Ford GT II - The Fast and the Novice - Tamiya 1/24

[DocRob]

Hola fellow car lovers and modelistas,
A while ago I got some relatively cheap car kits and among them was this kit of Tamiya's Ford GT MK.II. My first thought was to build it and give the body a paintjob made by rubbed metallic waxes from AK in bronze and copper tones, but then I bought an 1/12 Tamiya Porsche and a Lotus Ford type 79 and decided, to approach the Ford GT a little bit more serious, as a test mule for all these mysterious car paint techniques, I have no idea about.

The kit itself is a gem, with great fit and clever engineering and goes together in a breeze, so this WIP-light will be about painting and finishing. The kit includes nicely flat chromed wheels, metal stickers and decals beside the plastic and pre cut (yes you read right) Kabuki masks for the windows.

The kit is not overly komplex, so I cut all the parts from the sprues and cleaned them up, before painting.

I decided to give Tamiya lacquer colors a shot with this build and until now, they behaved phenomenal. They spray absolutely flawless, fine grained and have the right finish. I used no primer and had no issues with these colors being too hot.

First I managed some detail painting, which involved a lot of masking for the brakes and engine parts, with fluid or Kabuki masks. The LED-lights are great, the projectors sprayed with titanium silver and enhanced with black panel liner.

The clear parts were masked with the supplied masks on the inside for windshield and rear window and from the outside in case of the side windows, to have different black shades for different materials. Hard to see on the pictures, the windshield got a lower frame sprayed matte black from the outside, which again involved more masking. Note the big tabs, which ensure, that there will be no glue stains on the window.

Next was the interior and as a change from RLM66, I used different black tones, including matte and semi matte, some titanium accents on the seats and the orange red applications. Thrére are still some decals to apply.

Then, I put all my courage together and sprayed the body with light heavy thinned passes of mica blue. The finish is very fine and even and I really like it as a base. Im not sure, being a car rook, how to proceed next. First polishing or first clear coating in preparation for the decal stripes, If you have suggestions, I'm really interested in.

So far for now.

Cheers Rob

 

[BlrwestSiR]

Great start Rob. It good to hear Tamiya is finally giving you precut paint masks.

Much of the actual car is built by Multimatic not far from me. 

For the finish, I would recommend doing a clear coat prior to polishing. This will give the paint more depth as well as protect the paint in case you get carried a bit too far with the polishing bit. Tamiya make some different grades of rubbing compound you could try. 

Carl

[Kaireckstadt]

Quite an unusual topic from you Rob. Didn’t think that you would start building a car. You are always good for a surprise!  Nevertheless:

Great start and the detail painting and the color on the car body looks really awesome! 

Since it‘s a Tamiya kit shake&bake can  be awaited. The kit-engineers really know their business (the ones from Italeri should make a training course in Shizuoka…)

I‘ve read that some of the car-builders use real car 2K-Clear-Cote for the final finish after having polished the basecote. The results looked really nice. 

Curious which method you will try! 

[GazzaS]

Quite a surprise, Rob.   I'm no car guy either so I won;t be much help.  But it is a nice start with some accurate paintwork.

 

Carry on!

[Wolf Buddee]

That looks awesome Rob!
 

Love the contrasting colours in the interior. Very Sharp!
 

Cheers,

Wolf

[DocRob]

13 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:

Great start Rob. It good to hear Tamiya is finally giving you precut paint masks.

Much of the actual car is built by Multimatic not far from me. 

For the finish, I would recommend doing a clear coat prior to polishing. This will give the paint more depth as well as protect the paint in case you get carried a bit too far with the polishing bit. Tamiya make some different grades of rubbing compound you could try. 

Thank you Carl, indeed it's good news, that Tamiya is pre-cutting the Kabuki and I hope it was not only a test with the Ford.
I was also tending to glosscoat before polishing, as the surface of the mica blue is very smooth and I don't know, if I ruin more, than doing good, working directly on the blue color.
I have a complete set of Tamiya's polishing compounds, which I plan to use for this build.

Cheers Rob

 

[DocRob]

11 hours ago, Kaireckstadt said:

Quite an unusual topic from you Rob. Didn’t think that you would start building a car. You are always good for a surprise!  Nevertheless:

Great start and the detail painting and the color on the car body looks really awesome! 

Since it‘s a Tamiya kit shake&bake can  be awaited. The kit-engineers really know their business (the ones from Italeri should make a training course in Shizuoka…)

I‘ve read that some of the car-builders use real car 2K-Clear-Cote for the final finish after having polished the basecote. The results looked really nice. 

Curious which method you will try! 

He He, I'm a wanderer and sometimes, I surprise myself . I really enjoy, to let my thoughts drift, grab a thought, transform it into an idea, plan it in my brain and start it as a project, with an already made up picture of the final thing in my head. 
I have only a reduced interest into cars. I love my Jeep and classic cars in general, but am no car nut. Even if I had the money, I would never like to have a car like this in real live and modern cars mostly remind me of a piece of soap, with their uniform and boring shapes. The Ford is more like learning the mysteries of car painting techniques.
I've seen 2K clear cote being used too and that is an option, if my Tamiya lacquer clear fails. First I have to get the process right and decide, if I polish the blue color and then gloss coat or if I first gloss coat and polish then, like Carl mentioned. I tend to the latter too.

Damn right, you should force the Italeri engineers to a year of labor in Tamiya's halls. After that, they are positively brain washed.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

10 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Quite a surprise, Rob.   I'm no car guy either so I won;t be much help.  But it is a nice start with some accurate paintwork.

 

8 hours ago, Wolf Buddee said:

That looks awesome Rob!
 

Love the contrasting colours in the interior. Very Sharp!

Muchas gracias hombres, painting the Ford is actually a lot of fun and quite a difference from plane and armor painting and weathering. I actually try to make it look NEW , which is new to me .
The manual calls for flat white as a contrasting color on the interior panels, but while inspecting the pictures on the box, I saw one Ford with orange-red accents, that sealed it.

Cheers Rob

[BlrwestSiR]

3 hours ago, DocRob said:

Damn right, you should force the Italeri engineers to a year of labor in Tamiya's halls. After that, they are positively brain washed

What's funny about this is that Tamiya is the distributor for Italeri in Japan. They often put Italeri kits in Tamiya boxes sometimes with a few tweaks to them. 

[DocRob]

46 minutes ago, BlrwestSiR said:

What's funny about this is that Tamiya is the distributor for Italeri in Japan. They often put Italeri kits in Tamiya boxes sometimes with a few tweaks to them. 

Yeah, I know about these masked repops, Tamiya seems to be eager, testing the patience of their customers .

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

Brilliant progress and love the paint work. I've started a few car kits over the past year, to practice on the body finish. My brother builds 100% race cars and his body finishes look very impressive, so anything I do, gets critiqued to the hilt. 

I've worked out a system that works for me and I don't use a high psi working pressure with a ton of over spray.

Step 1: wear a good respirator and always paint in a paint booth, especially with solvent based paints.

Step 2: Primer - I prefer MRP Gray primer - light cotes and after dry, I rub it out through 12,000 micro mesh

Step3: color coats - Thin light layers, at around 15 psi and when dry, rub it out through 12,000 micro mesh

Surface is perfectly smooth and it's decal time

For the clear cote, I use either Mr Color Super Clear Gloss or Tamiya F22 Clear Gloss both thinned out with Mr Color Self Leveling Thinner. I'm not a fan of 2K as it's nasty stuff and extra precautions need to be take but does yield excellent results. When the Clear Cote has thoroughly dried, I rub it out and then polish the body using the polish set from Gravity. I'm very pleased with the results but the deep shine while looking great on a model, isn't that realistic except on a show car.

Hope this helps and you're giving me the erg to pull a car kit out of the stash - Oh no.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

 

[DocRob]

Thanks Peter, and don't be shy about showing us your techniques on the real thing. I promise, I will not tell your brother .
Also thanks for explaining your steps to a great result. I've a check behind step one, the others are still in the mist, but I try to learn from your experiences.
I have to check the body today and will decide, if I clear coat before polishing or the other way around.

Cheers Rob

[Peterpools]

Rob

I'll pull down the Tamiya box with the finished body and take a few pics. I'm just very cautious of toxic chemicals/paints and keeping the over spray down helps a lot. 

I did use Gravity lacquers from Spain as they are the correct automotive colors and shipping was pretty fast and not that expensive to the US.

Keep 'em comin

Peter

[Peterpools]

Hi Rob

Tamiya decals applied right over the paint, which was rubbed out. Gloss went on top, rubbed out and polished

Grabbed a few pics:

 

[DocRob]

10 hours ago, Peterpools said:

Hi Rob

Tamiya decals applied right over the paint, which was rubbed out. Gloss went on top, rubbed out and polished

Grabbed a few pics:

Thanks for the effort and the pics Peter. Not all Mustangs are P-51's here . Yours is looking great. With cars the thick Tamiya decals are just about right, opaque and like the real thing slightly noticeable on the surface. Today, I have an excuse for not continuing, I have two different construction groups at the house  and will use the spare time for further contemplating.

Cheers Rob

[mark31]

nice start 

How i didt the paint job on my lotus

I have primed the body (it whas resin) and polischd it with 6000 to get it smooth

Afterwards i have done a few base coats and pollishd it again before clear coat

After clear again polishd to get all the defects out

iff you pollish between every step you get the best results and a minimum on faults in the paint

It takes time but it helps

After decals a wet coat of x22 and let it dry

Then you can use the compounds from tamiya for the finnish

Be shure its dust free and take your time between painting and pollishing mostly i let the paint dry for about 5 days

And for the final use the tamiya wax

 

Hope this helps and you understand what i mean

English is not my best

 

Keep going Mark

[DocRob]

1 hour ago, mark31 said:

How i didt the paint job on my lotus

Thank you mark, I understand you perfectly. English isn't my real strength either .

The great thing about starting a WIP here, is that you are not only giving input into the forum, you also receive a lot of your condensed experiences, which is just great. I have to admit, that I started this WIP, mainly to rob your ideas .

The finish you achieved on the Lotus is perfectly glossy, almost unreal. I will follow your tutorial and will start with polishing the base color, and continue with polishing after each new coat of gloss. I will use the Tamiya polish compounds for the first time with micro fiber cloth. 
Luckily we have a high humidity here normally, which reduces the risk of dust settling into the drying color.

Cheers Rob

[mark31]

get the base color as smooth you can get

I have to paint the body 6 times just because i whent tru the paint.

Be careful on the edges.

The smoother the base paint the beter the clear coat will be.

With micro mesh take it easy and every time u use another grid take fresh water(ask me how i know  )

 

 

And i have no secrets glad to help

 

Mark

[DocRob]

2 hours ago, mark31 said:

get the base color as smooth you can get

I have to paint the body 6 times just because i whent tru the paint.

Thanks again Mark, I will remind your tips. I have to be careful with the colors, as they are hard to get to my island, because of safety regulations , so I can't afford to mess up.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

Besides sanding the body and applying another coat of mica blue, I managed to build the dashboard and seats into the interior tub and added front and rear axles and brakes. The fit was exceptional again
The only problem arose, when I added the upper cover onto the dashboard and applied some glue to a wrong, but unfortunately visible place. I decided against completely respraying and masked off only the part with the glue and now have the appearance of a different material used for this panel. It's the part, which is a bit more shiny in front of the dashboard. I will leave it as it is, as I like the look.

Cheers Rob

[GazzaS]

Looks sweet, Rob!  I like the look of that panel, too.

[DocRob]

13 hours ago, GazzaS said:

Looks sweet, Rob!  I like the look of that panel, too.

Thanks Gaz, I figured, I couldn't respray it in the same tone and shine like the rest of the dashboard and decided to do it noticeable different. My semi matte black has not arrived yet, so the interior blacks were mixed.
It's a real pain to get lacquer colors to my island. Most of the suppliers don't ship at all and few only bottles up to 30ml and one liter in all, like the IATA regulations say.
I can't get a decent bottle of thinner here, I have to buy micro jars and you need lots of these for lacquer paints and the shops, which deliver don't have everything in stock, which is needed.
I feel more and more, that the supply problems with toxic liquids like paints, cement, not even to mention spraycans, may put an end to my hobby, short term .

Cheers Rob

[belugawhaleman]

Great work! This thread is turning out to be a terrific tutorial on auto model finishing!

So much input on this topic from forum members is wonderful.

Thanks;

Paul

[HubertB]

Nice work, but, IMHO, the blue outside with the black and orange trim inside reflect the taste of a rap star or of a gulf emirate heir ...

Just my

Hubert

[Peterpools]

Rob

Terrific progress on the GT .. Love the colors as a lot of mega dollar super cars, have outrageous color schemes. I have Tamiya 1/24 Enzo Ferrari kit and the interior colors are close in style.  Would like to build it this fall.

Keep 'em comin

Peter