6LikesPainting a body A to Z
02-08-2016, 02:41 AM
#111
Originally Posted by Er8sr
Can any body tell me were I can find a small flexible ruler for straight lines
03-24-2016, 02:34 AM
#112
Thanks very much for this. I need to start saving all the scrap packaging for practice 
03-25-2016, 03:31 PM
#114
Originally Posted by vintage tone
You can also buy flat lexan sheets in different sizes that are pretty cheap, great to work on lines and effects.
08-23-2016, 11:43 PM
#115
Tech Initiate
Thanks for the information very informative.
03-19-2017, 06:31 PM
#117
Tech Adept
Very good information and well documented. Definitely using this as a reference for future paint jobs
03-19-2017, 06:33 PM
#118
Tech Adept
[QUOTE=vintage tone;6403060]hey Everyone, I made this for friends on a French forum so i will translate it to english within the next hours
for the time being until I redo all the links individually, you can find all the original pictures here:
RCTECH Tutorial by vintage-tone | Photobucket
I got several PM on different forums asking me to make a step by step of a relatively simple paint job. Feel free to PM Me if you have any questons or wish to have a body made. I will not be able to paint anything until Mid Nov and have two lined up when I get back to the US. If you need anything delivered before the end of dec I will not be able to do so.
This post is just a way of doing things, there are many ways to paint, that s is just one of them. hope you enjoy it and that it will motivate people to get hooked up!
I will post a reply with links to affordable but good airbrushes for lexan and RC applications.
Preparing the body:
We cannot stress enough how important it is to prepare your body right. Any kind of paint job actually, put some effort in your prep will pay off big time for the final result. Make sure you have a clear vision of the final result , organize your colors and make sure you have everything ready before you start.
So 1st step is to wash the inside of your body with dish washing soap to remove all chemical residues from the molding. Use a clean new sponge dedicated to your prep to not contaminate it with yesterday s lasagna. Dry it completely with a tissue or paper towels but make sure there s no lint or dust left inside.
After this step I would strongly reccomend to put on latex gloves so you don t smudge it again with fingerprints and skin oils, sweat that could prevent the paint from sticking to the lexan.
[b]Trim the bodyb]
I prefer to trim the body before painting it. It reduces the risks of screwing up your paint job, scratching it or chipping it off greatly and if something dramatically wrong happens, you can just start over with another body.
Most quality bodies HPI, Proline Axial have an outline molded in that you can follow to cut the body out. You can trace it with a Sharpie on the outside protecting film if it helps. From there you can cut the body all around with Lexan scissors or do the cut and snap trchnique i d be describing here
I personally like the trace and snap way better, it leave very clean edges and is faster but whatever floats your boat.
Apply enough regular pressure to mark the body with the tip of the blade but dont try and cut thru. Test on scap 1st if it s your 1st time.
It s important that you keep the body steady during this process. Make sure you rest your hand onto it to keep it steady. try and do as much of the tracing as possible without lifting the tip of the blade up. It comes with practice but it really isn t hard, keep a good control of the blade and don t press in too hard.
Once you ve traced the body all around, it s time to cut out the wheels pits like so. This will help snapping the lexan easy without too much stress on the body.
Do not go too far into the body, make sure you stop right at the tracing or a hair before. Don t use the tip of your scissors but do as shown on the pic, you will have a much better control that way.
Allyou need to do next is push on the parts you wish to snap off. It should snap clean with little effort. If you need to cut out straight lines you can use a ruler to help you guiding the blade. Make sure you rest the blade well against the ruler, it will slide out of the gouge easier than you think and you don t want to scratch and damage your body.
Your body is now ready to paint.
Remove all lil imperfections left behind, you can use a file or your scissors. Make sure it s all smooth and remove and dust if you used a file from the inside. Blow it away with your airbrush / hairdryer
Tape or Liquid Mask ?
If you re new to painting, use the windows mask that came with the body. They usually fit nicely and will save you some cut out that can prove tricky.
The principle of masking is rather simple, paint an area of your body and protect another with your mask so paint doesn t spread everywhere.Then unmask it and paint the next area in a different color.
There is a thumb rule painting Lexan since you re working with a clear body painted from the inside: Always start with the darkest colors so they don t come and bleed thru the lighter colors.
Tape is perfect to make straight lines easily, it comes in all sorts or width from pinstripping to very wide painter tape. 3M Blue and regular painter tape work very well with RC applications,leaving clean edges as long as you spray thinner than the tape is. Tamiya tape is brilliant for tricky, smaller details or lines, it s very expensive and a waste of money for larger area. You can also get masking tape anywhere from wallmart to the dollar store, some work well some dont , try em out on scrap and see for yourself .
Always store your tape in a ziploc bag so lint, hairs, dust doesn t come and stick to the sides and will make it useless for masking.
It s possible to make very complex masking with tape, it s just very time consuming and never as safe as liquid masking. If the tape lifts up even slightly, paint will bleed under it and make a nasty stain. You also will need to unmask and re mask every step with tape, taking a risk everytime to damage your paint job. Here is an exemple of a fairly complex tape masking , all the trims and chromes of a body to illustrate that it is possible but time consuming and really tricky. You will need to mask all the transparent area with newspapers, plastic bags or masking tape that you tape to your masking.
Vynil masking is very close to tape, with the same advantages and cons. Tricky to use on very curved surfaces but works great on flatter surfaces. You can buy vinyl full sheets from Parma and draw out your own graphics on them. You can also buy the very same vynil sheets from sign making stores and pay 1/5th of the price.
The main plus of masking tape as I willtry and demonstrate here is that you mask 100% of your body very easily, then you cut out your masks one after the other. It s a huge time saver. If you screw up a cut, use tape to repair it. If you apply it and cut it out right, it will never bleed and will stick to the body perfectly evenly, even in twisted and curved places.
Parma Liquid mask is a thicker latex that becomes transparent when cured. Apply it with a soft wide brush. Not a hard painter brush, you want you brush to be soft enough to lay down thick and regular coats. Apply 2 to 4 coats, let each coat dry enough so that the next one will not rip it off and mess it up. 15 mins and a lil help from the lady s hairdryer works just fine. Don t brush it too quickly or it might foam up, air bubbles will result in tiny lil holes when you will cut it out.
Work quick and steady but don t rush it, once again make sure your mask is thick enough, if your mask is too thin, it will be a nightmare to peel it off.
1st coat
2nd coat
Go across the direction of the 1st coat, cross them to achieve maximum cover and not leaving empty spots.
3 coats later all you need to do is wait for it to cure 24 hrs tobe on the safe side
Rest of the translation coming soon[/QUOTE
I've used this before and it works great!!
for the time being until I redo all the links individually, you can find all the original pictures here:
RCTECH Tutorial by vintage-tone | Photobucket
I got several PM on different forums asking me to make a step by step of a relatively simple paint job. Feel free to PM Me if you have any questons or wish to have a body made. I will not be able to paint anything until Mid Nov and have two lined up when I get back to the US. If you need anything delivered before the end of dec I will not be able to do so.
This post is just a way of doing things, there are many ways to paint, that s is just one of them. hope you enjoy it and that it will motivate people to get hooked up!
I will post a reply with links to affordable but good airbrushes for lexan and RC applications.
Preparing the body:
We cannot stress enough how important it is to prepare your body right. Any kind of paint job actually, put some effort in your prep will pay off big time for the final result. Make sure you have a clear vision of the final result , organize your colors and make sure you have everything ready before you start.
So 1st step is to wash the inside of your body with dish washing soap to remove all chemical residues from the molding. Use a clean new sponge dedicated to your prep to not contaminate it with yesterday s lasagna. Dry it completely with a tissue or paper towels but make sure there s no lint or dust left inside.
After this step I would strongly reccomend to put on latex gloves so you don t smudge it again with fingerprints and skin oils, sweat that could prevent the paint from sticking to the lexan.
[b]Trim the bodyb]
I prefer to trim the body before painting it. It reduces the risks of screwing up your paint job, scratching it or chipping it off greatly and if something dramatically wrong happens, you can just start over with another body.
Most quality bodies HPI, Proline Axial have an outline molded in that you can follow to cut the body out. You can trace it with a Sharpie on the outside protecting film if it helps. From there you can cut the body all around with Lexan scissors or do the cut and snap trchnique i d be describing here
I personally like the trace and snap way better, it leave very clean edges and is faster but whatever floats your boat.
Apply enough regular pressure to mark the body with the tip of the blade but dont try and cut thru. Test on scap 1st if it s your 1st time.
It s important that you keep the body steady during this process. Make sure you rest your hand onto it to keep it steady. try and do as much of the tracing as possible without lifting the tip of the blade up. It comes with practice but it really isn t hard, keep a good control of the blade and don t press in too hard.
Once you ve traced the body all around, it s time to cut out the wheels pits like so. This will help snapping the lexan easy without too much stress on the body.
Do not go too far into the body, make sure you stop right at the tracing or a hair before. Don t use the tip of your scissors but do as shown on the pic, you will have a much better control that way.
Allyou need to do next is push on the parts you wish to snap off. It should snap clean with little effort. If you need to cut out straight lines you can use a ruler to help you guiding the blade. Make sure you rest the blade well against the ruler, it will slide out of the gouge easier than you think and you don t want to scratch and damage your body.
Your body is now ready to paint.
Remove all lil imperfections left behind, you can use a file or your scissors. Make sure it s all smooth and remove and dust if you used a file from the inside. Blow it away with your airbrush / hairdryer
Tape or Liquid Mask ?
If you re new to painting, use the windows mask that came with the body. They usually fit nicely and will save you some cut out that can prove tricky.
The principle of masking is rather simple, paint an area of your body and protect another with your mask so paint doesn t spread everywhere.Then unmask it and paint the next area in a different color.
There is a thumb rule painting Lexan since you re working with a clear body painted from the inside: Always start with the darkest colors so they don t come and bleed thru the lighter colors.
Tape is perfect to make straight lines easily, it comes in all sorts or width from pinstripping to very wide painter tape. 3M Blue and regular painter tape work very well with RC applications,leaving clean edges as long as you spray thinner than the tape is. Tamiya tape is brilliant for tricky, smaller details or lines, it s very expensive and a waste of money for larger area. You can also get masking tape anywhere from wallmart to the dollar store, some work well some dont , try em out on scrap and see for yourself .
Always store your tape in a ziploc bag so lint, hairs, dust doesn t come and stick to the sides and will make it useless for masking.
It s possible to make very complex masking with tape, it s just very time consuming and never as safe as liquid masking. If the tape lifts up even slightly, paint will bleed under it and make a nasty stain. You also will need to unmask and re mask every step with tape, taking a risk everytime to damage your paint job. Here is an exemple of a fairly complex tape masking , all the trims and chromes of a body to illustrate that it is possible but time consuming and really tricky. You will need to mask all the transparent area with newspapers, plastic bags or masking tape that you tape to your masking.
Vynil masking is very close to tape, with the same advantages and cons. Tricky to use on very curved surfaces but works great on flatter surfaces. You can buy vinyl full sheets from Parma and draw out your own graphics on them. You can also buy the very same vynil sheets from sign making stores and pay 1/5th of the price.
The main plus of masking tape as I willtry and demonstrate here is that you mask 100% of your body very easily, then you cut out your masks one after the other. It s a huge time saver. If you screw up a cut, use tape to repair it. If you apply it and cut it out right, it will never bleed and will stick to the body perfectly evenly, even in twisted and curved places.
Parma Liquid mask is a thicker latex that becomes transparent when cured. Apply it with a soft wide brush. Not a hard painter brush, you want you brush to be soft enough to lay down thick and regular coats. Apply 2 to 4 coats, let each coat dry enough so that the next one will not rip it off and mess it up. 15 mins and a lil help from the lady s hairdryer works just fine. Don t brush it too quickly or it might foam up, air bubbles will result in tiny lil holes when you will cut it out.
Work quick and steady but don t rush it, once again make sure your mask is thick enough, if your mask is too thin, it will be a nightmare to peel it off.
1st coat
2nd coat
Go across the direction of the 1st coat, cross them to achieve maximum cover and not leaving empty spots.
3 coats later all you need to do is wait for it to cure 24 hrs tobe on the safe side
Rest of the translation coming soon
[/QUOTEI've used this before and it works great!!
07-28-2017, 09:07 PM
#119
None of the pictures can be seen. Is it because he's suspended?
09-03-2017, 11:43 AM
#120
Originally Posted by snuvet75
None of the pictures can be seen. Is it because he's suspended?
No, it's because Photobucket now charges you to use there service, thus cutting off anyone using their previous free service..I'd imagine photobucket going down the tube after this...
