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Need at little help with a paint mess I made.

I have an RMS Capri body for my U2 2017 T/A Proxy entry. I washed it with warm/ light soapy water.

After it dried, I laid down a coat of Tamiya Gray Primer. So far, so good.

Next, I put on a topcoat of Testors Red Spray Enamel. It looked OK, but a little thin, so I waited for it to dry, and then wet sanded the topcoat with 2000 grit sandpaper.

A couple days later, I sprayed a 2nd coat (temp. 70 deg/25-30% humidity), and got an extremely "blotchy" or "bubbly" orange peel thing going.

Tried wet sanding it out, but now the paint is smooth, but dull and ruddy looking.

Not sure where to go next, as I don't want to make this mess any worse.

Any advice or guidance is appreciated.

Thanks.

Oh boy.

If you wet sanded it - now you need to polish it. Some car polish like Novus or another one from the auto parts store and an old cut up T-shirt works perfectly. It'll bring it back to life.

If not...

1) Stripping paint from resin – use PineSol. PineSol will not react with the resins I use and will make fairly quick work of removing paint. A soft toothbrush can help remove it after it has soaked for awhile. DO NOT USE ALCOHOL as it will soften and eventually eat the resin parts.

2) Switch paints. I use only Duplicolor lacquers. Primer and paint. Simple, dries very quickly, no goofy issues.

I'm guessing the Enamel on the first color coat was not dry properly when you went to respray. Enamel can take a long time to harden & dry.

Forgot to say. Now you have wet sanded, like David said, use whatever car polish you have lying around & give it a polish. Enamel can come up great after wet sanding & polish. I would recommend not clear coating afterwards as you will run into further issues.

I'll endorse the advice you have so far. Get rid of the enamel we used to use on model cars, its a constant problem. Use lacquers- they dry very fast for recoat, they cure in no time (the longest will take 10-12 hours), and they polish up like glass (look at Shotgun Dave's how-to instructionals). To really get a pro finish and excellent color blending, use the water based craft paints he uses.

Some 20/20 hindsight questions.

Did you clear the nozzle by inverting the can, after the first coat?
Did you shake the can really well before the second coat? 45 secs to 1 min. minimum.
Did you heat the can by immersing it is hot water until it is warm to the touch?

These questions won't help you but may help others reading.

Thanks gentleman for the advice. Since the weekend is here, I can move this to the top of my project list.
I did do all the steps Abarth Mike suggested, and I did have a bad feeling about using the enamel.

:idea: :think: Matt finishes are all the rage at the moment?







:twocents-mytwocents:

Strip all that old paint (enamel comes off quickly). Sand lightly do a couple coats of duplicolor lacquer DAP1689. It is a good base, fills, dries in a few hours and sands easy. The big can does 5-8 cars and is a couple dollars. If you want to spend a little more, buy the Tamiya fine spray lacquer primer in the small cans for the high price. Forget enamel all together and use either Testor or Tamiya lacquer. If you want to save a few bucks, buy the bigger cans of Duplicolor. Stay with those brands, I know they all work together fine. You can finish with Tamiya or Testor clear lacquer. If you are clearing over decals, there are issues with the many different kinds of inks used. I find that a light coating of lacquer over the the decal sheet before use and a second coat a day later, helps the final clearing of the whole body not to affect the decals. I start with a fogging coat and let it dry at least 4-6 hours.

Somethng I have been trying with success so far is Rustoleum clear enamel. Local track owner uses it and swears buy it. I've used it once over lacquer and decals and it worked great and dried hard and thorough in a day. I also pre-sprayed the decals with the Rustoleum before I applied them. Unusual to get an enamel that dries hard and is not tacky. This stuff surprised me. I can put the number up here if needed.

As to polishing and rubbing out enamel finishes. Results may vary, but having been involved in automotive painting for all my life, typically enamel cannot really be polished. It doesn't dry all the way thru and it's hard to polish something that isn't hard and dry. With the advent of acrylic enamels which could use an added chemical hardener, acrylic was able to be sanded and buffed, but it was later found that the chemical makeup of dried enamel made for a hard outer shell and softer more flexible base/undercoats. The buffing of the acrylic actually took off this hard outer shell and hurt the enamel durability.

Take heart that "Superclean" will remove paint quickly and chrome plating, and you can start over! If Superclean won't get some of the old finish off, you will know it is dry enough to paint over with any type of paint you want.

The Bowes Seal Fast is painted with lacquer, Indycals pre-sprayed with lacquer and the whole car cleared with Rustoleum.

Thank Matt....that's helpful. My car won't looks as good as yours, bu I aspire to get there some day..

Not to hijack the post, but I've spent the last 3 afternoons fighting paint disasters myself. The last two castings I've pulled & tried to paint
have resulted in the enamel (that I've been using for months) not drying. I have been spraying Smooth-On universal mold release on the new
silicone molds lately & I think that has to be the problem. (I've stripped a & painted one body 6 times....I don't give up easily) I've stripped
with alcohol, lacquer thinner, sanded down to virgin resin, washed with warm water & even painted the sanded resin with a coat
of thin super glue before sanding again & painting. The result is the same. Even just a dusting of primer will not dry on areas of the casting.
On the last try after sanding down to bare resin I thought I'd be sure it was clean & dry. I used a heat gun from a couple feet away & noticed
an oily, very wet residue bead up all over the casting that previously felt dry. I'd wipe clean & repeat the process with the same
result. No matter how many times I'd heat it up, the residue would reappear.
I think the the mold release is becoming impregnated into the resin as the resin is poured into the prepared mold.
Is that possible??????

two things

Fordguy you will get results like mine with very little practice. I am no artist by any means, just a hack that refuses to give up. If you ever see some of what the really talented guys do you will realize work like I do is not anything hard to do.

Mold release saturated your resin. I believe this is what happened in your case. I do all the routine cleaning things, alcohol, bleachwhite, soap and water(cheap soap not the stuff with moisture and oil in it). I have still had the same thing happen to me and that's what I figured was too much release and it leached into the resin.
Lot of molds I don't use release anymore. A much better resin caster with some commercial sales told me one time he didn't use release. He used talcum powder and said a light dusting in the mold was all it takes. Pour it in, shake it around blow it out. He said nothing sticks, the finish is slightly, very slightly course and takes paint much better. I have never tried it, but it might be worth trying. One of you guys casting now, give that a try and get back to us.

mb