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Painting my 1st shell


BigGinge

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So I’ve got my first shell to paint and will probably have a few questions as I go along, so thought you lot could help me out with a few pointers. 
 

I’ve got some spray paint and masking tape to get me started and I’ll be aiming for a fairly simple two colour design for this shell. 
 

The first question I have is when is it best to cut out the shell, before or after painting? I can see potential benefits to both options; doing it first means no risk of scratching up the paint but doing it after means I’m less likely to mess up the overspray film before painting starts. What do most people go with for this, is either option particularly good or bad?

 

Also, what’s the best tool for cutting the shell with, just some sharp shears/scissors?

Edited by BigGinge
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Cut first. 


Straight shears for the straight bits, curved shears for the curved bits. 
 

I bought this set:

 

Nuofan 0-14mm Body Reamer Hole Puncher Straight Scissors and Curved Scissors Set Universal Tool for RC Car Body Shell Hobby Repair Tools https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GJHZ69W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_BQC4MM3BBDV1KMHZYZZ6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Edited by walkbythesea
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Thanks, will go ahead and get it cut out before going any further.  
 

Do you think these would be over kill for cutting out the body? I already have a left/right set in the tool box from some roofing work I did last year.
 

https://www.screwfix.com/p/dewalt-ergo-offset-right-aviation-snip-12-302mm/614hj#_=p

 

Not sure the serrated cut would be helpful but guess I could give them a try on a scrap bit to check. 
 

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They’re nice, I do love an aviation snip 👌


However, try them first on an edge well away from where you want to cut as I think the serrated edge may be rubbish for lexan. 
 

You really don’t need anything that heavy duty. 

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I usually cut shell out  first ,normally use a stanley blade and a ruler score it and snap etc found a cool tool last year on amazon for wheel wells like a school compass with a blade at end makes the job so much easier 🙂

 

dont forget to wash the shell with some soapy water to remove any fingerprints before painting  Ginge 👍

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The aviation snips were definitely the wrong tool for the job; they left a serrated edge on the plastic and are just far too beefy for cutting this thickness of plastic. Anyway, for this one I ended up just using a small ish set of sturdy scissors I had to hand to cut out the shell and I don’t think it’s turned out too badly for a 1st go. I may pick up some of the curved ones linked above for my next shell though as some of the corners were pretty tricky to get into. 
 

Next step is to make some masks for the windows and decide on the pattern for the body so I can mask that too. 
 

When masking up windows and other body sections would it be ok to put down large sections of mask and then cut off the bits I don’t want with a sharp scalpel or is that likely to cause damage to the shell?

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Ok, so I masked up my windows this morning. Drawing round the window outline on the overspray film turned out to be more helpful that I thought it would be when doing this as the line could be clearly seen through the yellow tessa masking tape I was using.  Using a fresh blade in my scalpel meant the tape cut nice and cleanly without too much fuss. 

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Next step was to mask out my stripes. For this I did a 1st pass of the stripes on the outside of the shell to act as a guide for putting the inner masking down as these were much easier to apply in the right place. Following the guides with the 3mm masking tape on the inside was a bit fiddly which I guess is one of the downsides of working with 1/14 scale shells when you have big hands. 

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Last masking step for this bit was a couple of panels on the side of the body that I did in the same way as the window masks. All ready for painting now. 

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So, I actually managed to do most of the painting I had planned today as well. 
 

Started out with several coats of jet black core rc paint. Took more coats than I’d expected to get a decent coverage but that may be down to me being a little timid when putting down the first few layers. 

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After this I pulled the masking off the side panels and the stripes and put down a few coats of Tamiya PS-19, camel yellow, on top of the black. 

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Edited by BigGinge
Wrong paint code
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Last paint step for today was to do a final white backing coat with some plastikote paint that I had left over from another project. After this I let it all dry for a while before cutting the overspray film for a potential application of some PS-55 flat clear tomorrow then taking out the window masks and pealing back most of the overspray film. 
 

So far I’m pretty happy with how this has turned out; there is only one small spot where things aren’t quite as I’d want (I will probably be the only person who ever notices this). However I’m now not sure if I should go through with my planned application of the flat clear coat tomorrow as I do quite like the shiny black finish. 

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Edited by BigGinge
typo
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  • 2 weeks later...

I realised today I never came back to update this thread after I tried to finish the shell by putting a Matt clear coat on the outside. 
 

Short version, I completely ruined it. 
 

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The longer version, For those who care, is that I got to this point by making two big mistakes (I think it was just two). 
 

The first mistake appears to have been putting on the clear coat much too thickly which lead to the shell taking on a white tint rather than staying clear to show the colours underneath. 

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This was bad but if I’d stopped at this point I could have still had a structurally sound, usable shell. What I tried to do instead was to take the Matt clear paint off the shell so I could try again. At first I tried using some white spirit to get the clear coat off but, unfortunately, this only too the clear/white paint off the oversparay sections I still had on the windows as masks. The paint on the polycarbonate/lexan shell refused to move. So, I then tried some acetone out which was much more successful as a paint stripper and did shift some of the clear coat. However, it turns out acetone and polycarbonate really don’t play nicely and I’ve ended up with a shell that is severely clouded and pretty brittle from the exposure to the acetone. 
 

I’ll probably still try and take this shell out for a run or two (even though it now looks very sad) to see how it holds up but suspect that I might need to order another one if I want to keep running my little buggy with one of these in the longer term. Bit of a shame given how nice the shell is and how good it looked before I tried to put the Matt clear coat on. Guess I’ll have to chalk this one up as a learning experience. 

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