Squaring up corners on a BBY VS w/ CA, hull finishing...

[RCBoatingNewbie]

Hi Folks,

I've been working on squaring up the corners on my VS (the insides and rear of the bottoms of the sponsons, the transom edge, and the rear ride point, along the bottom corners, and around the back).

What I'm doing is taping with masking tape, then applying CA+ letting it run along the tape, then spritzing it w/ Zip Kicker to "freeze" it in place. As the tape leaves the CA a little shy of the surface I'm squaring, I go over it free hand w/ a bead of CA+ and "freeze" that in place.

Well, I'm nearly done sanding, and the results so far are VERY sharp and clean edges (dropping the boat onto bare skin from a height of about 2 feet would probably draw blood!). I've been using 220 grit paper. It took me SEVERAL hours last night to sand the CA square. I used a dremel w/ sanding disk for the higher spots, and the 220 on a sanding block to finish.

Has anyone else used these same steps? How long did it take? It's a lot of work, I'm just hoping it was worth it.

The entire hull was sanded w/ 220, then, I held the hull in the light, and marked all the spots I didn't like w/ a blue sharpie. I sanded about half of those spots last night, will finish up today. For the record, a sharpie works nice for this, doesn't soak into the ABS too deeply.

Any thoughts on painting over a 220 grit sanded hull?

Thanks,
Paul

[twmaster]

I would go over the entire hull again with some 330, then with some 600 with water. Are you planning to put primer on first? If yes when you are happy with the sanding job put the primer on then sand again with wet 600. Should make a super smooth paint finish.

[Drobie]

Originally posted by RCBoatingNewbie

Has anyone else used these same steps? How long did it take? It's a lot of work, I'm just hoping it was worth it.


I saw an article by Dick Crowe where he does the same thing, except he uses Squadron Putty first to form the edge and then soaks it with very thin CA to strengthen it.

I like the idea because Squadron sands a lot easier than CA.

[RCBoatingNewbie]

I went ahead and painted on Saturday, over the 220, since the can recommends 220, I figured, "what the heck"... impatiently so.... Color right on top of the 220 sanded ABS, no primer.

Well, the paint looks OK, EXCEPT for where I didn't sand all of the blue sharpie off (I sanded the spots I intended to correct, but didn't sand ALL the blue off). Bled right through, they've turned into black marks in miscellaneous places on the hull. The wife says to me, "I thought you where going to sand all the blue off."... Well, I didn't- too impatient.

It's my error, in that I was impatient, and figured, "It's just a sharpie, the paint will cover it". Areas I'd sanded completely the night before look just fine. But, those sharpie marks are VERY horrid looking.

The hull's got one coat top and bottom so far.

Today, I'm going to be sanding the thing back down again.

There IS a plus in it, the gloss paint really shows off hull imperfections, so I can clearly see where I need to sand again.

In all, I made more work for myself, but I think the result will be a smoother finish from all the sanding...

Wife picked up some 400 and 800 for me. I'm going to rip the old paint off w/ 220, and start over again, using the finer stuff.

In all, I'm expecting this whole process to take a week or two, letting the paint dry overnight between coats, and masking / painting the graphics.

Sometimes I wonder why I do these things...

Take Care,
Paul

[airdevil85]

I feel your pain lol. I did the same thing, I didn't have to sand the paint off from a small model hull, I had to sand if off from a 15 foot hull took me 3 days(with a power sander)

[Drobie]

My favorite tool for this kind of thing and a lot of other stripping and prep work is a Dremel Contour Sander.

If you haven't seen one, it's a oscillator with about 15 different shaped tubes. Sanding sleeves wrap around the tubes.

http://www.dremel.com/productdisplay/tool_family_template.asp?SKU=6000&Color=99CCFF

[eddieh]

Doug That's cheatin!!!!! no fair!!!! LOL, don't have one of those sure would look good up on that pegboard argh argh argh... LOL, I hate when painting never goes as plans, what about when you have taken the time to sand/prime etc, and then the thing crinkles,,, even with the same brand everything,,, man that really stews my prunes,,,, good luck paul, cheers eddie

[RCBoatingNewbie]

Ok, folks, all the paint has been removed w/ nail polish remover (worked great, there's a post in the FAQ forum about my paint removal).

I did more sanding w/ 220, then primer'd the thing w/ Krylon white primer. Then, wet sanded the primer coat with 400. The primer coat was super smooth, very encouraging, none of the Sharpie problems this time around.

SO, today, I went ahead and put on the initial color coat (Krylon Pumpkin Orange, but I don't think I'll need more than a bit of touch up here and there after sanding it. Good coverage, no runs, no drips (I had my doubts, as the heat was up in the '90's, w/ high humidity, and I was painting outside- rain on the way, I went at it.).

From here:

The color coat will get wet sanded w/ 800 (maybe tomorrow, suggestions on time before sanding the color coat?). I'll do some touch up on the color coat, then re-sand the touch up spots and overspray w/ 800.

Then, I'll start working on the graphic coats / colors (black and white). Any economical suggestions on masking? I can make masking tape work pretty well, but I want super-crisp lines, and need a fair number of corners and curves.

I was thinking about using some plain masking tape, using some thick rubber cement from the tape to my paint edge (of course, testing the rubber cement trick on a painted piece of ABS first!). I figured I could score my lines very lightly w/ an X-acto blade, and rub the excess away by hand.

The other thought would be to lay out some crisp lines on paper (printer, whatever), and rubber cement this to the hull, then cut out the area I don't want and remove any excess cement.

Still need to get some decal paper (micro mark, whatever), though- can't find what I'm looking for (decals) retail... :(

Then, a coat of clear will go on, and will get sanded w/ 1500. One more clear coat, then I'll sand w/ 2000, then polish.

Any thoughts on this? (and yes, next time, I'll buy a nice airbrush- wishing I had done that from the start, but lately, it's been more like, "Oh, the heck with it- I JUST WANT IT FINISHED!". :)

Thanks,
Paul