Painting Lexan On The Outside?

[Old Falcon Lad]

Morning all

I've a super sabre shell that was in a right state when I bought it. Several coats of horrendous paint on the inside, that I've mostly removed via De-solv-it, but there are scratches, scrapes and fog patches on the inside. As I'm unlikley to drive it much, is it ok to spray on the outside of the shell, and maybe top coat with a lacquer of some sort?

This is my way of 'saving' an old car - it will never be perfect, but IMHO more satisfying than buying new parts!

P

[KEV THE REV]

Morning all

I've a super sabre shell that was in a right state when I bought it. Several coats of horrendous paint on the inside, that I've mostly removed via De-solv-it, but there are scratches, scrapes and fog patches on the inside. As I'm unlikley to drive it much, is it ok to spray on the outside of the shell, and maybe top coat with a lacquer of some sort?

This is my way of 'saving' an old car - it will never be perfect, but IMHO more satisfying than buying new parts!

P

I have sprayed lexan on the outside many times to 'save' old shells .A light rub down and clean , spray with Halfords plastic primer / filler , rub down again ,repeat until the scratches are gone , base colour prime ,light rub down ,spray top colour . I usually polish up the finished top coat but you can lacquer if want

See my Stadium Blitzer and King Cab in my showroom for 2 examples of spraying shells on the outside

[larbut]

You can also use Tamiya PS spray on the outside for good bonding to the lexan, and then finish off with TS clear to give a nice glossy finish.

I've done this on a couple of my models, like the Audi Quattro: Click here

-Lars

[Mad Ax]

I've painted shells on the outside too. If you use regular (non-PS) paint then you'll need to flat and prime the shell, as others have already said. However, regular paints don't like flexing very much, so if you run the car at all you'll probably get some flaking where the shell bends.

I've had reasonable results using Tamiya PS paints, although they dry with a matt finish, so will need some polishing and a good coat of laquer to make it shine.

A while back I repaired a badly-painted Beetle shell by painting it on the outside with gunmetal paint, although I didn't really polish it enough to make it shiny before I added the lacquer. I think PS paints are harder to work than regular spray paints.

Best of luck and show us how you get on