DocRob

Thank you Paul, Chris and Carl, it´s a 95% recovery and that´s barely enough. Given, there is a lot of further assembling to do, there will be more dents and bruises, I guess. I want to start as clean as possible, as it becomes harder to solve body color probs later on. @BlrwestSiR Washing the parts before priming seems to erase a lot of static. I had to constantly wipe or brush the Cobra´s body parts during the prep process with drilling and sanding. It was like a dust magnet, which bettered with the claeansing. Cheers Rob

My heart was sinking too, Mike. I couldn´t have lived with that result, given there are more dents and bruises to come during continuing the build. It just has to look good from the beginning and then hopefully stays like it. In this case, the used paint was from Number Five, only the clear coat was from Zero. I had absolutely no issues, while spraying these colors, they behaved perfectly, thinned with leveling thinner. The Cobra has a resin body, which causes no issues with hot colors. I experienced difficulties with Zero Paints during my "plastic" McLaren MP4/6 build, where the Zero white body color ate through the primer and affected the plastic. I solved this issue, after a lot of sanding and re-priming with only misted coats of Zero white airbrushed onto the primer and let dry for some minutes. I also use a higher air pressure (about 1,6-1,8 bar) for quicker drying. With the coats slowly building up, I had no more issues spraying the later coats "wet" for archiving a nice surface. I had no spots or don´t feel a higher sensitivity to finger prints with the dried paint. Thank you Count, the goo was from my airbrush holder, an old piece, where the thinner dissolved some old paint, which waited until the very last second of airbrushing to run in front of the nozzle. I keep my airbrushes very clean, specially when spraying car bodies, but the goo blob had escaped my attention. The post race look was one idea, the other was a barn find, but when I start a project, I render an image in my head, how everything should look in the end and the Cobra was supposed to look brand new. I´m not good at changing ideas and see it more like an epic fail, having to do so and I don´t live easy with fails. Cheers Rob

Phew, I think, I have saved the Cobra from binning for now. After carefully sanding the splatter dots. first with 1500 grit, then 4000, 6000 and finally 8000 grit, there was one culprit left, the most visible unfortunately. I carefully dotted heavily thinned Tamiya LP-2 gloss white with a fine brush into the tiny crevice, building up the spot, until the color looked right. After drying the same sanding treatment like the others. After all was wiped clean, I applied two coats of Zero Paints lacquer gloss with about 50% of added leveling thinner and an hour of drying time in between. I think, I have a 95% solution achieved and later, when everything is properly cured, I will sand very carefully and polish until it´s an absolute high shine finish. Cheers Rob

Thank you for your thoughts, guys ( @HubertB, @BlrwestSiR, @belugawhaleman and @CANicoll). I did one thing some of you recommended at least, I let the Cobra where it was and went to bed and in the morning, I had a long two kilometer swim in the ocean, to get rid off the frustration. Maybe tomorrow, I will look, what I can do and I will try fine sanding, like Carl recommended. The fiberglass pen seems a bit aggressive to me, as it scrapes into the material relatively on spot, where sanding is easier to blend with a clear coat. @BlrwestSiR: Carl, I cleaned the body parts very thoroughly with warm water and some drops of detergent, using sponges and brushes. After all the sanding, drilling and prep work, the resin parts sported a lot of static and it was nearly impossible to get rid of dust. The proper washing helped to reduce that a lot and I had nearly no dust in my paintjob (only splattered blobs in the end . Cheers Rob

This camo looks great, Gus. Good the Extra Thin only hit the mat. Cheers Rob

Nice looking engine and cockpit, Kevin. Hasegawa has some very nice and good fitting kits of Japanese planes. I once built a Raiden and liked the kit a lot. Cheers Rob

The PL made the details pop, Chris, muy bueno. Cheers Rob

Like Martin said, looking very good, peppered by a unusual look. Cheers Rob

Have you ever had that modelling moment, where you wanted to rewind time for a minute. I had one today. After checking, if all the decals settled perfectly, I cleaned the body with soapy water, to get rid of any residues from the decaling phase. Then, I applied a first coat of Zero Paint clear gloss, with maybe 20% added leveling thinner. The first layer is only misted, to seal the decals in and due to rapid drying time (relatively high air pressure and low thinning ratio) reduce the risk of harming the decals with hot liquids. After about an hour, I applied the second layer of clear, this time more liberal with about a third of leveling thinner and after another hour, I applied the (planned) last layer thinned with ca. 50% of leveling thinner and sprayed on wet. So far so good, until, I took out the airbrush out of it´s holder, to blow the body color dry a bit and didn´t notice that some goo was on the front of the airbrush casing, which squirted onto my just finalized paintjob Now, I´m really frustrated, as everything went well since days of prep work, until the final seconds. I was about to bin the kit instantly, as I absolutely hate these kind of mishaps. I usually prepare my work thoroughly, trying to think ahead of everything, but when something goes seriously wrong, I´m impatient, restless and uncompromising. I´m not sure what to do, leaving it as is or waiting (again) for the clear to dry completely and then carefully try to sand the dots away and re-clear, risking of ruining everything or finally binning the kit. Here are the pics, it looks not too bad, but it is not acceptable. The orange peel look is due to the lighting of some hundred LED´s, the paintjob itself is near perfect and will be perfect after polishing. The dots on the roof´s stripes are the worst, but there are some more. Cheers Rob

Beautiful Phil, but no. I will reveal my plans, when I start the build, whenever that will be. Cheers Rob

The human eye is a fascinating organ, Gus, specially coupled with a working brain and stored experiences. Hard to beat, even by modern cameras, when it comes to certain light conditions, like harsh backlit objects. You can count my relatively smart camera to the fails as well, as it is not capable to render the blue tone of the Cobra´s body correctly, where my eye does a good job . Cheers Rob

Yes, its a beauty Chris. I had to have the kit, when I first saw it. I mean the MFH one, naturally. The Real size kit wouldn´t ever pass the German TÜV or Spanish ITV for technical acceptance. Cheers Rob

Thanks Paul, I understood that, I had looked at some videos from Factory Five during the build. The more "classic" builds look good, but I don´t like the winged monstrosities some made out of it. Nonetheless, the FF Coupe might be the bigger project, but the MFH Cobra isn´t piece of cake either, at least modeling wise . Cheers Rob

It´s unbelievable how precise a trained eye can measure and evaluate, Phil. That is specially true, with a curved object like a car body, where measuring is not so easy. Decaling was more of a challenge than thought here, because MFH forsees, that the decals conform around the edges of the body and wrap around the borders of air intakes and delicate cut off´s on the rear spoiler. It takes time, but looks better than simply put on decals. Cheers Rob

Thank you Paul, sometimes I think the same. It´s a demanding project and not the best entry into the MFH car kit world. The Crocker was much easier to assemble, as there are no huge resin parts to take care of and no bonnets / doors to open. Nevertheless, it´s still a lot of fun and a rewarding project. Nothing against a challenge to keep fresh. Cheers Rob

Nice Phil, I ever liked the Scammell and am eager to see, what you do with it. I have the artillery tractor version from Thunder and special plans, about what to do with it. Cheers Rob

Nice and smooth Chris. Are you planning further weathering on top, maybe a unifying wash or a hint of brown sprayed veeeery lightly overall? Cheers Rob

Thank you Chris, the blue is only what my usually reliable camera is making out of it. I altered every setting, but could not match it to my eyesight. The body color has a slight petrol hue, which looks closer to the original, when I look at photos. Today, I revised the stripes, adding a dot of Micro Sol here and there and looking for mishaps. After clear coating, it will be difficult to repair such mistakes. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, I did find some differences with the replica builds though. Some sport really ugly rear spoilers, which - errr - spoil the complete design. The nearer to street versions do look beautiful. There should be a market with only six original ones built. Cheers Rob

Indeed Kevin, it´is 50 mph faster now with the stripes on . Cheers Rob

I hesitated starting with the decaling, because something was nagging me. I didn´t like the oversprayed part of the body, where I dented the paintjob. Tiny marks were still visible and imperfections tend to sum up, specially with high shine car bodies. I wet sanded the area carefully and then resprayed again. And now, I felt, I´m ready for decaling. There is no makers branding on the decal sheet, but the decals were of perfect quality. They are glossy, very opaque, not at all brittle and easy to apply, which made the not so easy task a lot more comfortable. I aligned the stripes more by eyesight, than measuring. The decals are overlapping the borders on the ends and where cutouts are and with perfect placement and some scalpel corner cuts, you wrap the decals around the bonnet and body edges, which of course looks better in the end. Until now, I used only lukewarm water with a drop of detergent for application and the decals behaved perfect, contouring around the edges by themselves after a while of drying. Today, I will evaluate some critical areas and may use some decaling fluids there. And now the Cobra got it´s stripes Cheers Rob

I read, that Lukgraph is planning a 1/48 version, which would meet your idea of the price better, I guess. The wingspan might be easier to handle as well. Cheers Rob

Very nice, specially considering the small scale. Cheers Rob

Thank you Carl, there were two tiny chips near the headlight. I oversprayed these with Cobra Blue, not bothering with clear coat for now, as there are no decals in this area and the whole body will be gloss coated after decaling.

Thank you Paul. I used Zero Paints lacquer clear gloss with about 40% leveling thinner added. Came out pretty decent and should be good enough for decaling. The very high gloss is difficult to capture on the photos. Before, I applied a fourth coat of Cobra Blue overall, to let the tiny blemishes on the bonnet disappear. Unfortunately, during photographing, I tried to hinder my cat, jumping onto the model, it hit a stone and I have another small mark in my paintjob . Cheers Rob