Xr311 painting and gluing

[Torhaantje 66]

Hi all 

What would be the best approach for building the xr311: painting before assembling or assemble and then painting?

What would be the best glue for the plastic parts: either already painted or before painting?

Any tips would be very appreciated!

Thanks, Rick 

[Fuijo 880]

Hi. Personally I think it's very important to assemble these with liquid poly. The bond between plastic parts needs to be a weld so that you don't lose half of them when you run it.

For it to work properly, you need to bond bare plastic together. So it's important to have no paint at all in the join.

I would recommend assembling as much as possible before painting, and for those areas that must be painted prior to assembly because of access, to mask off the areas to be glued.

I've discovered this is ultimately a lot less hassle than trying to scrape off paint afterwards, which never seems to work as well because it tends to remove some plastic as well as the paint

and the surfaces of the joint will no longer be perfectly flat which hinders the capillary action of the liquid glue, and ultimately the strength of the joint.

[Kingfisher 1171]

Here's a recent build thread in case you want a reference.

 

 

[Maelstrom 439]

There is also quite a nice build by rcmojo on YouTube that you might want to look at.

It's a whole series of videos, body build begins at Nr. 7. Not sure if I am allowed to link to other peoples videos here so I won't, but it should be easy enough to find.

 

[racer1 117]

During my build process I painted everything first then had to sand off where plastic parts needed to be glued together. Ultimately it worked fine but I;m going to do it differently when I build my shelf queen. The front end with the Lights and the hoops that go over them should really be glued first then painted as an assembly. 

Other items you should test fit so you know how and where they will need to be glued then mask off those areas so you don't need to scrap or sand off the paint. 

If you plan to paint box art then there is a lot more of the body that can be assembled like the front and rear bumpers, gas cans, rear lights etc. I strayed away from box art and gave mine more detail in these areas so it was more work on my part. 

[Torhaantje 66]

Thanks for all the suggestions and helpfull links!!!!!

I will glue/ weld before painting. 

Any tips on the best glue and plastic weld?

As for painting: fine primer and then the green?

Ps which green would look best?

Cheers 

Rick

[Fuijo 880]

Just google "liquid polystyrene cement". There are many different brands that all do the same job. Just pick one that's easy to get hold of from where you are. Make sure it is liquid and comes

with a brush built into the lid of the pot, NOT the stuff in a tube.

 

I used the green paint recommended in the manual. The colour of the primer will slightly affect the final shade of the green.

For mine I used white Tamiya fine surface primer, then flat black (wouldn't have needed this if I'd used grey primer), then the green, then finally flat clear - all Tamiya TS colours.

As to which green looks best, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Juggular 4961]

I use Tamiya Limonene glue.  It's "healthy" glue.  It smells like lemon, the fume is less likely to give you cancer.  It works just as well as regular liquid glue.  Instead of 15 seconds, it takes a few more seconds to set, but for indoor use (most people build their models indoors, I reckon) it's good.  And I still vent out the lemony smell.  If you have children, maybe stinkier bad-for-health glue is better, because they won't be tempted to drink the stinky stuff. (Then again, I have heard of a heartbreaking case of losing a child who drank paint stripper--keep chemicals away from kids!  If they drink anything, lemonene glue might be non-lethal...)

If you want ultra-strong glue, you can use Plastruct stuff.  This is a really strong-smelling glue that will give you a headache if you smell it for too long.  Probably very toxic. Definitely keep the windows open for this one.  It's very unforgiving.  If you put a part wrong way, there is no re-doing with this stuff.  It's welded, like it says.  The part will break before it comes apart.  I had only limited use for this one, like a little plastic hook that actually pulls the weight of something.  

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Plastruct-Bondene-Styrene-ABS-Plastic-Welding-Cement-Glue-2oz-Bottle-Made-In-USA/132677749597?epid=17011126570&hash=item1ee435cb5d%3Ag%3A2B0AAOSwFb5aK2cw&_sacat=0&_nkw=plastic+glue+weld&_from=R40&rt=nc&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313.TR1.TRC0.A0.H0.Xplastic+glue+weld.TRS0

 

[PRIMER]  If you are using the similar color, or darker than the plastic color, you can just clean the body and paint it.  Paint sticks well to plastic.  Primer is used for 3 reasons:

[1]  If you want to use pea-green or tan, that's lighter than the body color, white color of primer will work better than dark green plastic.  Unless you are painting a very dark color, the color of plastic is seen through the paint.  [2] By the same token, if the body has two different colors, like half the body is black plastic, the other half is white plastic, you want uniform undertone.  [3] If you want to paint on a metal surface, paint won't stick well.  Primer sticks better to metal.  For XR311, [2] or [3] doesn't apply.  I would use primer, only if you don't want the body color darkening the paint color.  

 

[Torhaantje 66]

Thanks Juggular and all the others for pointing me in the right direction!

Rick