2006 Ford Shelby GT-H

Bill Newcomer
I am building a 67 Shelby. I am not liking the decal stripes either. Just painted dark blue over masked white stripes.

Treehugger
Will you gently sand the paintwork before adding a gloss coat? It would be crucial to avoid sanding through the layer of paint.

I've noticed that I really have to sand the painted surface, say on a ship model, to make the surface look smooth. Even using an airbrush, the surface still doesn't end up entirely smooth, and I am using acrylic paint so not as good of a finish as a lacquer paint I would think. But, if I gently sand the paintwork, it does look fairly smooth in the end.

Though I've learned to never try to sand edges, as the paint vanish really quick when letting the sanding sponge grace an edge, having to add paint again with an airbrush when that happened. Sometimes one can use a small brush to fix things, adding a little bit of paint, which is quicker and easier than using an airbrush for really small areas.

Allan Dyck
Yes…I am using craft acrylic so paint does not allow wet sanding. There was some roughness so I sanded very lightly after two coats of base. Added another base coat and then another light sanding. Masked and sprayed the gold stripes a couple of times and then a light sanding at the stripe edges. These pics before cleared wth pledge. I find that I cannot buff pledge very well so I just leave the last coat of pledge alone.

Treehugger
I would dry sand it (assuming that doesn't end up sanding through the paint ofc), it works very nice if you just use the bit of sanding sponge to knock down any roughness on top. Nice thing about paint, is that, if you use the same paint twice, after sanding the top, it all looks the same under a gloss coat. A gloss coat tend to make the color darker, and a matte coat makes the color look brighter. Like eh grit 1500 or 2000, before a gloss coat.

Speaking of gloss coat. I ordered some Mr.Hobby Leveling thinner to be used with Tamiya gloss coat, and hope to get some smoother looking models. I used to like Humbrol Clear, but I must be doing something wrong when airbrushing it I think, as I repeatedly get cracks (after a long time) when layering the gloss coats within a short time. I suspect the bottom layer causes the cracking as it dries the slowest or something, unsure. Something of a mystery. Looking at some early model, there aren't any cracks on it, presumably I paced myself, adding just one quick layer of acrylic Humbrol Clear gloss coat. :|

Allan Dyck
I should add that the side stripe decals ended up not too bad so left them on. They have the "Shelby" badging so that is fortunate.