Recommend paints for scouts/beginners?

[oskiwow]

I've shown the fantastic pictures of the cars here to my son, and he really wants to paint a car to look like the shiny metallics or candy painted ones seen here.

Could you recommend a seller of such paints? We'll at most do 2-3 cars in that fashion, so we don't need alot. We are in all likelihood going to use rattle cans as we don't have airbrushing equipment.

Thanks in advance!

 

[JAC]

The Dupli-Color Metallics usually turn out pretty nice.Try Autozone or most of the big name car part stores.Like most paints they do take practice.

 

[JAC]

 

[John Thawley]

I use Duplicolor for color (they go on pretty thin) and they make a pretty good filler primer if you want to get rid of the grain. Heavy coats of their primer with wet sanding in between will get you there if you done a good job of your wood sanding.

For clear coat, I don't like the Duplicolor. I find the gloss is not properly "scaled" for our purposes. If you want that real deep dripping wet look, try Rustoluem Clear Laquer. It goes on very wet and stays really deep. Three coats with wet sanding in between will have that car looking like it just came out of the Fender Guitar factory.

 

[Chief]

[font="times new roman, times, serif"]I would recommend using a practice piece that you have laying around. I would also recommend that you sand your wood with 400 grit before primer. Lay your primer down wet but not thick and runny. Then I take a primer of a different color and mist coat the car and that is called a guide coat to show you your high and low spots. Also the color tone of your primer will set the value of your top coat color. For higher metallic colors spray the paint dry, farther distance from the car, this will give it more sparkle. For less sparkle spray it wet, closer to the car. Remember thin coats will dry faster and allow you to do more work on the car. Lacquer clear does look nice! But make sure you do not rush the clear, allow the color coat to really dry other wise it will dull out. As a side note, I personally do not like to wet sand my cars as primer is porous and so is wood and it will absorb water and the car body will weigh more. Good luck and please show us the pics when you get them![/font]

 

[Old Geeezer]

If you wet sand your cars make sure you plug the nail holes. Water will get into the holes and expand the wood and that causes hairline cracks in your primer and top coat. I use Oatley plumbers putty then use a drill bit the size of your holes by hand to carefully remove the putty after it is painted and polished.

 

[E.T.Racing]

If you use the dupli-color make sure you allow plenty of time for cure between coats or it will crack and look nasty. I have had to redo a couple of cars that I did not let cure long enough. Just follow the guide lines on the can and you will be fine.

 

[Crash Enburn]

Use a Lacquer paint (like the Dupli-Color Metalics). Oh. My. The paint dried quickly. It has a nice shine. So, so much easier to paint with than the enamel paints. Use a good filler primer and you're good to go!

Also, I bought a bunch of paint pens this year. The kids sprayed their cars themselves, then further decorated with these paint pens. The look great, the paint from the pens dried quickly too. (We started cutting the blocks on Tuesday night after dinner; we started painting at 1:30 on Wed., and had the cars checked in at the AWANA Grand Prix at 6:30 with dry paint.)

- Eric

PS - We built three cars and turned 'em in with *zero* tuning (other than making sure the wheels turned). We got 4th, 5th, and 13th places out of 40+ cars. Just a couple hours of tuning, and we would've taken 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Next year... /images/boards/smilies/smile.gif