Painting
-
Use two old hacksaw blades, one in each groove where the wheels will go, to hold your car while spraying it. If the car is one end of the blades and you pinch together and hold it from the other end, you easily hold the car up and turn it around while you spray and then set it down (still on the hacksaw blades) between coats without ever having to touch the wet paint.
-
The best way to spray paint is in smooth strokes about 12 inches away from the car. Never just point the can at the car and start spraying. Start the spray pointing a little away from the car, move the spray smoothly across the car and continue spraying a little past. Keep the spray moving and resist the temptation to put too much paint on at once. Remember, several light coats will always come out better than one thick, runny one!
-
Be sure to do all your painting in a well-ventilated area, outdoors or in your garage with the door open. Paint fumes can make you sick or, at very least, very unpopular with your family! Also, spray paint can fly around through the air a long ways so be sure everything you don't want painted is covered with newspaper.
-
Start your paint job with a couple coats of sandable primer (e.g., Krylon Sandable Primer). This is the secret to a great paint job and the one most often overlooked. If you try spray painting bare wood, you cannot get a smooth result. Pores in the wood will absorb some of the paint in some spots and, in other spots, little burrs will stick up. Sandable primer is specially made to avoid problems like this. After each coat, any rough spots can be lightly wet-sanded using very fine 400 grit paper. Two coats is usually enough but you can do more if you like. Sandable primer dries quickly (4 or 5 hours) and easy to work with.
-
Your final colors can be sprayed with a gloss enamel. A lot of Cubs like the Testors paints because they have lots of pretty metallic colors but the cans are small (you might need two!) and a bit expensive. No matter what the can may claim, enamel dries slowly. Although you can do another coat within 24 hours, it'll still be soft enough to be fingerprinted for up to a week or more if you aren't careful. Do not try sanding or polishing enamel paints (e.g., with car wax or polishing compound); it does not work unless the paint has had many weeks to harden because the chemicals used in car wax designed to remove road tar will just eat up your new paint job. Sand only if you have a major run you need to fix.
-
Making the car all one color is easiest. Trying to do two colors is definitely more than twice the work and twice as hard because of the need to let each color dry so completely before you mask off and spray the next color. One color done well will certainly look better than two colors that got ruined!
-
Apply any decals or transfers you want (also available at the Scout Store or Paperama) and then apply one or more coats of clear gloss to protect the decals.