discussion Airbrush vs. Rattle Can

[Guest]

So update to the original post.

I received my micro-mesh pads today. I wet sanded the car body with 3600, 4000, 6000, 8000, and 12000 grit pads. The followed that up with a nail buffer. Actually ended up with a decent finish. Though it's hard to get in to some of the details with those. Definitely smoothed things out and got a much nicer finish! Unfortunately a couple of the edges got taken back down to styrene in the exercise.

Last night I laid down some coats of the gloss black acrylic on a chuck of styrene sheet I had laying around. Going with much multiple passes of much thinner coats seems to be getting better results as well. So with that lesson learned, I'll build up a couple of more thin coats on this model to get to a final finish.

All in all I think this is going to work out. So some lessons learned here (Which was why I built this car in the first place!)

1. Bad paint jobs can be recovered with wet sanding or if it's horrid, out right stripping
   
2. Lots of thin coats with acrylic are better (rattle cans I can get a nice finish in three to four coats)
   
3. It's less effort to get the paint job right in the first place!
   

 

[Guest]

Micro mesh pads did a great job of smoothing things out. Followed up with a fine scracth remover from the automotive section of a local store and I think the paint job looks good! Quick test on the hood worked out great. Now to finish the car body and apply decals. Excited to get one car off my plate! I have three sitting close to being done, each with their own issue that needs to be fixed!