:

Here are a few ok pics of the paint. I love the paint color, and I love how shiny it is right out of the can. However, I don't like spraying from a can. I can't control the pressure and I feel like a spray can is like a fire hose, it just blasts paint out in a deluge. I wasn't careful enough and there are many areas that need wet sanding tomorrow morning. They are below. From now on, I will be decanting the cans and using the airbrush.

here you can see where the paint built up under the door/above the rocker panel, enough to completely cover up the bottom panel line.

Here you can see a bubble. I don't know how these happen, so any advice would be much appreciated.

and more bubbles...

and the one bright spot, the hood. Boy this looks good. You can actually see me taking the picture in the hood. I was suprised how shiny the paint was without any work. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

[ferrari87]

I also built the front grille. I do not know if I like it as the stock one once dechromed I think fits better, but is obviously too thick to be in proper scale.

here are the grilles inserted into the car for comparison:

and finally, gloss black rims:

I would like to know which grille you guys think is best. I'd like to use the P.E. grille but I don't know how good it really looks. It will be painted flat black.

Look forward to hearing any support, constructive (or non-constructive) criticisms welcome. Advice and tips are much appreciated!

[Kennyboy]

I think that the PE grille will look better to scale when it is painted flat black.

Paint bubbles like that are usually caused by moisture that gets into the paint stream. Perhaps from washing the body before paint?

[Chillyb1]

You should use the pe grille. It will add greatly to the look of the finished model. Back up a bit and take a look at the orange car above; you'll notice how the grille should look and you can compare that to your pe grille.

[dragzz]

sorry to here about the paint job thats happen to me u going redo it or can u sand it out its was looking good

[ferrari87]

sorry to here about the paint job thats happen to me u going redo it or can u sand it out its was looking good

I'm just going to sand it out. Overall, the paint (to me) looks spectacular. I'm used to painting tanks, so I'm not used to achieving a factory finish. "perfect" in armor was banged up. Now I just have to learn how to wet sand. As I've seen Donn Yost mention before, painting is a technique that must be practiced until it is second nature.

I think that the PE grille will look better to scale when it is painted flat black.

Paint bubbles like that are usually caused by moisture that gets into the paint stream. Perhaps from washing the body before paint?

I washed the body days before primer and even then, I painted today about a week after laying the primer. The only thing I could think of is somehow water got on the car, most likely from the can as I may have placed it into warm water between coats. I will have to remember to keep contaminants out of the work area in the future.

I think so too, the PE grille will look better. It's slightly misaligned on the passenger side, about halfway down. It was a devil to keep aligned during the build but went together surprisingly easy. I'm starting to really love the PE add ons. I remember some of the items for my tanks just driving me absolutely bonkers.

[dragzz]

take your time its will come out well . its looking really good so far. have u tryed to use an airbrush be for thay work really well look in to it some time thats up to u

Edited December 23, 2014 by dragzz

[ferrari87]

take your time its will come out well . its looking really good so far. have u tryed to use an airbrush be for thay work really well look in to it some time thats up to u

I have one now. I debated on decanting the paint but figured I'd give a rattle can a shot this time. First impression, i'm not a fan.

[ferrari87]

I tried wet sanding the issues out and it isn't working out. First, the bubbles had no paint behind them, so they have basically cratered. So in the center of the crater I have the white primer. I know sanding these out won't work on the back end when i paint as I will still have issues with the crater not having the same depth as the paint around it. So, I'm going to strip the body tonight with 91% iso alcohol and try this all again. This time, I'm decanting the paint and using my airbrush. That way, I have the best control of the paint.

[ferrari87]

Man, that's a sweet color!! As far as decanting goes, make sure that you let the propellants off gas before you airbrush. It's amaizing how long it takes. And after you set the jar down don't touch it. I haven't expeimented this my self but I have heard of the static electricity generated while touching it to be enough to make the paint bubble up, and make a huge mess. I give it about half day to off gas.

Well, I have had a lot of static electricty around the house the past couple days. I don't touch the model, only the stand its on. I think a lot of my issues came from my final wet coat. I know there were no issues in the paint prior to my final coat and I just went heavy on it.

I have the hood soaking in iso alcohol now and when I get home from work tonight I will check it out. I figured I'd respray both the hood and the body.

I think the color is phenomenal. I was expecting it to be a little flatter, but man it glossed up well! My phone does not capture its true beauty.

[dragzz]

good luck on the redo let me know how its goes just take your time mist the coats on frist better that way thats what i do . good luck

[Pizzwizz24]

Wow Justin....sucks that you have to strip the whole body! This build seems to just keep fighting you round after round. Happy to see your not giving in and working even harder to get it perfect. Good for you. I'm sure it's gonna come out fantastic in the end. Hard work will pay off. Good luck.

[ferrari87]

I should clarify. I mean that once you decant into the jar you are using to capture the decanted paint. The peopellants used are extremely sensitive to static electricity.

10-4 sir. I will hook myself up to a grounding cable.

Wow Justin....sucks that you have to strip the whole body! This build seems to just keep fighting you round after round. Happy to see your not giving in and working even harder to get it perfect. Good for you. I'm sure it's gonna come out fantastic in the end. Hard work will pay off. Good luck.

She's really been giving me a hard time. I think it would be very easy to pack it up but I really love the DBS and I've wanted to complete one for a long time. I wasn't sure about it being my second car. I really want to do this car well so I won't accept a even slightly flawed paint job.

[ferrari87]

Smart Alec....lol. I probably came off a bit snooty. I tend to do that sometimes.

No no not at all. I was the one being sarcastic. I had no idea about the static electricity and i was half serious about grounding myself, I've been shocking myself on light switches and all sorts of things around the house.

Edited December 24, 2014 by ferrari87

[dragzz]

dont give up on it as was doing my gasser thats was fighting me all the way did a redo on paint job two times but i still worked at it till it was done dont give up u will get it right we are all with u on this build keep up the good work

[ferrari87]

Well about 24 hours in 91% iso alcohol has taken the paint off of the hood rather well. There's still some primer on the hood so it went back in to soak. The body, oh lord. I put it in last night after buying more alcohol to actually cover the model (I also used one of the wife's casserole dishes, ha!) and even then, needed to add a little water. The paint has bubbled in places and it comes off with a plastic scraper, but its not "easy." I've seen various techniques, various products from Brake Fluid, 91% iso alcohol, Simple Green, Castrol Super Clean, and there's one that I like. It's called Ready Strip and worked in minutes.

here's a video

For now the car will continue to soak in 91% until I can get my hands on some of the Ready Strip, maybe the alcohol can loosen up the easy stuff and then the Ready Strip can rid the car of the stubborn paint. Fingers crossed.

[dragzz]

me i use brake fluid dot 3 or 4 not 5 its works great strip the paint clear in a about 5 to 6 hrs

[ferrari87]

Ok guys, first bit of good news. I have stripped the hood of almost all paint and primer. I still have some work to do on it but I went to Lowes and got "Citrustrip." It read the same as Ready Strip and is probably the exact same thing except it smells like orange-glo. That is, it has a nasty orange smell to it. The bottle says "pleasant", I say noxious. Anyway, I let the paste sit for no more than 5 mins as I wanted to ensure the stripper did not have much time to get at the plastic. Almost on contact, the stripper turned red from the paint so my initial feeling was this stuff was "hot". I will post a few pics up tonight, after I finish the hood. Im planning on sanding it out a bit more from 800 on up to 3200, wet and dry. So far, this stuff works and works well!

[dragzz]

i will be waiting for thos pic