Strip Searched

Couple of minor setbacks this week. First, after priming the Radar Eye with a couple coats of plastic primer, I went ahead and shot a coat of self etching on it. I only did this because I read it was still good for resin on the boards, and I wanted the same undercoat as all the other pieces so there wouldn't be any color variation. They were wrong. It cracked in several places and I had to do some major sanding to get it back into painting shape. My can of plastic primer sucked and the nozzle didn't work after the first round. So I used some clean metal primer on it. Its taken a few days to completely dry, but I think it just needs a little light sanding to smooth it and I can move ahead.

Thanks to someone else on the astromech.net boards, I tried clay as a masking agent in the booster covers. After over a week, the paint surrounding the clay still hadn't dried. I tried carefully to remove the clay, but it was pretty evident immediately that I would have to repaint. Acetone does a fairly good job of getting the paint off, at first it wasn't removing the primer. But I had to scrub a lot to gett all the paint off and the primer came off too in certain areas. I'll probably just give it a good sanding now and then reprime. One down one to go.

I tried rubber cement before the clay. It wasn't very exact, and shrank after drying. So I'll try good old masking tape this time around, it'll just be hard to get into the nook and crannies. I think I will spray the Radar Eye silver first, then mask off and spray the blue. Luckily weather here is showing in the 60s for the next week or so. Once all this painting is done I'll get started on the Dome Lighting Kit and getting the dome panels all cut out and hinged.