Hi Everyone!
Now today's lesson is a simple one. For those of you who are new, Please listen carefully. Many of us may already be aware of this. But many questions on the Forum beget this little missive.
Okay, you have a model Car, shall we say, OR an Aircraft that qualifies. Okay, Okay , Ships and Armor too! You have in front of you all these beautifully painted parts right? Top and Bottom or Side to Side. Or even little parts. Great, How do you glue them together? You make sure the edge where glue goes has no paint on it!
Now how to glue them together. Look at the part carefully. If it was placed on tape to spray then the face that was on the tape will have no paint on it. I hope you taped it down correctly! That will be a gluing surface. Now where you glue it. Hmmm; painted!
Well, there are four ways to solve this; Numberone, Take a round sanding stick and lightly, but positively sand the small area for the small part. Now, Number Two, when you have those halves such as in a top and Bottom car body You MUST remember to not paint the sections of the edges of the two halves if you are to glue them together! Number four is for builders with a few under thir belts. Lacquer Thinner On a T-Shirt wrap ,Tightly around a finger and wipe down the length of the gluing surface ,Viol'a no paint! Do NOT soak the T-Shirt material with the thinner. Only a breath on the fabric.
Number five is the scary one. Take those beautifully painted parts that have flat joining surfaces and few locator pins. Remove the pins if they don't allow perfect alignment! Now take both Top and Bottom or Side to Side pieces and run that inide the seam face on some 280 grit wet sandpaper. Hopefully you haven't put decals on yet!
The best source is a Sally Beauty Supply sanding stick and work the edge lightly from the inside edge to the outside, lightly. You don't want to damage the painted outside edge. Now when you see no paint on the edge, Stop!! Wipe dry, and let sit overnight. Why? To make sure it is really dry. Glue does not like water! You may NOT always get all the water off the part in small corners near the joint.
Apply a thin coat of glue on that edge ( Both sides) Let get dry to the touch. Now hold or clamp, DO Not tape unless you can keep the tape away from the joint! the parts together and apply glue to a hidden inside corner of both edges. Capillary action will do the rest, Let rest over night if it looks good to you. Check on it, and ignore it for a full twenty four hours from the time you applied the glue. Yes, it does sometimes take that long for glue to gas out. It is affected by Humidity and Temperature too.
Any touch-up can then be done with a very small very thin striping brush, or detail brush if you don't own any of the first. Viola! We've not only put a painted model together.We didn't mess it up in the process! Model On!! P.S. I forgot to mention this. If you sand from the inside to the outside carefully .You will be creating a feather edge in the paint. You can't see it but it's there. So when you are careful after gluing the glue will cause the feathered edge to come together. Then you won't have to much clean-up or touch-up to do.