am i ready to paint my tamiya cars?

The best time to use cement is before you paint the parts. It melts the plastic to weld the pieces together, so if there is paint on there, it can't get to as much plastic so your joint will be weaker. I would recommend you getting a small bottle of super glue to use on pieces that have to be painted before being glued together.

You can use alcohol to thin the Tamiya paint, it works well for me, but if your brushing it on, you don't need to thin it, and you can use just about any paint thinner to clean your brush with.

I would suggest since this is your first car, or scale model for that fact, that you just follow the instructions to the Tee. That is always the safest bet, and most of the time you won't have any problems, just make sure you read over the instructions really good before you start for any notes that you need to be aware of. Good Luck Newbie, and post a couple pics when you get it done

newbiepainter wrote:

thanks :D no need for glue though, its a snap on kit :D

If it's this kit #24110, you will need glue - it's not a snap-together kit. As far as I know, Tamiya don't make snap-together car kits (except for the "toy" mini-4wd racers).