Today I got the Cuda primed and painted. The base color is Testors Pearl Purple, followed up with 5 coats of Tamiya clear. I was going to go with just plain old Tamiya purple, but figured I'd give it a little more life. I also try to paint the body and body pieces right after I get the suspension modified and the wheels fit. My logic is that since I put a few coats of base coat/clear coat (ok, 8 total coats), I like to bake it for 24 hours and then let it "gas" out for 10-14 days. This will ensure that the surface is more than ready when I start wet sanding and buffing.
Tonight I tried something a little different from what I typically do with Tamiya paints. After the first 2 clear coats, I started to thin eat clear coat with .5ml more of clear per coat. So I started with 23ml of Tamiya clear, thinned with 8ml of denatured alcohol and ended up with 9.5-10ml of denatured alcohol total to let the last 2-3 coats of clear really lay down. So far, it has seemed to work great!
I got to try out my new compressor that my wonderful wife bought me for Valentine's day.
New compressor:
Everything was painted @ 40 PSI:
3 Base coats of Testors Purple Pearl:
Clear coat 1:
Clear coat 2:
Clear coat 3:
Clear coat 4:
Clear coat 5: As soon as I put it in the dehydrator, the paint will lay down a little more, so there shouldn't be any orange peel. If there is, it won't be much, but this will wet sand and polish out nicely!
Clear coat 5 on the hood:
