After all of the chassis was completed, I turned my attention to the preparing the bodyshell for priming and painting. The first issue that I hit, was the engraved "F40" emblem on the rear spoiler. For a model in this scale, it was not engraved deep enough into the spoiler in my opinion. Once there was a coat of primer sprayed over the body, the detail of this virtually disappeared. Also when you are filling and sanding the joint between the spoiler and the bonnet, it was very close to the "F40" emblem. So after being as careful as possible sanding around these joints, I gave all of the body parts a couple of coats of black paint then left them to dry for a few days.
Before doing the clear coats on the bodyshell, I checked over all of the parts to make sure there was no issues or problems with the basecoat. Everything look okay, so I commenced with the clear starting with a light coat first then followed by a couple of heavier coats. All was looking great, the clear had covered well and had a nice shine to it. So I left the parts to dry overnight with the plan to continue the next day. The following afternoon, I went back to the bodyshell parts to continue working on them, only to find that the clear coat had reacted with the basecoat overnight. Some areas had gone cloudy and others had crazed. I had never seen this happen before, so out of disappointment, I packed the F40 away to deal with the issue on another day.
A year had gone by and I decided to have another go with the F40. The first job was to strip the clear and base coats off the body parts. I tried my usual method first, using Fairy Power Spray. After a couple of attempts, nothing was happening, the Power Spray was not strong enough to deal with the paint. So it was onto the hard stuff, brake fluid. The whole process took over a week to complete, once the parts were stripped, they were given a thorough wash in a strong mix of general household cleaner (the wife was puzzled by how quickly the bottle was emptied). Yet again, I was distracted by another project, so the F40 went back into the box for another day.
Now a little bit more time has passed and the F40 again sees the light of day. I am not rushing it now, just doing little bits of it at a time. All of the bodyshell parts have been re-filled in the areas that lost the filler from previously after the brake fluid removed it. Next it was primed and wet sanded to show up any issues, which were then sorted out using either filler or Mr Surfacer. A bit more primer followed by some more wet sanding and we are ready for some colour to go down.
This time I am playing it save and using Tamiya Gloss Black and Gloss Clear rattlecan when I repaint the body. To start with, I have airbrushed around the awkward areas to ensure that I get a good covering of the black, also to save wasting the aerosol paint too. So far, the main bodyshell has been painted, the doors and their inner panels, rear valance and headlight units. The rear body section exposed a hairline crack when it got sprayed, this could not be seen when it was in primer stage. So this will need to be sorted out yet again.
I am now going to each part of the body one section at a time, check over each part to make sure the black finish is okay before clearing it. The drawback is that I will have to fit it in between other projects which have to take priority over the F40. Once all of the bodyshell is painted and cleared, the rest of the work will be straight forward, painting the interior, sorting out the glazing, final assembly of the body before fitting it all to the chassis. But first there are two projects that have to take priority as one has to be done for a show at the end of April and the other for Telford in November. But I hope that the F40 can be done for Telford this year too (how many years have I said that now?). So fingers crossed!
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