Darin's Phil Thomas Stealth Build

[detox]

I have to thin my urethane paint a little more than recomended to get best atomization using my smaller 1mm tip touch up gun.

Practice makes perfect...I practiced on a empty 1 gallon lacquer thinner can. When your ready to spray the hull...spray the hull bottom first. If that goes on good then spray entire hull. If not then stop and correct before spraying entire boat.

[Darin Jordan]

Managed to get her in full white primer and wet-sanded out with 400. Next step will be to mask and lay down some color. Hopefully will get that done tonight.

Going to keep her simple.... Some color patches on the deck of "Sparklescent Mango", leaving some white borders, then striped with black and silver... and maybe a very thin red stripe here or there... We'll see how far I take it. It's a race boat... needs to be easy to repair!!

[ray schrauwen]

Nice... weather not so good here for painting, bummer. I've got bright orange & red with some checkerboard mask. Looking forward to seeing another one of your stylin' paint jobs.

[Darin Jordan]

Nice... weather not so good here for painting, bummer. I've got bright orange & red with some checkerboard mask. Looking forward to seeing another one of your stylin' paint jobs.

Thanks, Ray... going to try to keep the base fairly simple. It'll have plenty of decals and such added and should look good when it's done. I really liked the color scheme of that LeeCraft OPC that I painted up a couple of years ago and am going somewhat that direction. We'll have to see how the the lines of the boat call out to me while I'm masking things off!

[cybercrxt]

I am glad to hear you are going to use some 2k Urethane paints. You will NEVER go back to spray can. I lost a lot of artwork with spray can paint due to crows footing or reactions with top coats. Once you get burned trying to spray a Circus Circus 1/8th scale, you say enough is enough! I use Dupont Nason line for primer and clearcoats. For bases I can convert Imron Newton paint codes to the Nason line, or if a hull needs a House of Kolor base (ie: Smokin Joes, Winston Eagle) you just buy it by the quart. Another GREAT product is House of Kolor SG-100 intercoat clear. It is to be used over your base coats to issolate your artwork. So... you base, then sg-100, then tape your next graphic, base, then sg-100, etc, etc... The best thing about SG-100 is you can walk away from a hull for months, come back, scuff with wet 600, and either clearcoat, or add your next graphic above! It allows you to walk away, AND it keeps the base color underneath the SG-100 from pulling up when you remove the tape you put on top of it for the next layer graphic color. For the money, its great. The good thing about the Nason Clear is its relatively thin, which keeps the weight down. My favorite clearcoat of all time is Valspar AC-4400 4k Urethane clear...but if you applied that to an RC boat, it would weight a ton!!! Mike

[Darin Jordan]

Got her masked off, setup a simple paint booth, and sprayed away!

Put the second coat on a little too soon, so I got a coule of fish-eyes, but was able to recoat with a heavy 3rd coat and corrected most of it. Not perfect, but better than anything I've done to date!

Need to do some striping between the Mango and the White... The question is, for you painting experts out there... do I put the pinstriping on BEFORE the clear or AFTER?? I'm not good enough at this point to paint on the fine lines... maybe I'll try that next time when I have more time. I will be using some quality vinyl pinstriping tape. Like the idea of sealing it down, but also like the idea of begin able to repair it easily. Hmmmmm

Will stipe and clear tomorrow, weather permitting. PPG 2042 Clear...

[JimClark]

Maybe it is different on the waterborne but my PPG base coat you have to clear within 24 hours or you will have to lay more base down.
Forgot my vote is to be able to repair easily so clear coat then pinstripe

[Darin Jordan]

Maybe it is different on the waterborne but my PPG base coat you have to clear within 24 hours or you will have to lay more base down.
Forgot my vote is to be able to repair easily so clear coat then pinstripe

Jim... the AutoAir paints don't have that "window"... either does the white primer base coat. I can clear whenever... which is the perfect system for me!

[ray schrauwen]

Sweet colour!! I see your "tapedown" area is all white in case of paint pull ups? Not a bad idea.

[Darin Jordan]

Sweet colour!! I see your "tapedown" area is all white in case of paint pull ups? Not a bad idea.

Thanks, Ray.

Yeah... that's sort of the idea, but I probably didn't leave it wide enough. If the clear goes on like it should, there shouldn't be any pull-ups on the paint... But, just in case!

I LOVE this color! I'm still playing with the spray settings, and think I may not have had the gun set with enough material volume, but it's on there evenly and most of the blems are minor... The clear should really make it POP! Hoping to get that part done tonight... Might be testing this by the weekend!!

[RCKong]

Nice looking boat Darin awesome color. Makes me want to redo mine...I got to fix the transom too. I'm going to try too leave some of the taper in the back instead of squaring it off. Squaring it off may effect the handling in the corner. My boat handles very nicely and I would hate to change that. Also you might have your motor too far back to balance it without adding weight in the nose. You could probably add bigger packs in front ?

[Darin Jordan]

Nice looking boat Darin awesome color. Makes me want to redo mine...I got to fix the transom too. I'm going to try too leave some of the taper in the back instead of squaring it off. Squaring it off may effect the handling in the corner. My boat handles very nicely and I would hate to change that. Also you might have your motor too far back to balance it without adding weight in the nose. You could probably add bigger packs in front ?

The boat seems to balance fine with either a single 4S pack, or with 4S2P. You just have to place the cells correctly. Also, I'm leaving my options open to run more in P-Ltd that just a single 5000 pack... If I have to add any weight, it'll be a small amount. I'm only going to use this as a P-Ltd Sport for the Nats and locally until I get my own design finished. I have been working on something and have the tub, deck, and sponsons all built. I'm just waiting to find the time (After the Nats) to get the hull assembled and finished out. That's being build specifically for P-Ltd and is going to be a real "one of a kind" setup... It's going to be much lighter and designed specifically for the P-Ltd power system. Then the PT Stealth will go to straight P-Sport duty... unless I decide I need something bigger.

I left a small amount of taper at the non-trips toward the back. It's not perfectly squared off. If that part of the boat comes in contact with the water at any point, I have bigger issues than not having a taper there, I would think. We'll have to see!

The fix was pretty easy, but I did spend some extra time making it solid. With the primer and paint on there, you can't tell anything was done.

Looking forward to getting this in the water.

[Darin Jordan]

Finished up with the clear tonight. It went on pretty nicely. I didn't quite have the gun set right, so it went on not quite as smooth and glossy as I'd have liked, but it looks better than any bomb-can paint job I've ever done, and should be very durable. Next time, I'll turn down the pressure a tad, and open up the needle a lot more to get the material to flow. The gun I'm using only has a 0.6mm needle, and I was vaporizing the clear before it had a chance to get flowing.

I'll let it set overnight, and should get to assembling it tomorrow. Then, I'll lay on some graphics and she'll be ready for the water!

[JimClark]

you can easially wet sand with 1500 or 2000 grit and it will buff right back up

[Darin Jordan]

you can easially wet sand with 1500 or 2000 grit and it will buff right back up

I figured that. I think that, due to the time constraints of trying to get this ready AND tested before I head to LA, I may forgo getting it THAT perfect and just put on the striping and decals and go run her as she is. It's not perfect, but sure looks good anyhow. It's a race-boat, after all!!