Painting Grand Prix Cars

yes, that's right

Oh definitely!

Every genre of model is different on when you paint what.  On old passenger cars the body could be painted seperately, but frame and engine painted as subassemblies. On current race cars of monocoque construction, it almost varies from car to car.  You have to go through the instructions first before you start any building, figuring out what to paint when.

Chris-k: the age old answer: "It depends".

Much would be better to pre-paint - and there are simply guys (I'm not one of them!) that prefer to prepaint, pre-decal and go nuts, then assemble. Some would be better to pre-assemble, smooth out lines, get rid of excess glue, etc and then paint. There are some ways to "cheat" to be able to do this as well.

But this is one of the reasons I always advise somebody to do a simple paint scheme on something like this first.

What is it you're working on exactly? And which section is the headache?

I'm building a Wolf.  I'm not getting a headache.  I think it's possible to assemble the entire car and paint but I'm building subsections and paint them.  As I gain more experience in building F1 cars, I'll develop my own way.  

Good stuff! Sounds like you're going well... and as if we're following the same methodology. Also tend to build up subsections (like most of engine block) and paint, maybe picking out small parts by hand which need to be different colours, then add other painted bits (or subsections) onto that.

Good luck and show us some progress pics! I'd actually still like to lay my hands on that re-issues of the Wolf...

be careful how much paint/clearcoat  you put where panels etc join. i did a tamiya ferrari and it dryfitted beautifully, but after a few over-thick clearcoats  nothing fitted! i had to re-sand a lot of the joining surfaces  carefully so i didnt burn right through t the colour coat.

One thing that helps paint contemporary racing cars piece by piece is that so many panels are removable on the body.  Hence you DO see panel lines, and do not need to fill seams.  The seams should be visible.  Only subassemblies where the model has several pieces glued together to make one part or piece on the full-size car need to have seams filled.

Misty

be careful how much paint/clearcoat  you put where panels etc join. i did a tamiya ferrari and it dryfitted beautifully, but after a few over-thick clearcoats  nothing fitted! i had to re-sand a lot of the joining surfaces  carefully so i didnt burn right through t the colour coat.

Thanks for this.  I've never built anything that's supposed to look clean (I've built only armor and WWII aircraft), so I never worried about the thickness of clear coats. 

Anyway, I barely have time for this hobby nowadays... Too busy with my real work that enables me to enjoy this hobby!