It’s been over three years since my last Mazda post, which covered the seats and interior door panels. (Yes there was a Step 11, which was to glue the interior tub onto the undercarriage; nothing worth writing about.) This step involves the main car body.
Here is the gallery of 51 images.
This step of scale model car kits is one I find the most stressful because this one piece comprises most of the visible part of the model’s exterior; I want it to look amazing and invite viewers to zoom in and consider other details.
After watching several YouTube videos of modelers who built this specific kit and other general tutorials about how to build amazing looking model cars, I distilled the process down into the following steps (any priming, painting, and clear coat is done by airbrush).
- Deepen panel lines with a panel scriber. This creates shadows which contrast with the paint color.
- Look for mold lines, seams, or other irregularities in the plastic. Fill using putty if needed. Sand using 600 grit (to give the primer/micro-filler something to hold onto). Wash with dish soap to remove skin oil and mold release agent, then use a toothbrush to get into panel line recesses and odd angles to remove sanding dust, then dry.
- From this point on, use gloves when handling the model to prevent skin oil or fingerprints from getting into the primer, paint, or clear coat.
- Prime with 3 coats. The first pass should be light, the second should be medium, and the last is to ensure the coverage is even. Wait 24 hours for the primer to cure.
- Look for any irregularities the primer makes obvious. For corrections, use 1000 grit, then re-prime and wait 24 hours.
- Wet-sand using 3000 grit to smooth out the rough texture of the primer. This gives the paint a smooth (but not polished) surface to adhere to. Rinse using a toothbrush to remove sanding dust, then dry.
- Paint using the body color in 3 coats. The first pass should be light, the second should be medium, and the last is to ensure the coverage is even. Wait 24 hours for the paint to cure.
- If painting other colors (usually black around windows or rocker panels) mask what you painted in the previous step. (If the main color doesn’t cure first, you risk pulling off that paint with the masking tape.) Apply the paint in even coats as before. Wait 24 hours for the paint to cure.
- Apply clear coat in 3 passes. The first pass should be light, the second should be medium, and the last is to ensure the coverage is even. Wait 48 hours for the clear coat to cure.
- Polish the clear coat by either…
- Use polishing compounds applied in small sections and worked in with a microfiber cloth. Fine-grit is used for micro scratches. If the gloss coat looks good, use the “finish” grit; repeat applications until you get the look you want. Apply polishing wax.
- Wet-sand using progressively higher grit sand paper, starting with at least 4000.
Lessons Learned
- I need to scribe the panel lines deeper. This makes the “valleys” more prominent so that the pigment from the panel line accent has more surface area, sharpening the contrast between it and the body color (especially useful here where the body color is already dark).
- Adding another few thick coats of the Alclad Gloss Klear Kote on top of what I already applied and polished did not enhance the shine any further.
- The above process — combined with the high quality of Tamiya products — is something I’ll repeat on future car kits.
- Because this step has significant wait times to allow primer, paint, or clear coat to cure, it can be done independently at any stage of the kit’s construction.
- My lighting and camera setup does not do justice to how shiny the actual body is and doesn’t adequately show the contrast between the gun metal gray and gloss black on various trim pieces.
- I looked into how to airbrush decanted lacquer paint from a spray can. It is possible, yet requires more steps because the decanted paint needs to off-gas to allow the propellant to evaporate. Even after that, it requires thinning.
This step took about 8 hours.