I've decided to a chessie system paint job. It won't be easy ass doing three colors on such a small engine isn't easily done. I'm willing to give it a try and see how it turns out. I've got the primer on and the base of c&o yellow. I'll let this dry over night and mask off for the orange/ vermillion next. Wish me luck.
I got the orange paint down. Had a small spot that wasn't covered good enough and a small spot of paint peeling from the tape but both are fixable as the spot that peeled needs painted orange anyways. The blue will go on tomorrow. I spent about 2 hours taping this thing off so this is a very time consuming paint job. The blue isn't the inal coat of paint. I'll have to go back and paint the walkways and handrails.
I'm hard to please. I got hurried and decided to try and brush on the paint in the touch up areas. Big mistake, I knew better but thought it wouldn't be as bad as it was. So I stripped it down and it's being redone. I'm trying something new. I'm starting with blue like the originals were done and working my way down. I'm hoping it will help and bleeding or problems if gravity still works.
The bleeding is a capillary effect. Gravity has little effect on it. It's because there is a small gap where the tape isn't making perfect contact with the surface. When liquid paint gets on it, it is drawn between the tape and the shell. There are several ways to help avoid this. 1: Use the back of a razor blade or a tooth pick to press the masking tape between the details and along the tape edge. You have a lot of bleeding between door panels where the tape isn't making good contact. 2: If you have an airbrush, great. If not, think about getting an airbrush. They can/should be set to spray a thin coat of paint, that dries almost instantly so that it doesn't have a chance to bleed. Also don't spay such heavy coats. Take your time and build the color up slowly. Ive been using the $24 one from harbor freight for a long time. Its cheap and does a great job laying down coats of solid colors. 3:It looks like you are painting with spray paint cans. You can try spraying in thinner coats, allowing it to dry between coats, and it will help with the bleeding. But because spray cans tend to spray larger droplets, the finish will look more speckled, like how your paint stand is starting to look. Maybe just try on a practice piece to spray a few thin coats, and build it up slowly so that it doesn't have a chance to bleed. Sometimes you can put down a few thin speckled layers to seal the tape edge, and then give a heavier final layer to give the smooth top layer. 4. Try just painting the Blue and Yellow sections. Then find red strip decals, like those on Microscale MSD-60-611 or MSD-60-623 to do the red. The decals will cover any imperfections between the blue and yellow paint. Good Luck, Curn
Thanks for the reply. I'm using an airbrush for all of it. The paint went on nicely. There were a few spots that the tape wasn't secured tightly enough. I'm using dental picks, razor blades, and a tips to secure the tape. I think I'll have more success the 2nd time around. The yellow paint is a premix for airguns. I ran out of air while painting and that's what caused the splatter you can see on the dish. It wasn't giving enough air pressure. It still laid a nice layer though.
Another suggestion to help with capillary effect. After masking off the area, spray another thin coat of the same base color before laying on the next color. This helps to seal the seam and because your use same color to seal any bleeding/capillary action shouldn't be apparent. Hope this helps. Regardless continue to have fun and look forward to see how it turns out. ~Paul E.
Thanks. That actually sounds like a very good idea! I hadn't thought of that or had anyone recommend doing that before.
ordinary masking tape is not very good at masking for painting on models and leaving a sharp line, chick with a paint store for better grades of masking tape that are designed for prevent the bleeding, where we are there is a blue and a green variety that are very good. Our local hobby store for gas model airplanes, boats and cars has a pin striping masking tape that is even better. I get better lines with an airbrush that with a rattle can.
I had used testors masking tape and it peeled the paint. I'm using blue painters tape now that I used a sharp exacto knife to cut a straight edge for a crisp line. Hopefully this works better. Instead of staring with yellow I'm starting with blue and working my way down. One problem in had was after 4 coats of paint the details on the roof were covered with too much paint. I've only done single colors and got pretty good at those with my airgun so I decided to try something a little more challenging. All the paint I'm using is sprayed through my airgun.
I like Tamiya masking tape. Try to mask details until the final paint. Liquid masking from micro scale worked for me to mask handrails to avoid to much buildup of paint. /Frank
Frank is right, Tamiya is the best and another important point is to remove the tape when the paint is still semi-wet. A good airbrush is another key success factor, I use Badger Krome
Has anyone tried "Frog Tape" (I think that is the name) which is specifically designed for getting sharp lines while painting. ...don
I haven't tried frog tape, but on another model forum the yellow delicate surface frog tape was recommended as being very similar to Tamiya masking tape or Shurtape cp-60, but with the water lock adhesive. It was recommended that you pre-wet the edges to activate the water lock seam before you start painting. It might be worth a try.
Not easy if you're only painting thin stripes, is it? Myself I'm currently painting an AZL GP38 with Ferrocarril Chiapas Mayab paintscheme (Genesee & Wyoming: orange with 2 black stripes all around cab and shell). I wondered how to do with an airbrush for these, but I came to the conclusion that it's easier to do the job with a small hand brush. Dom
Yeah, Ive given up masking anything thin like that, especially in black. If you have the hand brush skills to pull it off, great. I would just draw up some decals, and print them using any black laser printer.
