Back in around March of just last year (2009) I was able to finally purchase my own Tamiya Toyota Highlift Hilux. All up until now I have had the original paint job. Treated the truck pretty good, had some good fun runs with it. While the truck itself has proven to be tough and a great project to work on, the body has been neglected. It was my goal for over the winter to re do the body.
Here is what it looked like when I first painted it.
Ok, so I did a brown copper late 80's type of color attempt. I think I did it pretty good, but as time has shown even with great automotive paint techniques and finish, the body has seen better days. So the "Project Hilux Re-Born" has started.
Here is a step by step progress report on how I went about re-painting this body.
READ EVERYTHING CAREFULLY!!!
Don't just look at the pictures ;)
I have done a large amount of research and asked around on this topic. What I'm about to show you I will admit I was skeptical of this method.
So I thought I would try it after carefully investigating the results of fellow colleges and read all the information necessary for positive results.
I have re-painted countless hard bodies, My clod buster body on my TLT is a good example. I have sanded and primed that thing to death. I have even stripped it down using spray oven cleaner. This was fairly harsh and caused a risk of high odor and needed to be outside and in well ventilated area. Plus I had to soak the body down in cleaner a few times for good saturation. I really wanted to find another way of removing the paint. I have spent hundreds of hours sanding these bodies as well, and this is effective it takes forever and still doesn't always go "smoothly".
I have heard of guys using automotive brake fluid to strip hard plastic bodies. I was skeptical so I did some research and perfected a way for this method of paint removal on hard tamiya plastic bodies. I know personally from personal experience in the automotive industry that having brake fluid on your paint job will eat your clear coat and wreck your paint. So this method did sound like it could work.
Here is how it goes.
PART 1:
- I have a clean area to work in, with newspaper down on my work surface (just in case) and I'm using a plastic tub style container to do the body. I didn't have one big enough to do the whole body, so I'm doing it in sections. The hilux body really only comes in two big pieces so this didn't take long.
- The research I did has the "whole" body soaking in a pail of brake fluid. I don't think that this is necessary so I have used this woven pocket type thin cloth. I picked it out of some warehouse box packing at work.
- I placed the rear of the body inside the cloth pocket and tucked in the extra parts under the body. placed it inside the tub container.
- Adding the automotive brake fluid (Dot 3 works best) to the situation only adding enough to help create a small "pool" under the body to sit in.
- Using a clean paint brush I "coated" the outer cloth and saturated the cloth all around the body. Keeping the cloth "wet" will keep the brake fluid on the surface of the body.
- Let this soak over night, and for at least 24 hours. By the next day around the same time you started you will be able to peel off the cloth and the magic happens.
PART 2:
To see what happens next STAY TUNED and see the step-by-step results for yourself.
I'll show you what to do after the soak, and how to treat the body after it's bath and how to clean the body up after. The truck bed is soaking now, so in the day or two I will post what happens after the soaking procedure.
Here is what I had just before writing this article:
*Disclaimer: I have been told that the brake fluid will make the body more brittle and cause it to fracture. I DO NOT see, or feel this anywhere on the body. It feels just as it did the day I took it out of the box, however I could see this on OLDER tamiya bodies, in which case it's probably brittle and fragile anyway and you just have to use caution when treating any old hard Tamiya body. In this case, I inspected the body closely and found no reason not to pass this method along. I wouldn't tell you to do it if I didn't do it myself, and didn't think it would work.
I was skeptical, but I have tried it for myself and results are very pleasing.
R/C Modz Full Throttle Fans!:
I hope you enjoyed this article, and now I need your help R/C Modz Fans!
I want you to submit me YOUR, yes I said YOUR paint ideas. I've searched around the net and just can't decide what to paint it next. So, here is where you can help me out. If I choose YOUR paint idea and feature it here on my Blog you will receive a FREE R/C Modz fridge magnet! So come on, I've been told once advice and thoughts have been worth two cents in the past, so why not get something free for it!
Submit your ideas here!!!
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R/C Modz Full Throttle
Christopher Oswald
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