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Brush painting cars - tips?

I decided to take a break from modern jets, having tired of the disparity between the details of the kits I was building. Well, that, and trying to apply all the two hundred stencils on Revell's 1/72 Twin-seat Typhoon.

I'm stuck without an airbrush, though - I do have one, but I have no place to operate it and I've misplaced the hose adapter for the propellant can, which makes it rather useless - and I know from a long line of ruined car kits that gloss paints, other than black and possibly one or two blues, hate me.

I've managed to solve the problem on one of the cars - by accident. I discovered that the yellow paint I thought I had for the 2001 Daytona/Le Mans C5-R was flat, rather than gloss. Seeing no real alternative, I decided to experiment - paint it flat yellow and give it a coat of future to gloss it up afterwards. It worked pretty well - especially after I discovered pretty much by a fluke that you can polish the half-dry paint by rubbing it with a folded up piece of tissue. The car body was nearly all glossed up even before the Future!

The other car is trickier, I think. I've gotten a 2004 Z06 Commemorative Edition Corvette (I foolishly thought they'd have parts in common, so I'd learn from one how to best build the other, like I did with my last two). It's supposed to be dark b=F6ue metallic - a color I don't have, to begin with, and which I don't really like. I decided at first that I'd paint it red - but that is nearly transparent, and ended up being a very dark pink after the first coat over the white plastic. I also used the gloss version, which despite very liberal thinning took nearly fourteen hours to dry. The second application was a bust almost immedieately since I got dust in the brush, so I stripped it and now I'm back to square one.

I looked around for images of the real thing, and apparently there's a "regular" Z06 which was available in yellow, which would be cool since I've already discovered the trick to that. Would the plastic of the Commemorative kit be any good for a yellow Z06 to go next to the racing version, as I saw in one googled image? My eye for detail isn't good enough to tell...

Also, does anyone else have any good tricks for brush painting large gloss areas?=20

SP

Reply to
sebastianpalm
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your flat to gloss trick is the best way i've found, too. i can never get a large gloss area brush painted worth a damn. one thing that seems to help is i very light sanding with

600+ grit paper, touch up, resand and get it really smooth. then i use a rattle can of dull cote to really flatten it down. smooth again with sand paper. then i gloss it. future is good, but a rattle of gloos cote can work better. yellow is a bitch, no matter what.
Reply to
e

On the whole I'd rather not brush paint large areas but the best way to attempt it is with a 1" or wider flat brush. Make one pass only as trying togo back and fix this or that will only make things worse. Also, work with thinned, well-mixed paint.

I'm afraid I don't quite get the gist of the plastic question.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Reply to
Mad-Modeller

I've got a hard time reformulating the question, but let's try it this way - the parts are for a 2004 model - did the subject change enough that this matters if I want to do an earlier year?

The one pass idea applies more to acrylics - which I'm never using with a brush again, except for painting metal parts. I tried Tamiya's acrylics on one of my previous cars, and the paint would skin over more or less instantly, which left me with the rather unenviable options of either having gaps or tearing up the paint. Enamels stay put... :-)

SP

Reply to
sebastianpalm

Ah, I understand now - but I can't help you. Once we get past 1967 my knowlede of Corvettes is rudimentary at best.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Reply to
Mad-Modeller

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