With the TA02 rebuild complete, it was time to put the finishing touches on it. The last thing I needed to do was paint and cut the body.
A visit to a local hobby shop produced an HPI 1/10 Nissan Skyline lexan body. While I prefer authentic Tamiya bodies, they’re so freakin’ expensive that it is hard to justify the purchase. They have superior detail to HPI bodies, but their $40 – $60 price tag is just too much. HPI bodies are produced with mass consumption in mind and are cheaper, running between $24 and $30.
I also purchased a couple of cans of Pactra Racing Finish paints. I bought Fluorescent Green, Sprint White, and Outlaw Black. I used Pactra paints on the JACCS Accord I had several years ago and was pleased with the result, so I figured I would use them again.
Despite sitting in my closet for more than a year, the HPI body held up. The bag suffered a slight tear somewhere along the way, but the body didn’t suffer any dents, dings, or cracks. It looked as if I had bought it yesterday.
I prepped the body for paint, washing it and masking it. I know to scuff it with fine grit sand paper, but I was too lazy to go to the hardware store, so I skipped it. My advice, scuff it. I should have gone to the store, considering the results I got, but more on that later.
I was a little concerned that the fluorescent green paint wouldn’t perform well because it had been sitting in a closet for more than a year. But, I couldn’t justify throwing it away, so I opted to use it. I applied one coat. I sprayed slowly, but consistently. It adhered cleanly to the roof and quarter panels. The hood? Not so much.
For some reason, the paint just would not adhere to the hood, or the front fascia for that matter, like it did the rest of the body. The end result was a big glob of paint that rested in the crevice created by the hood. I tried multiple times to even it out, but nothing worked. In the end, I gave up. I ran out of green paint, and figured that this would become the body I used to practice.
I applied a couple of coats of Sprint White as backing for the green. The white paint was purchased a few months ago and adhered significantly better than the green. In some areas of the front fascia, the green did not adhere at all, so tiny white spots of paint are visible from the outside of the body.
The first color of my car design was complete. I let the car dry over night and removed the tape the following day. I used blue painter’s tape instead of masking tape to see how it would work.
The answer? Not well. The painter’s tape allowed paint to seep under it more than masking tape would have. The painter’s tape was also harder to peel off, oftentimes ripping and leaving small pieces behind that I would have to scrape off.
Another disadvantage to using painter’s tape is that it is blue, and harder to see through when cutting out shapes you’ve done on the protective overspray film. And, it’s thickness makes cutting shapes out of it much more difficult and often results in cutting into the body in addition to the tape. I wouldn’t recommend using it.
The fluorescent green paint left crumbs. Yes, crumbs. I don’t know if this was a product of the paint being a year old, or if it was normal for that to happen. In the picture of the body, you can see a lot of the small green crumbs. Most, if not all of them, were easily wiped out with a cloth.
The white paint did not crumble, and dried to a nice finish. The white paint also seemed to dry much thicker than the green paint, thus holding its shape better and adhering to the body better.
All in all the first phase of painting did not go as well as I had hoped, but it wasn’t a complete disaster. I learned some things, which should help improve the painting of my next body.
Next: Finishing Touches Pt. 2 Previous: The Rebuild
