Hot Wheels and Matchbox Customizing Thread

[cfun]

My airbrush & compressor kit was less that £40 off the bay. Nothing special. Figured I'd get more range of colour buying smaller pots of paint per project than full size cans from halfords. I think it will be a mix of both that end up filling my garage shelves!

 

[Apok]

After a little help here...

I've just tried shooting white primer from the airbrush, and its given a really rough finish. Should I just revert to going direct from the can?

It was a mess cleaning the airbrush afterwards as well

edit; Just answered my own question and went with the can - immediate even coverage which looks smooth. Think I'm too inexperienced with the airbrush to get the results I'm hoping for. Will keep trying though on the paint front, but for now the primer is going straight from the can.

Sounds like the primer is drying in the air before it hits the car. I've had that happen before with paint. You need to thin it with something. White spirit might work as a thinner.
I always spray thinner out of the can though, I don't see a reason to do it with an airbrush.

 

[cfun]

Ah you may be right there... I was in such a rush to try it that I forgot what I read the other day about thinking it with white spirit 🤬

Oh well, I've got a bit left over that I decanted into a jar so will look that info up again and thin it down and give it a go on something else. Probably explains why it was a bitch to clean the airbrush out too!

 

[Emmcee]

Must be to thick for the small tube the paint runs through in the gun?

 

[Apok]

No, it's just that if you thin out the paint (or thinner in this case) it takes that much longer to dry. The paint can dry so quickly that you're cleaning one part of the airbrush and it's already drying on another part.

 

[AOS-]

I had to take apart my entire airbrush because I found gunk stuck inside. I couldn't tell if that was the nail polish building up or if that was the acrylic paint chemically changing with the acetone I used to clean it... Either way, I managed to bend the needle tip and warp the nozzle tip out of frustration. This was back in August. My ordered parts have still not yet arrived.

 

[Johnny1996]

I'm looking at getting an airbrush. I know a great place that's local to my area, and they're also quite affordable.

 

[Apok]

I had to take apart my entire airbrush because I found gunk stuck inside. I couldn't tell if that was the nail polish building up or if that was the acrylic paint chemically changing with the acetone I used to clean it... Either way, I managed to bend the needle tip and warp the nozzle tip out of frustration. This was back in August. My ordered parts have still not yet arrived.

I don't think that's part of standard airbrush cleaning procedure.

 

[AOS-]

It's not but I could not figure out what was stuck. Whatever it was backed up in the chamber that I couldn't put the needle in. I have a siphon-feed airbrush, and stuff was jammed somewhere between the paint tube and the trigger. I used an airbrush cleaning solution (the stuff that's supposed to be able to clean out "annnnything") which didn't do much for me, so you could imagined how frustrating that could get.

The nozzle tip got bent because the brush fell on the garage floor during cleaning. Either way, that tip is now stuck with gunk, so I'm waiting for a new tip to arrive first.

 

[Nessy]

Thought i'd lay a couple layers of paint over the weekend on the 'Niscort'. Four things i'm not happy with though:

1. I really wish i would have repaired the right side of the grill properly (below the headlight). Shows up something rotten now it's painted.
2. I really need to try a better primer.
3. The colour came out completely different to what i was expecting.
4. There's quite a lot of orange peel (may wet sand, but at risk of dulling colour).

(Excuse out of focus pics)

The colour of the car in this pic is fairly close to how it is in the flesh.. :




This colour balanced pic is what i wanted the car colour to be.





It's not a total disaster, i'm just not 100% happy with it. Hopefully when i detail it a bit more it will hide some of the imperfections.

 

[AOS-]

If it's the deeper orange you wanted, maybe you can find a transparent orange paint you can overlay to add saturation and deepen the colour.

 

[Nessy]

If it's the deeper orange you wanted, maybe you can find a transparent orange paint you can overlay to add saturation and deepen the colour.

It's actually the lighter orange i was going for (bottom pic). At the mo it's quite a redish orange.. almost Cadmium red.
I have contemplated hitting it with a clear yellow, but i figure that may make it worse.

 

[Avalonbug]

@Nessy What it you painted it white and put a very light coat of orange on it? Idk.

Here's a Ferrari i just finished, but of course I can't take a decent photo to save my life. I'll try to post better ones tonight.

 

[AOS-]

Y5s seem to look okay on the F12. 👍

@Nessy, if you have a transparent orange paint (good luck finding one), you can do what Bug Avalon suggested. Hitting a clear yellow over the orange only makes it darker. Like markers on white paper, the more strokes you add, the darker it gets.

 

[Nessy]

@Nessy What it you painted it white and put a very light coat of orange on it? Idk.

It was primered in white to begin with, and after the first coat it just wasn't orange enough, so i'm not sure that'd be the solution. (thanks for the suggestions though guys).

Really, i need to invest in an airbrush. I had a go of a friends (did a bit of Graf on a baseball cap), and was surprised by the amount of control you have with them.

Love the colour of the Ferrari BTW. 👍

@Nessy, if you have a transparent orange paint (good luck finding one), you can do what Bug Avalon suggested. Hitting a clear yellow over the orange only makes it darker. Like markers on white paper, the more strokes you add, the darker it gets.

TBH, i chose the wrong colour to begin with (had a choice of 2 oranges) wish i'd chose the paler one.

I'm gonna wet sand the existing paint - see how it looks and maybe try the white then.

 

[Avalonbug]

Thanks! I like it too. It's a darker green than the photo shows, though. It's almost an exact match to this color:

 

[Cano]

@Nessy your Escort almost makes me want to break the rule at Custom Diecast México of featuring just mexican cars. That is unveliebable.

 

[Nessy]

@Nessy your Escort almost makes me want to break the rule at Custom Diecast México of featuring just mexican cars. That is unveliebable.

Thanks man! I know you can't break the rules but i appreciate the thought. 👍

 

[cfun]

Just been having a play with superglue + talc (baby powder) and have to say I'm pretty impressed!!

I'm not sure if I'm being too adventurous with my first proper build, having to make up a set of rear arches for a pick up truck to allow sunken wheels. The bed was in a pretty bad state with cuts and grinds. With the arches held in with white tack there was a lot of gaps and little natural support. So I mixed up some 'filler' and set them in place with that as a tester of the mixture. I was impressed! I put it on to the edges and then went to work on the bed itself, I figure the mixture has pretty good self levelling properties so should fill the bed quite nicely.

Question now, is how do I clean out the dust so that I can prime this sucker?

 

[Apok]

I sacrificed a beer can to make this casting 100% more appealing.

There is a slight curve to it, it's just not very visible on the picture.

 

[cfun]

Nice, how did you fix it in place?

 

[Apok]

Just a dab of Cyanoacrylate glue (that's super glue in english ). It's not exactly the most durable thing anyway, as the aluminium from the can is easy to bend.

 

[Cano]

Poor beer can. But nice results.

Anyway, previeeewwwwww:

That is half the table of one class. Today, the post.

 

[cfun]

Anyone got any suggestions for cleaning the dust out of the pick up bed so I can primer it? Normally I'd wipe a metal body down with white spirits, but concerned that it will mess with the superglue/talc filler.

 

[Apok]

Um, rinse it out with water?

 

[cfun]

Thanks @Apok, I did wonder if it would be something as simple, but wanted to question the people who are a little more experienced in this than myself before potentially undoing all my work lol

 

[Ustad]

Some recent work! not even good
But i like my first work on Hotrods. tried to paint Shark bite and an urban street Supra

 

[Cano]

Aaaand it's finally up, the post with all the entries for the Mild category. Clickety and be patient, they're almost 200 pictures!
http://www.customdiecastmexico.com/2014/10/concurso-de-customs-7a-convencion-hw.html

 

[cfun]

Just gone through all your pictures @Cano, some amazing pieces of work there! Quite surprised at the differing levels though.

 

[Johnny1996]

I just had to scrap an idea for my RX-7 that I'm working on right now. Go figure that a simple detail job saw a mistake happen for the first time.

Luckily, its not all bad. I'm now doing an improvisational custom. Put simply, I have no idea how this car will turn out when its all finished, but I'm feeling good about the whole thing.