The Porsche DX3

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Bumping this thread for the people who are having trouble with their cheap brand rattle cans. Read the post before mine to see what he used, and go to the first post to see how great of a job he did.
 
Thanks but that's ancient history.

But more relevant than ever as people are still buying a cheap rattle can and expecting automotive quality. Lack of knowledge can kill you, or at least waste the precious remaining time you have here.
 
This rocket was finished using Duplicolor filler primer, Duplicolor black enamel, Duplicolor Perfect Match silver lacquer, and Duplicolor clear enamel. Both the final color coat and the clear coat were wetsanded and polished with medium polish and then finishing polish. Then it was waxed using Chemical Guys 5050 car wax.

For a step-by-step description of my finishing process, check out this thread.

This is quite inspirational. I’ll have to work some of your techniques into my next build. How does the rocket look after it’s first flight? Does it just kill you to see the paint job get ruined? I fly on a dry lake bed and the finish on my rockets get messed up quite a bit when the wind decides to pick up and drag it around while I go recover it.
 
It's a shame how photobucket has ruined this image... I wish I had saved it before whatever changes they did were done.



dx3l1c.jpg
 
FWIW, re blurry photobucket images? I noticed this lately and did some checking. Apparently photobucket has started watermarking and blurring all images of free users with more than 25MB of images stored on their acct - they're wanting us to buy a subscription.
 
I switched to Flickr several years ago when Photobucket started started trying to extort money out of users by holding their images hostage. But I have never gotten around to uploading all of my old photos to Flickr. Here is that photo:

48837692341_e0c75ed3ff_o.jpg
 
@Nathan Thanks for reposting those!

I'd suggest leaving the links from the flickr page. If anything should happen to an image, the link *MIGHT* allow the person interested in it to see it. I just crop out the link w/credits on the images I post from there. A side benefit is that it allows people to follow it to your account and see more of your images.
 
Great finish!
I am starting on paint soon myself, and this post is invaluable to me. I do have a question about wetsanding.
Do you wet sand -and- polish the color coat before decal and clear coat? Or just wet sand the color coat with 2000 grit and put on decals.
My plan is to use Duplicolor enamel, wet sand the color coat, put on vinyl decals, clear coat entire rocket, wet sand the clear coat and then polish.
Will that work, or will I have a hazy color coat if I don't polish it first?
 
Great finish!
I am starting on paint soon myself, and this post is invaluable to me. I do have a question about wetsanding.
Do you wet sand -and- polish the color coat before decal and clear coat? Or just wet sand the color coat with 2000 grit and put on decals.
My plan is to use Duplicolor enamel, wet sand the color coat, put on vinyl decals, clear coat entire rocket, wet sand the clear coat and then polish.
Will that work, or will I have a hazy color coat if I don't polish it first?

My rocket finishing process has evolved a lot since I built this rocket. What I would suggest is to only wet sand the clear coat. Unless you have a lot of orange peel texture in the color coat there it's no reason to sand it before applying decals and spraying clear. I've never tried what you describe but I'm guessing that it's not going to look good if you sand the color coat but not polish it before spraying clear.

Also, I never paint with enamel anymore, I always use lacquer. They both look equally good but enamel takes a really long time to fully cure, like a couple of weeks (just talking amount normal rattlecan enamel, not catalyzed enamel with hardener). If you wet sand and polish enamel before it is fully cured it will initially look good but then get dull as it continues to cure, requiring additional polishing. Lacquer is dry to the touch in a couple of minutes and ready to sand as soon as you can't smell anymore solvents, usually about 8 hours.

I also now do my wet sanding in two steps, 1000 grit then 2000 grit. Much easier that way.
 
This rocket is long gone, but I recently completed building a Madcow 4" fiberglass DX3 XL and I am going to recreate this paint job. I contacted Mark at Stickershock and he still has the file for the custom decals that he made for me 8 years ago! So I just ordered the decals.
 
Do you know the official font that Porsche uses or is that just eyeballed? I'm shopping for a 911 right now and really want to print some hobby crossover things
 
Do you know the official font that Porsche uses or is that just eyeballed? I'm shopping for a 911 right now and really want to print some hobby crossover things

They're not official but there are plenty of Porsche fonts available to download for free that look correct. Like this: https://fontsgeek.com/fonts/Porsche-Regular

I sold my 911 Carrera S a couple of years ago. Now my wife has a Cayenne S.
 
WHAT !!!!!!!

NATHAN....

You sold that 911 ?????????????

Ohhh how could you.................

Teddy
 
WHAT !!!!!!!

NATHAN....

You sold that 911 ?????????????

Ohhh how could you.................

Teddy
I've been driving sports cars my whole life but now that I'm an old geezer I decided that it was time for something more comfortable. So I traded the 911 in on this MB S560. Not counting trucks, this is the first car I have ever owned with an automatic transmission. Or four doors.IMG_20181219_154443.jpg
 
I've been driving sports cars my whole life but now that I'm an old geezer I decided that it was time for something more comfortable. So I traded the 911 in on this MB S560. Not counting trucks, this is the first car I have ever owned with an automatic transmission. Or four doors.View attachment 460849
Hold a coin up to the paint so we can see how you did. 🙃
 
I've been driving sports cars my whole life but now that I'm an old geezer I decided that it was time for something more comfortable. So I traded the 911 in on this MB S560. Not counting trucks, this is the first car I have ever owned with an automatic transmission. Or four doors.View attachment 460849
Yeahhhhhhh,,
Okkkkkk,,
If you have tooooooo..
That sure is a seriously sweet ride, it's just hard to get my head away from
the car that's been THE car for me for all my life of sports car days, The 911 S..

You're makin me feel old Nathan...

Hey,
Wad du u tink of the AMG 43 ???
It's a coupe though..

Teddy
 
This rocket is long gone, but I recently completed building a Madcow 4" fiberglass DX3 XL and I am going to recreate this paint job. I contacted Mark at Stickershock and he still has the file for the custom decals that he made for me 8 years ago! So I just ordered the decals.
i missed hearing the story of what happened to the rocket. Simply lost?
 
i missed hearing the story of what happened to the rocket. Simply lost?
Large cardboard rockets have a short life expectancy. After my original Porsche DX3 was damaged and repaired multiple times I finally threw in the trash rather than repair it again. As I recall it got zippered pretty bad.
 
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...You're makin me feel old Nathan...

Hey,
Wad du u tink of the AMG 43 ???
It's a coupe though..

Teddy

Nice, but it only makes 385 hp.

My 911 made 325 hp. But when my wife got a 420 hp Porsche Cayenne S, I had to get the MB S560. It makes 463 hp, so now the Proper Order of Things has again been restored.
 
I switched to Flickr several years ago when Photobucket started started trying to extort money out of users by holding their images hostage. But I have never gotten around to uploading all of my old photos to Flickr. Here is that photo:

48837692341_e0c75ed3ff_o.jpg
Lots of nice grass to land that beautiful rocket on!
 
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