TOPIC:

Hi guys,

Had a body shell lying around that came from an Evo (thanks again Spitfire).
Not the biggest looker but in very decent shape and still holding lots of potential :


I reckoned this would be a nice shell for the black bathtub build, giving me the opportunity to do some lexan experiments.


Obviously the first point of action was to get rid of the yellow paint.
Surprisingly even a full night in a quite highly concentrated sodium hydroxide bath didn't do much...
Googling a bit led me to try DOT 4 (note, not DOT 3) brake fluid next :




Mmm... no spectacular reaction either.
That's some decent paint - meaning I'll have to spray the body on the outside.
After both treatments and sanding off sticky residu from the velcro lining :




First I'll patch up the yellow a bit so the paint is built up homogeneously for the final layers :


Another mmm... that spraycan's more orange than yellow really.


Not a big deal though, basic coat is on :


Next, some grey primer. Both inside and out...
Missed a few steps here taking pictures but the result so far :


Now I'll have to get the paint for the final coat. Black I think.
And it would certainly be nice if I could produce some home made decals for it...

To be continued...

Edou wrote:

...
And it would certainly be nice if I could produce some home made decals for it...

...

I've being doing some experiments on that front - and an article, but according to my schedule, it won't appear for a month ...

The gist of it will be:

- obtain scan of decals

- redraw edges & remove all the blue background

- sort which bits can be printed on white, and which on clear

- print out on clear & white inkjet vinyl as appropriate, cut out the bits on the white, seal everything with clearcoat

I've been looking into it but for now it's probably now very feasible.
Only step one has been complied to so far.
I'd be needing a faster computer (it can't handle the vector software) and I'll have to get my 'ole inkjet to work again...
There's a good adress I know for the decal paper though.
But a few too many obstacles for this respray that I'm trying to keep as low budget as possible.

Jonny wrote:

remove all the blue background

Why is that btw? And does printing it "pixelated" give a hideous result?

Edou wrote:

...

Jonny wrote:

remove all the blue background

Why is that btw? ...

Imagine a black sponsor logo on an original decal sheet - and when you cut it out & peel it, it'll be black on a clear background. If you scanned the decal sheet, it would be black lettering on a blue background.

If you directly print that scan on clear vinyl, then you'll have black lettering on a blue background that doesn't go when you cut it out & peel it - it'll still be black lettering surrounded by blue.

If you replace that blue background with white, home printers are incapable of printing white, so if you print that modified scan on clear vinyl, only the black will come out, so it'll be correct.

Edou wrote:

...And does printing it "pixelated" give a hideous result?

I use Paint Shop Pro & can't say I've had any problems with pixellation (or "jaggies") on lines & curves, but perhaps that's down to my method - take a high quality scan, then crop out an individual logo. Resize that by 400%, then redraw the edges/ fill in the blue background with white, using the Bezier Line tool (with anti-ailiasing enabled). Resize to 25%, then insert into a new image with the same size/resolution properties as the original scan (one for the bits to be printed on white, one for clear.

The big problem with home printing is logos/lettering which are supposed to be white lettering on a clear background - I haven;t come up with any way of doing that yet.

Okay, thanks for the info.
I was about 80% there thinking about the blue background.
The resizing and colouring sounds like something I might be able to do - with the same software you're using.
I'll have a look how that goes (computer speed wise)...
I won't be putting on a complete decal sheet, so I could make a small alternative composition.
Possibly printable at the local copy shop. Haven't looked into that yet.
Or maybe you could do me a solid here if I ask very nicely.

Edit - not much white used on that sheet I think...

I wrote:

Next, some grey primer. Both inside and out...
Missed a few steps here taking pictures but the result so far :

No pics doesn't mean I can't describe what I did of course...
After putting the "yellow" on the inside I sprayed on the grey primer.
Let that dry until the next day and then roughed up the outside of the shell with fine grid sandpaper and degreased it.
Also did some fine detailing at the edges of the shell.
Last step so far is priming the outside.

I'm very happy with this paint. It's basic "all purpose" primer (cheap) and will stick to anything.
After an hour or so, I put my fingernail over it and didn't achieve any damage with that.
Only thing is, it smells like you're not really supposed to sniff it. Especially when it's drying.

Now for some black...
PS-23 (gunmetal) would also be nice but that doesn't fit in the low budget approach.

Decided to put in more effort and make it a shell for a bathtub chassis permanently.
Meaning I'll have to hide the unnecessary holes and adapt the place where the antenna sticks out...
Because of the long low Top Force nose, it'll have to be big enough for the mount to stick out.
The body won't fit otherwise :


Reinforced aluminium tape on the inside :


Crude filling on top :


Too crude actually, I'll need to do some repriming.
I would naturally have taken a different sequence of events if a change of plan hadn't come up.


Slightly reprimed (so I can better see what I'm doing) and some finer filling :


Sprayed black underneath :


And need to do some touching up on the edges, where it's still yellow :


The paint didn't leak through but the tape I used is a bit too thick for this purpose.
Weapon of choice - a fine permanent marker :

Oeh, I like it already!

Ha, just thought I'd tear myself away from paint stripping & distract myself with some reading (I do once in a while Jonny), but after reading some of this it looks like someone else is having fun with lexan shells! Doing the newly aquired cobra shell at the mo, I think the paint may have military origins as it's refusing to let go.... It's been in the old brake fluid for 48hrs & I swear there's more coming off from friction from the toothbrush than from the fluid! Tedious tedious tedious. I don't really understand why it hasn't fogged yet either!

There's always that question before you start - what sort of paint is this gonna be? Although it makes some of us fret when people don't prep stuff or use the wrong paint, when you're faced with getting the wretched stuff off you pray it was done wrong to start with! Domestic emulsion's my favourite, I'll have that off in a few minutes, closely followed by model enamel, Hammerite & Plasticote, none of which ever put up much of a fight in brake fluid (30 mins usually). Some lexan paints start to come off after a few hours, others take a day or so, usually (I normally give up after that if I can lay my hands on another shell). Automotive paint is funny stuff though, & if it comes off depends a lot on what previous prep/degreasing was done. On lexan you can sometimes just flex the shell & it falls off, other times nothing will touch it. Again, I suspect there's also a degree of "What paint formulation", & I'll lay money it's the older cellulose based stuff that won't let go, rather than more modern acrylic based.

Jonny, if you decide to do a bit about doing your own decals, can I ask you include a bit about waterslides too? - I've more or less ditched sticky stuff in favour of this, mainly because you never know what you're gonna get with the sticky until it turns up & you try to use it (Assuming you don't remember where you bought the decent stuff), whereas I can safely say it's always gone well with the waterslides (For me anyway).
As for using scans & the whole pixillation thing, I've always found that if you download a pic from the net, the quality is mostly always pants/low res, & you end up having to fanny about upscaling, cleaning edges then downscaling to 1:1 again to clean the pic for use, not to mention sorting out the background colour & any other unwanted marks. I usually only mess about like that with stuff I can't just redraw, redrawing is just so much cleaner & less time-consuming, if you can

I saw no way to take off every bit of yellow on this one.
But painting on the outside has some advantages - like being able to fill up the holes.
I can never seem to get a smooth result with two-component automotive filler.
Maybe I need some fine Tamiya putty...
But I think I'll have a go with some resin for the final touch.

And taking a shortcut with the marker will most likely be corrected with a small brush.
It's just a bit against my nature, even for a runner body.