Wet sanding 2 tone paint

[Blissard 359]

I've recently painted my Rough Rider, but the results weren't great since it's my first paint job. Here's what I did: I started with a white base coat, then I masked off the white areas and painted the rest of the body blue. However, I ended up with a lot of issues. There's an uneven "orange peel" texture, and some areas look too shiny while others are only semi-gloss.

I'm considering wet sanding it with 1000-grit paper to smooth things out and than apply glossy clear coat. But I have a few questions:

1. Should I wet sand only the blue areas with the masking tape still on or remove it and sand the entire body?
2. I'm worried about the two different colors mixing and ruining the paint job during wet sanding.
3. After wet sanding, should I apply decals before applying clear coat?

I used various Tamiya tapes and window covers for Lexan bodies and they have a paper-like texture.

These are my concerns, and I'd appreciate any advice you can offer.

[skom25 2622]

Do not do this. You will go through paint in a few moves. 

Orange peel is effect of painting method. Clear coat will look the same, if you will use the same method.

[VagabondStarJXF 363]

12 minutes ago, skom25 said:

Do not do this. You will go through paint in a few moves.  

This!

It's recoverable though but you'll need a lot of clear paint, and even more patience. Basically you'll need to do a few clear coats to build up to a sandable level. This is when you can carefully wet sand a bit. Then you add a few more clear layers and lightly wet sand again. You'll need to repeat this until you're happy with the levelling of your paint. Once you're happy you can do your final clear coat, cure, polish and buff. It's a lot of work/time but it's pretty much the way to get the best finish.

 

Edit: the trick is to "fill" the dips in the orange peel instead of sanding away the "peaks", if you know what I mean?

[Willy iine 18843]

1000 grit is pretty aggressive.   I would use automotive polish with diminishing abrasives called ScratchX on a foam pad.

 

The trick to glossy finish is to do a wet coat at the end.  GL !

This is with zero polishing..

 

Shiny helmets welcome   

[Blissard 359]

40 minutes ago, skom25 said:

 

29 minutes ago, VagabondStarJXF said:

 

Thanks guys! I hadn't considered this method before, but I will certainly give it a try.

 

3 minutes ago, Willy iine said:

 

Do you think I should try this after spraying the clear coat ? Will such products still blend two paint tones without clear coat ? That paint looks perfect.

[Blissard 359]

I've just removed the masking tape, and I don't think this body is worth all this effort anymore. I should have sold it before attempting to paint it.

 

[alvinlwh 8001]

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[Willy iine 18843]

1 hour ago, Blissard said:

Thanks guys! I hadn't considered this method before, but I will certainly give it a try.

 

Do you think I should try this after spraying the clear coat ? Will such products still blend two paint tones without clear coat ? That paint looks perfect.

I am not sure what you mean by blend two colors, but I did the two colors in one day and did not clear coat at the end.. you're seeing just the gloss from the paint.  Thanks, I like glossy paint because by using distance and amount, one can achieve different gloss levels.. like satin from the same can.

 

 

 

[Willy iine 18843]

19 minutes ago, Blissard said:

I've just removed the masking tape, and I don't think this body is worth all this effort anymore. I should have sold it before attempting to paint it.

 

For the bleeds you can try micro mesh sticks.  But go slowly and gently.  GL.

[Willy iine 18843]

You can also do borders with decals.. I mean it still looks salvageable to me.  

[skom25 2622]

1 hour ago, Blissard said:

I've just removed the masking tape, and I don't think this body is worth all this effort anymore. I should have sold it before attempting to paint it.

 

I see probably two issues, maybe three.

1. Probably tape did not fully sit on chassis. Maybe because surface was not prepared correctly or curves were too tight and tape deformed.

2. You used too much paint on one layer. You should start with layer almost like mist. It would "seal" tape.

Painting is not the easiest thing to do. Despite I painted many things in my life, I am always bit stressed.

[Blissard 359]

1 hour ago, alvinlwh said:

Strip the paint completely and start again

OR

Sand things down, start again with white.

Sanding everything down to white is a great idea. I don't want to completely strip everything, as it would be very expensive and time-consuming. So far, I've used 2.5 cans of white primer, half a can of white, and 1 can of blue. I need to finish and sell this car as soon as possible as I am moving to another country in a few weeks.

1 hour ago, Willy iine said:

For the bleeds you can try micro mesh sticks.  But go slowly and gently.  GL.

Thank you for the information; I wasn't aware that distance of the can would make a difference, it's probably the reason half of the body is matte. I'll try using mesh sticks tomorrow to see if they work for me. It's hard to tell from the photos but the whole color line is leaked, it's almost like I masked the body using wool socks. I can't use decal for borders since I'm replicating the actual-size Bel Ray Bullet but it's a great idea.

33 minutes ago, skom25 said:

I see probably two issues, maybe three.

1. Probably tape did not fully sit on chassis. Maybe because surface was not prepared correctly or curves were too tight and tape deformed.

2. You used too much paint on one layer. You should start with layer almost like mist. It would "seal" tape.

Painting is not the easiest thing to do. Despite I painted many things in my life, I am always bit stressed.

You're right; the 2mm wide tape deformed on the sharp corners, especially on the nose. I also used up the entire can in one go which was a huge mistake.

[Willy iine 18843]

If you work on 1:1 cars and have brake fluid, you can dunk the body into a bucket with brake fluid and it will remove all paint in a matter of hours.. and it will come off completely.  

The issue for me is I don't have a way to dispose (recycle) the brake fluid with paint... so I would check with your municipality for how you can dispose of it first..

[alvinlwh 8001]

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[Blissard 359]

10 hours ago, Willy iine said:

If you work on 1:1 cars and have brake fluid, you can dunk the body into a bucket with brake fluid and it will remove all paint in a matter of hours.. and it will come off completely.  

The issue for me is I don't have a way to dispose (recycle) the brake fluid with paint... so I would check with your municipality for how you can dispose of it first..

Brake fluid works great; I've used it before. Unfortunately, I no longer have time to redo all the primer and paint, as I am moving to another country. I will explore the possibilities with mesh sticks for now.

 

9 hours ago, alvinlwh said:

Did you use the standard tape or the curve tape? If standard, you need to cut it to shape. That is too tight a curve for it to handle. If curved tape, stretch it to form the shape, and then heat it with a hair dryer. Just before spraying, press it down again. Personally, I find that curve tape do not stand up to spray cans pressures well. Airbrush is ok. YMMY though.

I used a 2mm white tape for the entire nose and then FJ-40 window masks for the larger curves since they are precut and perfectly round. Unfortunately, the 2mm tape wasn't holding in its place and lifted at the corners; I will try heating it next time, I haven't heard of this method before. For the straight areas, I used a 6mm paper-like tape.

[alvinlwh 8001]

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[Blissard 359]

18 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

I am sorry, white tape? Tamiya? If yes, then they are the curve types and they hold up poorly against spray cans like I said above. When you form the curves, make sure the tape is under tension and heat.

Yes, it's very thick and feels like plastic. I taped some curves at night, and when I woke up, the radius of the curves had increased, almost as if the body is covered with grease and the tape is sliding. I will test it the way you suggested.

[alvinlwh 8001]

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[Blissard 359]

8 minutes ago, alvinlwh said:

Yes, the white tape don't hold down well, if you still have time, get the 1mm ones and back the behind (areas that are also not to be painted) with regular yellow tape. Even that is no guarantee it will work perfectly.

The way to have things perfect is to take wide (say 10mm) yellow tape and cut out the curve. But that is quite time consuming.

I tried taping white on yellow in some areas. It didn't slide, but it lifted by itself.

Cutting the yellow tape to curve seems like the best method, although it is also the most difficult one without any proper tools.

[alvinlwh 8001]

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[Blissard 359]

1 minute ago, alvinlwh said:

Yellow on white is what I meant.

Using tape as a reinforcement sounds like a great idea!

[Willy iine 18843]

On 9/27/2023 at 5:31 AM, Blissard said:

Yes, it's very thick and feels like plastic. I taped some curves at night, and when I woke up, the radius of the curves had increased, almost as if the body is covered with grease and the tape is sliding. I will test it the way you suggested.

I use masking tape for curves and it can stay over night or two no problem without deforming.  I just press down on the tape just before spraying.  It works great.  No bleeds.

 

 

[Blissard 359]

55 minutes ago, Willy iine said:

I use masking tape for curves and it can stay over night or two no problem without deforming.  I just press down on the tape just before spraying.  It works great.  No bleeds.

 

 

Thank you for the information! I've ordered Tamiya 1mm yellow tape, and it's ready for another try after a layer of blue. I've successfully removed all the bleed paint and sanded the body with several grit papers; the 2000 grit paper made it look like it's fresh out of the injection mold  

[Willy iine 18843]

You might be able to get away with the 1mm rice paper based mask, but if not, I recommend you try the 2mm masking tape for curves.  You can probably use the 3mm too, but the radius might be a bit too tight.  Anyway, GL with the repaint!  

[Blissard 359]

5 minutes ago, Willy iine said:

You might be able to get away with the 1mm rice paper based mask, but if not, I recommend you try the 2mm masking tape for curves.  You can probably use the 3mm too, but the radius might be a bit too tight.  Anyway, GL with the repaint!  

I am planning to try the 1mm paper tape for the tightest radius curve on the nose only and use the 2mm white tape for the rest of the body, following Alvinlwh's suggestion. I've been thinking that it might be very hard to make a super straight line with a 1mm tape. We will see when it arrives. And thanks, I will post photos in the build thread once it's done.