Try something new – Revell Ford Thunderbird 1997

The body shell again

So back to the body shell, and time to prepare it for spraying. The first job was to make sure that there was no release agent from the moulding process left on the body. So I washed it in water with a little drop of liquid soap dissolved into it. I then rinsed the body in running water to make sure there was no soap left. Next using a small square of very fine ‘micromesh’ and water I lightly ‘polished’ the whole shell before again rinsing it in running water.

Once dry, I primed it with some grey acrylic paint; in my case some left over grey Tamiya paint. Once fully dry this was then ‘attacked’ with fine Micromesh and water to achieved a smooth to the touch finish. Again the body was washed in running water and left to air dry.

It was then time to start spraying the final body colour I opted for Tamiya’s X-2 Gloss Red after comparing it with the colour of McDonald’s fries carton. I started misting on fine coats of paint, leaving each coat to touch dry before applying the next. I did this until the whole of the body shell was evenly covered. After allowing the body to dry for 24 hours, I applied a final coat of X-2 stopping just short of getting any ‘runs’ in the paint. Once more this was put aside for 24 hours to completely dry. The dry body was then given a couple of coats of Klear as a varnish and in preparation for decaling. Again the body was laid up to completely dry before applying the decals. However before decaling it was necessary to mask the body so that the front fender and the side skirts could be sprayed white and black respectively. Then a final coat of Klear was applied and allowed to fully dry.

Decaling…