Watermarking Pictures

By Loomis

These days, image theft is a big problem, and many innocent buyers are robbed on Ebay by thieves who use our pictures and then falsely claim that the items pictured are their own.

I encourage everyone to watermark their images. The redline hobby generates a lot of images, and people are relying on these photos in this hobby more and more each day. With the rise of Internet sales, there is less personal car inspection and more use of images as the only way to determine whether or not one should buy a car online. Unfortunately, this fact has been exploited by many thieves who have robbed innocent buyers from thousands of dollars. It will only get worse.

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Wet Sanding

Wet Sanding Briefly Explained

Contrary to popular belief, there’s no great mystery in wet-sanding. In fact, the only reason it’s called “wet” sanding is because that’s exactly what it is–sanding with the addition of water. Why water? We use water because the ultra-fine sandpapers (like 800 to 2,000 grit) are easily clogged up by paint particles. And once sandpaper becomes clogged, it’s useless for everything but scratching up your paint job. Oddly enough, all that is required to prevent this clogging is water. You simply run a little luke-warm tap water into a small bowl or sand near your tap, dip a small piece of ultra-fine sandpaper in, then commence sanding. Just be sure to keep dipping the sandpaper into the water or rinsing every now and then.

When sanding paint or clear coats always use 1500 grit or finer sandpaper for this (I use 2000 grit usually). Stop and dry off the car body every now and then to be sure you’re not sanding through the layer being sanded. Be especially careful of ridges or sharp details in the casting. It’s very easy to inadvertently sand through the paint on raised areas.

Nail Polish Paints

Nail Polish is the newest area of painting these little cars – We will touch briefly on it here.   (more…)

Acrylic Paints

Some Tamiya Acrylics

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Paint Types

So many paint choices??????

Before you begin painting you must first decide on a type, and perhaps brand, of paint. Your choices include enamel spray cans, lacquer spray cans, enamel for airbrushes, lacquer for airbrushes, [water based] acrylics for airbrushes, urethanes for airbrushes, and hybrid finishes like fingernail polish! And as if those choices weren’t enough, you may also choose to have certain parts, or entire bodies, “plated.” Chrome and gold plating being the most popular options. (more…)

Airbursh versus Spray Can

Which do you Prefer?  Can or the Airbrush……..

Well, that is an option every customizer must make for themselves. But, just in case someone has informed you that you must use an airbrush if you want to produce quality customs, there is news for you.  (more…)