WHITE PAINT
Based on assorted things I've read here and on
@hcmbanjo 's blog, I decided to try something slightly different for my white coat:
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The hypothesis is that the semi-gloss might be a bit less subject to the unpredictability of the Rusto 2X gloss white. I'm usually clear-coating the rocket anyway, so I don't need that extra bit of glossiness in the paint. I bought a can of white and black semi-gloss. Honestly, I've had worse luck with the black than with the white, but I often need to sand down my white coat and apply another final coat to smooth it out. Let's see how this goes.
I was extra-careful to clean off the rocket thoroughly this time, with multiple passes with alcohol wipes and a microfiber cloth. I did not use a separate primer coat, beyond what remained of my filler-primer.
*** STOP TALKING AND JUST SHOW US THE PAINT ALREADY ***
Fine, fine. Click for larger, as always.
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This is three coats of the paint, again with no additional primer. Verdict: Considerably better than my usual white basecoat. It is noticeably less glossy, but the level of gloss is fine for me (should look great after Future). On the whole it is quite a bit smoother than usual, giving me no reason to even think about sanding down and recoating. Could be luck, could be my better-than-usual prep, better technique, or the paint itself, who knows, but test #1 of the Semi-Gloss is an unqualified success.
I was also better than usual at not banging the still-wet rocket into anything in the shed while putting it away to cure. I did find that one bit of foreign matter landed on the rocket before it was dry:
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I picked off part of it with my fingernail, that's what's left. I realized it will be covered with the logo decal, so I'm just gonna leave it the way it is there.
Most of the not-quite-filled seams ended up fine, except this one:
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That's pretty bad, but I'm probably not going to touch it. It's on the underside and I won't see it very often. My past attempts at fixing things like this have often made them worse. But clearly I need to focus a bit more attention on dealing with these things earlier on. The seams between the transitions and the body tubes (that I previously fretted over) generally came out OK. Not perfect, but perfectly satisfactory.
I free-handed the tip of the nose cone with my Vallejo gloss black, and one of my beloved Testor's micro-sponge touch-up brushes.
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No masking here, too hard to do in my experience so I entrusted it to my shaky hand and did OK:
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I'll also be using the Vallejo for this, with a much larger brush. This is qualifies as an experiment, since it will be the largest component I've attempted to brush-paint with the Vallejo. Largest component I've ever brush-painted is the pink eraser on the
Skywriter Deluxe, but that was different paint (cheap-o Craft-Smart paint from Michael's).
I had really, really,
really wanted to paint the nozzle black before assembly, so I wouldn't have to mask it. I just couldn't come up with a way to do it that would ensure everything would go together correctly at the end. So now I needed to mask it, and although it is a small mask it was indeed just as difficult and miserable a job as I had anticipated, and I am not confident it's going to come out great. I used my Tamiya curvy tape for the sections between the fins, and then a jumble of regular Tamiya to cover the area behind the fins.
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In hindsight, I perhaps could have moved the trailing edge of the fins a bit forward of the seam, to leave room for a more normal masking tape line. I'm going to try to be extremely careful with the brush around there (maybe I'll use the sponge to paint the mask line), but I'm certainly I'm still going to get leakage. My fingers are crossed.