Lessen's R&D stock car

[Lessen]

Thanks Ralph! I did as much as I could with the body until the little one woke up about 10 minutes ago. I was just about to trim it out and get it marked for mounting when she interruped . I want to trim it before I start laying on the liquid mask.

One thing that I hope to be able to do is give it a true primer look. I'm going to purchase a Paasche Air Eraser. It's basically a mini bead blaster. I will attempt to blast the exterior of the painted surface with the exception of certain areas which would actually be a decal in a 1:1 car or anything that should remain glossy like the windows and window straps etc.

 

[Rolex]

Paasche Air Eraser. It's basically a mini bead blaster.

Say WHAT?!!!
I HAVE to have one! Never heard of it, and I've long since parted with my big one.
Got a link to it?

EDIT......
Well, I looked around and found an in-between size that should work out fine.

 

[Lessen]

I'm gonna grab one up from Ebay along with some medium compound. The kit comes with fast cutting compound which I'm concerned might be too harsh for lexan.

It's out of stock here. Price is common though.

http://www.bearair.com/Paasche-Air-Eraser-Kit/productinfo/100072

I just hope it isn't a PITA to do a larger area. I've been wanting one anyways for small paint fixes. I could've used something like this many times to clean away paint from a masked border.

 

[sweetdiesel]

Looks pretty cool but just a couple things bother me. I'm not a big fan of the coiling. Have you thought about investing in a servo connector crimp tool? And the motor wires are so long, is there no other way to get that ESC closer to the motor?

Overall the chassis looks pretty sweet.

 

[Lessen]

Hey Dom! Thanks for chiming in.

Does the coiling create signal issues or something? I've never seen a crimping tool that small. Where can I get one? I would LOVE to simply cut all the servo leads down to fit perfectly, not that I'm going to change anything at this point but in the future I would like to try that. The chassis gets kinda narrow toward the rear wheels, the ESC is only about halfway taped where it is now. It's strong enougn though. At any rate, it's not really meant to be a comp rig right now so to be honest I'm not concerned of the unecessarilly long wires.

 

[sweetdiesel]

Here's the thread on the servo crimping tool

https://www.rcnitrotalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47972&highlight=servo+crimping+tool


I'm really excited to see your first runs on the new rig.

 

[Lessen]

How funny. I totally commented on that tool quite a long time ago. I guess now would be a good time to finally buy one of those Thanks Dom!

 

[Racer 1966]

Paasche Air Eraser. It's basically a mini bead blaster.

Air Brush,Air Eraser..... that's 2 items for my upgrade list in 2010.

I can't wait to see how that turns out,be sure to post pics of the effect before applying paint. :yes:

 

[Lessen]

I can't wait to see how that turns out,be sure to post pics of the effect before applying paint. :yes:

No can do sir. I need to paint before I blast so I can trim the outter mask according to my painted edges on the inside. The outside of the body gets the treatment. If I blasted the inside the paint would still appear glossy. Gonna try to spray today though. Almost done cutting and mounting.. finishing up the wheel wells now.

 

[Lessen]

OK, so I fibbed. TODAY I'm spraying.

 

[Lessen]

Well, I went ahead and purchased an air eraser and some medium compound. I think this body will look a lot better after I take the gloss off the pale grey. I think it'll give it a much more authentic "test car" look.

In that last picture I've already taken off the protective film that comes on the body. To do the etching I will spray the outside of the body with Clear Plasti-Dip. I'll cut out everything that I don't want etched (windows, logo, numbers, flourescent) and peel away the rest. The Plasti-Dip holds up VERY well to abrasion so it should not get eaten up by the etching process. I'll probably do this next weekend as my new toy probably won't arrive until the end of the week.

 

[Lessen]

Using the last image as a comparison you can see he difference between the gloss of the smooth lexan body vs. what it may look like with a semi-textured surface. The flat look is due to the clear plasti-dip that I sprayed over the entire body. As mentioned before I will cut out all that needs to stay smooth and peel away the "primer" areas which I will shoot with my air eraser.

 

[Racer 1966]

I can't see any differences without the second pic :shrug:

 

[Lessen]

Something is F'ed up. I saw that when I posted but I thought maybe the photobucket site needed to refresh or something. I've copy/pasted the link half a dozen times and it continues to do the same thing. I'm going to upload the picture again and see what happens.

 

[Racer 1966]

That looks like it could be a cool effect :thumbup: I found a cheap no-name unit for $20,may have to try it out.

 

[Lessen]

Digging it up boys. I'm actually going to finish this car now. I dumped the idea of using the air eraser to blast the exterior because it's just not a big enough unit for such a project. It's really meant for small work. So I picked up some ultra fine steel wool and gave it a very light treatment. I know it's a bit anal but I had to go very light on it to give it the flat effect, otherwise it showed a lot of swirl if I put too much pressure on it.

I'm probably going to race this chassis this winter. Maybe even get into 1:12 scale as well.

 

[Lessen]

Ok, so I scratched up the "primer" and removed the plasti-dip from all other areas, then applied minimal decals. Unfortunately pictures do not do this body justice. At the expense of sounding pompous about my own work.. this body is off the hook. It honestly looks like it's got a coat of primer with decals placed over it (the painted works I mean). When I run my hand over the surface it even feels like it's a decal on the body. The pictures just do not really show the dramatic difference between the glossy logo and numbers against the flat background. This is the best I could do with natural light...