Attempt to paint CF

I've made my first attempt to paint CF pattern on model parts. Painted black as base then put piece of old woman tights around and spayed Light Gun Metal over. Doesn't look right to me. It appears when tights are used, I need to paint Gun Metal as base and then spray black on top. I think squares in tights are too big and too much Gun Metal got onto parts. Will experiment with more rigid patterns - Tamiya's and Hobby Design meshes.

Masking Nightmare

Here is my recent masking nightmare. This part of builds is becoming my least favorite quickly. Comparable to only surface preparations. Tedious and time consuming work. Spent about 9 hours for this and other aero and body parts.

MP4/22 rescue build

As expected I could not stand imperfections in finish on MP4/22. Decided to try to fix bigger ones. Sanded with low grade. Going to wet sand with higher grades next. MP4/22 body is not the easiest subject for sanding. Then I will put new layer of Alclad black base and new PA layer after that.

MP4/22 rescue build

After months of experiments I finally found clear coat which would not affect Alclad paint's shades - Gunze acrylic clear gloss (H30). I've painted couple aero elements in Alclad Stainless Steel and sprayed H30 over. I initially felt that Alclad Polished Aluminium shade was too bright. After I compared SS and PA shades, though, I realized that SS is too dark. So my final choice is Alclad PA. And the fact that PA shade is not affected much by Zero 2K clear coat is great too.

Here is picture of MP4/22's body with Alclad PA on it, but before clear coat. There is a problem with it - every smallest blemish in base coats shows up. I'm really not looking forward to starting all over again, but not sure I could live with current quality either. We'll see how it'll look after clear coat is on.

RB5 2009 British GP winner Vettel

I found following deficiencies and inaccuracies in the kit. I mostly created this list to keep for myself, so I remember them and can decide, which ones I will fix.

- position of calipers is not horizontal, has to be corrected
- rear pull rods geometry is not very good
- pull rods should be attached to upper suspension arms at the position much closer to uprights
- drive shafts should end at lower location in uprights
- rear toe arms should be attached to uprights at lower points
- missing small cooling openings at the sides of cockpit
- missing gurney flaps on the floor at the sides of cockpit
- no representation of exhaust tips
- no slits in upper desk elements of front wing
- shape of the ends of upper desk elements on front wing to be corrected

RB5 2009 British GP winner Vettel

While my F248 is waiting for new brakes and new polishing kit to arrive, and MP4/22 in different stages of preparation, I could not resist and started RB5 as soon as it arrived.

CNC Mill is back on-line

I'm finally back with CNC and machining. After 3 attempts and over 10 hours of trying I managed to adjust Z column on my Mill to some acceptable level. It may not be good enough for long CNC jobs, but is OK for small ones. Like making holes in brake disks and hubs.

Main motive to returning to machining is the need in new brake parts for my F248, MP4/22 and MP4/5B builds. Brake details in Fujimi and Studio27 kits aren't that good MP4/5B brakes will also benefit quite a bit from machined parts. Plan is to make disks with round vents first and then reposition rotary table horizontally, so square vents can be machined for F248 and F2007 brakes. Ferrari has being using brake rotors with square vents for quite a few years now.

It's great to have Mill back working after months of downtime.