Tamiya Nissan 350z Tips Wanted

I found that to decant enough paint from a Tamiya can is not an easy task for beginners. If you are painting in a hot environment area then the paint will be dried before it loses the gases.

I have been painting model cars during the last 30 years and never polished a surface, to do that is not so easy as showed in the Alex tutorial, not all the bodies let to be polished. I know modelers that clearcoated their models with automotive lacquers, polyurethane to be precise and don't need to polish the surface.

Actually I think that the secret to get a good finish is learning to paint with gloss paints, you should get a gloss surface free of ORANGE peel before thinking in the next step. Most of the techniques around sanding and polishing just were developed to cover the fact that many modelers don't know how to paint to avoid dust and orange peel.

In the picture you can see a 1/12 scale large body which was painted with enamel paints and no sanding or polishing was given.

1.)TS colors match up with the X/XF- colors well. You may try those on a scrap piece to make sure they do match. Personally, I always use Tamiya sprays, they are very forgiving. If you can't use them out of the spray can, do you think you could decant them? I think Scale Auto or FSM had an article about that a while back, but I can't remember when. If you can decant the TS lacquers, that would be the easiest. As far as matching the colors, Tamiya doesn't have many colors that are totally unique, so a good match should be able to be found fairly easily.

2.) http://www.italianhorses.net/Tutorials/PerfectPaint/paint.htm. I'm too lazy to post how I paint, so here is the tuorial I used to learn. Look through this guys website, he's got some amazing finishes and he can explain how he does it better than I can. I do, however, use the micro mesh cloths. Make sure to wet sand with them. Actually, I wet sand with everything. You may also want to pick up some 600, 800, and 2000 grit wet/dry automotive sandpapers too, they help for body prep and sanding between coats.

3.) I have the kit you're talking about. Most Tamiya cars are pretty straight forward and easy to build. The instructions are probably the best way except for the body. Anytime I build a body with multiple parts I glue all the body-color parts on before body painting and prep. So on this particular model, I would glue the spoiler and mirrors on before paint. Sand all the mold lines and apply filler if neccessary, then start priming/painting. I also begin painting the body before assembling the interior/engine, etc. that way the body gets enough drying time.

Good luck and keep us updated.