Building the AMT Refit Enterprise by Don Matthys part 9

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DLM’s PAINTING THEORY

  1. Be clean in painting. Wash hands before handling. Use tac cloths for dust often.
  2. Mask areas that you want light to go through.
  3. Use black to opaque light leaks showing though the kit plastic.
  4. Use a sandable primer on parts seams.
  5. Paint small detail areas of the same color first, let dry thoroughly, then mask and proceed on through to the next next larger area.
  6. Throughout minimize handling and allow days of drying time between paint applications.

STARTING TO PAINT

Masking Lighted Areas:

The first lighted area to apply color is the Shuttle Bay Control Room above the Bay Doors. I shot this area with Tamiya Clear Red. The second color below is for the blue lit slots. This is shot with Tamiya Clear Blue. When dry they where masked over with masking tape. Cut to size by the plans as reference.

The inboard clear blue resin Warp Nacelle Grills where masked next. Thin Strips of masking tape when into the lower recesses if the grills.

Note: If you don’t use clear resin grill and your going to do this with the kits plastic as a translucent area lighted with LightSheet, first spray it with Tamiya Clear Blue. Then mask it the same way.

Other lighted areas to paint and mask is the two Magnatomic Amp. Crystals on top the Warp Engines and the Impulse-Deflection Crystal. these where shot with a light blue (Model Master’s Duck Egg Blue) When dry these areas where masked over for the duration of painting.

Ports, Windows and Operating Lights:

I masked these features next with masking tape. For the round ports I used a leather punch with masking tape stuck onto a piece of scrap plastic sheet. The so called ‘blunts’ cut with this tool are perfectly round and applied to the port.

For the horizontal window these where cut from strips of masking tape at uniform height and width. The corners where finely trimmed to “round corner” the edges. then applied to the window. Masking tape was also used to mask the Botanical Gardens, Rec. Room and VIP Lounge.

White Glue was brushed onto the strobes and navigation lights and fiber optic formation lights.

With the masking done thus far I then shot black paint around the lighted areas to opaque the lighted areas and light leaking through the plastic. This was checked frequently with the room lights off and the model lights on. All the masking on the lighted areas thus far will stay on the model for the duration of painting.

After a few days of drying I sprayed the model overall with Model Master primer. Now I’ll let this dry for a while.

After a week of drying to allow the enamel primer gray to dry and cure I made a close inspection of the areas that may still need to be filled and smoothed out. The gray primer does a good job of showing the flaws. I did a pretty good job on the sanding prep and the flaws where small, minimal and confined to the seams.

I used a thickened primer of Floquill (a lighter shade of gray primer) to fill in the flaws with a small pointed brush. After several hours of drying I wet sanded the affected areas starting with 600 grit grade then 1000. Then washed away the sanding debris again.

(Note: DLM Starship Painting Theory #5; Paint small detail areas of the same color first, let dry thoroughly, then mask and proceed on through to the next next larger area.

The next area to paint is the semi-gloss black. This was sprayed onto the inboard (premasked lighted area) and Outboard Warp Nacelle grills. Flush Intakes and exhaust on Nacelle Support Pylons, Photon Torpedo vent on rear of Connecting Dorsal, Space Energy Sinks (Bussards). Then a 50-50 % mix of copper and gloss black was sprayed onto the the Magnatomic Flux intake- First Stage (Front of Nacelle)

This take care of the darkest colors. When dried overnight, these areas were masked with tape and friskit, for the duration of painting. Finally for this session, Testers Model Master Flat White was sprayed overall.

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