Painting N scale cars in FXD build thread

[chicken45]

I'm building my first N scale car. The '71 Valiant. The car from Duel.



@Lemosteam pointed me to @Loren Perry 's cars from a few years back, and I talked to @peteski.
Loren sprays his cars with chrome and brush paints the body paint on. Peteski paints it the body color and brushes on Testor's/MM chrome.

I've been wanting to see what these Alclad paints do so, I bought their gloss black and chrome paint. I was able to find out the the Valiant was a shade of Tor-Red and acquired the proper paint from scalefinishes.com .

I'm planning on airbrushing all that I can. Now, the car is en route to me from Shapeways so once I have it in hand, that may change my plan, but for now, I'm thinking of priming with a gray or white, Tor-Red, mask the red, paint the chrome areas gloss black, then chrome paint.

I'm thinking critically about the best order to do this. Do I even need to prime for the orange? If I painted the whole thing chrome, could I mask off the chrome areas and spray the red on top of it?
Should the windows be gloss black or a dark gray?
Never did a car before. It needs to be as good as it can be for FXD.
Thanks!

[peteski]

I suspect that since the model is 3-D printed FXD, you will need to prime it to smooth out the striations and "fuzzies" left over from the printing process.

I also use Alclad II paints (including chrome) on my larger scale models.  To achieve chrome-like  finish Alclad II has to be applied over a prerfectly glossy coat of dark enamel paint.   If the surface is not glossy the chrome paint will just look like a bright silver paint.  But I guess in 1:160 scale the chromed areas are so small that the real chrome look is not all that important.  Testors/MM Chrome paint to  me is good enough for representing shiny chrome on a tiny model, but I have used Alclad II Chrome on some of my N scale models, like this fire engine.  The chemical tank (under the seat) and the extinguishers on the back step are Alckad II Chrome over gloss black enamel.



But the bumper car (much smaller than the fire engine) has the grille and headlights painted over the body color using Testors Chrome (brushed-on with small brush for the grille and toothpick for the headlights).



Both are good enough for me. Keep im nind that these photos show the models magnified many times - they are tiny!

Another issue I like to raise is the glossiness of the paint.  Many modelers believe that even if the 1:1 vehicle had a glossy paint, in 1:160 it should have flat finish to look realistic. Hogwash!    To me if the 1:1 vehicle was glossy, the model should not have a flat finish.  Flat finish looks like the model has paint that was faded by sitting in a bone yard for decades. It should be glossy (or at least semi-gloss).  You'll notice that both of my models (above) do not have flat finish.

I see many excellent photos of layouts but all the cars look dull and flat to me. That just doesn't look right. 

[chicken45]

Wow Pete that fire truck is unbelievable!

What should I prime with? Anything specific?

[carlso]

Pete,

I certainly agree, that fire truck is awesome work. The Alclad is a real standout when painted properly. I used their SS on a dome passenger car and it turned out great.

Carl

[daniel_leavitt2000]

The car will need to soak in Bestine. After that, I like to use an electric toothbrush with jewelers rouge. This minimizes the striations. After this I hit it with sandable auto primer. Additional sanding is sometimes required but not often. If sanding was done, prime one more time. Mask the Windows and hit with the base color.

I like to paint the chrome. I have gone back and forth on this,  but painting after the body color gives me a bit more control and less masking. Use thinned "dirty" gray in the windows. Let it dry unevenly in the window surface. Finally, use Tamiya amber for signal lights and a red Sharpie for brake lights. Use Testors Conopy Glue to paint the windows... 2-3 coats. This will give a glass like reflection.

FWIW, I hate gloss paint on vehicles. This is a personal preference. Looking at shiny items from a distance, the atmosphere refracts a lot of that shine. For this reason, I tend to go with a low semi gloss it eggshell shine. It seems to "scale" well to the size of the model.

[peteski]

I don't have much experience with painting 3-D printed stuff. Daniel's method sounds good.

[Lemosteam]

Wow Pete that fire truck is unbelievable!

What should I prime with? Anything specific?

I dunno, I see some orange peel on the hood bonnet... 

[tom mann]

That is pretty incredible @peteski . What is striking for me is the seat looks so much like a quilted cushion.

[chicken45]

I bought a can of Tamiya Fine Surface Primer for eleven freaking dollars. It better be good!

[Kisatchie]

https://www.google.com/search?q=giant+dime+novelty+coin&tbm=isch&imgil=TPyJqjCjx2kznM%253A%253BRwwVss8uozA_oM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.ebay.com%25252Fsch%25252FCirculated-US-Novelty-Coins%25252F139962%25252Fbn_26622372%25252Fi.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=TPyJqjCjx2kznM%253A%252CRwwVss8uozA_oM%252C_&usg=__GGYos-TiK0Ml5u4Jz76_10NexLI%3D#imgrc=TPyJqjCjx2kznM%3A


Hmm... I bet the dime
in the photo is a giant
novelty dime... 

[peteski]

Hmm... I bet the dime
in the photo is a giant
novelty dime... 

Darn Ms. Dee!  Here I was rooting for you when you got in the hock and now you are giving away my secrets!  You won't be getting any termites from me anytime soon.    The giant-dime theory has been mentioned in the past. Next time I'll take photos using my giant fingertip for size reference.   

[peteski]

That is pretty incredible @peteski . What is striking for me is the seat looks so much like a quilted cushion.

Thanks  !  Actually other than painting it glossy black I didn't do anything to it - it was photoetched that way. We can thank Reynard from Micron Art for the beauitful artwork.

I bought a can of Tamiya Fine Surface Primer for eleven freaking dollars. It better be good!

Oh that stuff is really good. Goes on thin (doesn't hide fine details) and gives a nice even eggshell finish. But it actually might be too good for this application. You might need a primer which has some gap-filling abilities. The plain automotive sandable primer (Daniel  mentioned) might work better becuase it goes on thicker. But then again, it might obfuscate some delicate details. With 3-D printed items there will be compromises made of overall smoothness vs. retraining fine details.

But give the Tamiya stuff a whirl - I'm curious about the results.

I dunno, I see some orange peel on the hood bonnet... 

You got me John!  Yes, there seems to be some N-scale orange-peel on the hood. But as it is generally known, no model is perfect and you just found its flaw.    Actually, the gold pinstripes are out of scale, and the tires have a wrong cross-section. There are other flaws but I'll let you find them yourself. 
 

[chicken45]

Sandable auto primer? Like this stuff?
https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/auto/primers/sandable-primer-spray/
I'm showing my inexperience here so bear with me, aren't all primers and paints sandable?

I have some Model Master gray acrylic primer I can use. I'll def five the Tamiya stuff a go. Maybe a couple coats will fill in the fuzzies?

[Kisatchie]

Darn Ms. Dee!  Here I was rooting for you when you got in the hock and now you are giving away my secrets!  You won't be getting any termites from me anytime soon....

Hmm... uh oh! Okay, I
apologize. Send termites to
Ms Dee Rayle
Tree House
St. Joseph, LA  71366

[peteski]

Sandable auto primer? Like this stuff?
https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/auto/primers/sandable-primer-spray/
I'm showing my inexperience here so bear with me, aren't all primers and paints sandable?

I have some Model Master gray acrylic primer I can use. I'll def five the Tamiya stuff a go. Maybe a couple coats will fill in the fuzzies?

Yeah,, that stuff.   Yeah, all primers are sandable.    But the one actually called "sandable primer" has more solids in it (so it goes on thicker than standard primers). The thicker layer of primer fills the imperfection and is thick enough to be sanded without sanding right through it.  At least that is how I understand it.

I would say that few coats of Tamiya primer is a good idea.  I'm also crazy enough to decant it from the can and airbrush it. Especially when painting a model which is less than 1" long airbrush gives me much better control.  As for the "fuzzies", like Daniel said, try to remove as much as you can before priming. If you had an air-eraser that would easily remove the fuzzies (and details if not done carefully).