Its been 8 weeks messing around with priming, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, painting to finally get a finish that is acceptable to me. As a friend of mine often says "it only has to be as good as for the person its for" and while I have had a difficult time with this, I have finally have it as good as I want it. Not perfect, but good enough. I chose a Marine type paint from Epifanes thinking this a wise choice for durability and scratch resistance. The paint is typically applied with a foam brush or roller and then tipped to allow for a smooth surface. The paint does not lend itself to spraying, they say it can be sprayed and I had to try various degrees of paint thinning, pressure and nozzle sizes to get a decent finish. In the future if I ever repaint I'm going to use automotive paint.
After spraying the panels with marine primer I tape off everything except the louvers.
The red paint is sprayed.
And after it cured overnight I set them out in the sun for some solar power drying.
Wet sanded these with 400 grit sandpaper and re-sprayed. I did this more than once fiddling with the spraying parameter. Next I taped off the louvers and using a small artist type brush I coat the seams or joints of the trim as a pre-coat before spray painting. This is cured for several days and then I wet sand it to feather the paint out to the primer paint.
Next I decide to fit my brass scuff pieces to the contour of the panels and figure out where to drill and countersink for #4 oval slotted wood screws. I procured the brass half oval stock from Restoration Supply (1/8" x 1/2" x 48" - part# MOU081) Catalog Page and the #4 x 1/2" Long Brass Oval Slotted Screws from McMaster Carr 92408A110 Catalog Page. The oval slotted screws look better than the flat slotted screws on the half oval brass stock scuff pieces. Prior to the next image, I hand bent the pieces to the contour of the side panels. The brass was soft enough to accomplish this without any tools.
After fitting the brass, I disassemble them off the side panels for painting. Again I had difficulty getting a good finish. My first mistake was not thoroughly cleaning the masking tape from the first step when I painted the red louvers. To my horror the masking tape left imperceptible bits of adhesive on the primer paint. The results was that my paint had hundreds of fisheyes. All had to be sanded down, primed, repainted with black, sanded down again, black painted, then wet sanded with 400 grit to finally get an acceptable finish. LESSON LEARNED ON PAINTER'S BLUE MASKING TAPE !!! The only good thing I can say is that I only did this on one panel.....
So below shows the final product. I temporarily mounted the side panel to the frame and placed my side lamps on for visualization. Makes me the more eager to get my next set of kits so I can catch up to my UK and EU friends!
