HOW I PAINT A CAR by Alan C Paterson

This article covers the build process of a car from beginning to end.

From THIS...

To THIS...

The first step is to get the decals done. As I'm doing this car, decals are not important, and I'll be doing these myself. The first part of the job requires the window and light masks to be done. I draw these on the Computer and print and cut them out wasting heaps of paper until I have an exact match with the lines on the body. I then cut a square piece of vinyl self-adhesive decal paper on a sheet of A4 paper, and print the mask onto the back of the Vinyl. Cut it all out, and there you have it, Window masks ready for the body.

The window and light masks are then peeled off and placed on the Body. I don't get too fussy when spraying with Polycarb spray, no airbrush etc, I just mask the body well with wide masking tape, and then stick it to the top of an empty coke bottle, and spray it. I do warm the tin up in some hot water before I spray, so that the paint is well mixed

and warm.

Once the paint has dried properly, (something I usually rush to see how the finish came out), I then use a hobby knife, and peel up the edges of the masks, and slowly peel them off the body.

The vinyl masks are very good at keeping paint from bleeding under the mask, so it always helps to get the look and lines of the body clean and neat from the start. From here, I peel off all the masks, and let the body dry properly for a day. In this case, I then prepared the next step, which was the modified plastic rear wing, and I got the decals done.

The 512 M which Won at Kyalami in 1970 was a pretty simple colour scheme, and not as fancy as the cars as seen overseas. It's Ferrari Red, with white Roundels, basic sponsors, and the sidewalls were aluminium in colour, so the decal sheet is much smaller than the others I've built like the Martini Porsche and Gunston Cars.

I print my decals on an HP Photoprint DeskJet printer, in Max DPI settings, and saturated Colour to 100%. I select Premium Glossy paper, (same as Photo paper), and set the print quality to 300Dpi. The paper I use is imported from the USA, and is white, as we can't use transparent paper here due to the printer's shortcomings. Can't print white see?

 

The real 512 M has a little wing on the rear

deck of the body, which is not on the lexan

body, and so need's to be made up, just like

the air intake above the cylinder stacks. So I

made up the wing out of three small pieces, the

two sides, which I glued onto the body using the trusty 2 Part Resin Glue I covered in the GLUE article. Once they were dry, I cut and shaped the centre pieces, and then stuck that onto the car, and the two sides of the smaller wings. Once dry, I painted it

using Enamel Red. I'm busy with the air intake, and then the rest of the

car.

The next step is to prepare the Interior to fit the body properly, and detail the interior and driver. The next main step though is to get the parts done for the body. The rear wing is done, but now I need to build a custom air duct to go on

the rear engine cover.

I use .5mm white plasticard for this kind of work, as it's easy to bend, and can be cut with scissors as well. As can be seen in the picture above of the rear wing, this air box does not stick up over the top of the roofline, however it must cover the whole cylinder bank. After measuring the length, I cut this out on the first try, and it looks perfect. Next, the two part resin, and glue the two sides to the top cover of the airbox. Once it's dry, I then coated it with enamel white.

I've given the Interior some paint, and glued on a rear engine cover, which will close off the interior nicely. I've also lined all the Windows and lights, and fuelcaps with a black fineliner to give the car some detail.

We've moved along now with the Ferrari. The decals have been put on the body, and it's taking shape now. The problem though with this decal paper is it's semi-translucent, so the background colour of the body does "bleed" through the paper in white section. You can clearly see the difference between the red and silver section on the door's roundel.

What I always do with my cars is to paint the roundels with white paint before putting the final decal on the body. This then gives you a white finish and you

don't see the background colours coming through.

Although it's not always possible to do this with every decal on the body, the other parts which have small white sections like the driver's names do not look as obvious as the large, surface roundels.

In this picture, the whites have been painted, and then the final decals put on over the painted sections. You can see the door is now a flat white, and there's no sign of the background showing through. I have also given the body Tamiya Clear Coat to seal the body and decals for a nice, gloss finish.

The Tamiya Clear spray is very cool because you can spray this on Lexan etc, including the Windows etc, and there's no fading or "milking over" of the clear parts at all.

Fundamentally, the body is almost complete now except for some small detailing still required. The Interior has also been completed, and the helmet painted and glued on to the body. Just some dashboard detailing to be added now. The Roof mounted rearview mirror has also been glued on and detailed.

 

Into the final stretch now before the mounting process. The 5 Star Ferrari inserts have been cleaned up and some Sakatsu Wheel nuts added for finishing detail. The will then be glued inside the Rims when the chassis is completed, and the wheels have been trued to correct sized and completed.

 

The Interior needs to be mounted once the dashboard detailing is done, and then I'm busy moulding some light holders in Resin, which I'll produce some vac-formed items available for anyone who would like to buy them. more on those next.

 

 

The car is looking really good now, I've glued in the Interior, and I'm busy with the front lights. As in the Vac Forming article under the Technical menu, I've made my own vac-formed lights for these cars. They've just been painted, and I've mixed some 2 part resin and dropped a few drops on the tinfoil, which when dry will become light lenses.

Some final finishing details include the rear end, lights etc, which I made using strips of Lexan, painted and glued onto the bottom of the car.

One more Item I need to add will be the Windscreen wiper, which I’ll take out of another plastic kit that I don't need it for, but, besides the chassis mounting and wheels, it's complete, done and dusted.... Hope this tutorial has been of some help on how to build a Lexan car from beginning to end.

Article reproduced with the authors permission www.slotcars.co.za

John H Green