1:48 ERTL Naboo Starfighter [Build Video inside]

[Duncanator]

Just a question... and forgive me StevenBills if this is getting off of your topic. But how does the studio approach painting larger models?
This question came to me regarding the colour of the Millennium Falcon and if Im correct Reefer white.
Now me, as a spraypainter, find the concept of buying bottles and bottles of reefer white to paint something the size of the 5ft falcon ludicrous. As something that size would easily chew 1ltr to a 1.5 ltrs of paint. But is this what would happen? Or would they purchase large amounts of colour matched paint?

Cheers,
Josh

I can't speak with total authority to what they did on the original films, but I wouldn't put it past them to just buy cases of Floquil paint. Or maybe even contact the manufacturer and get larger cans/bottles of the stuff. They did do that for some model kit parts.

But on the prequels, while we did buy model paint by the box load, we also used custom mixed automotive paints as well as water based paints.
In the intervening years, a lot of air quality and environmental restrictions had been put in place that lead to us trying a lot of different types of paint. Some worked great, some were awful.
For the large pyro models of the Naboo fighter, we did order up some custom auto paint that was color matched to Railbox Yellow.

 

[starks]

I can't speak with total authority to what they did on the original films, but I wouldn't put it past them to just buy cases of Floquil paint. Or maybe even contact the manufacturer and get larger cans/bottles of the stuff. They did do that for some model kit parts.

But on the prequels, while we did buy model paint by the box load, we also used custom mixed automotive paints as well as water based paints.
In the intervening years, a lot of air quality and environmental restrictions had been put in place that lead to us trying a lot of different types of paint. Some worked great, some were awful.
For the large pyro models of the Naboo fighter, we did order up some custom auto paint that was color matched to Railbox Yellow.

Thanks for sharing! While I suppose it's a topic irrelevant to most people, being my profession I am always so curious to learn how others approach their paint work. And part of my thought process into 'how did they paint' is due to colour matching and again, while irrelevant to most people I know chances are, a colour like Railbox Yellow as an example, between paint manufacturers will match under a strong light source but suffer metamerism under others.
Hence the question to myself regarding the 5ft falcon ' would they have actually used reefer white or a close match'.

And it's interesting to hear the environment restrictions were enough to make using water based paints necessary. I'm unsure where you were operating from but here in Aus we are taught about the regulations in California and monitored restrictions on spraying solvents.
We make water based paints work but what can I say, theyre just not solvent.

I dont work on too many Acrylic jobs as the majority of automotive has been 2k for many years now but have to stock the products for repairs on acrylic vehicles, from memory only 4 in the last 18 months 246 Dino, 71 Corvette, 911 track car and an E- type. Anyway to point, I got tired of paying $20 aus for rattle cans of Tamiya primer so I pulled some PPG acrylic primer from stock and heavily over thinned it. It's been working fantastic, the solvent bonds the product to the styrene, no ill effects. Sure there's not the convenience of the aerosol but Ill take cleaning a gun or airbrush over repetitive $20 purchases.

Cheers,
Josh

 

[division 6]

30 odd years ago when I was working at a sign shop here in California the regulation kicked in on having to use water based automotive paints and we had all kinds of problems with it since it was new to market.

IIRC the Saturns (cars) where some of the first to use it and had problems with it just peeling off.

 

[ID10T]

My Ibis Mojo mountain bike was painted with a water based primer, and the Imron top coat peeled off of it like vinyl stickers.

They repainted it no charge, and it’s been fine since (which is about 25 years ago now)

I suspect they did the repainting with solvent primer, but I have no idea.

 

[starks]

30 odd years ago when I was working at a sign shop here in California the regulation kicked in on having to use water based automotive paints and we had all kinds of problems with it since it was new to market.

IIRC the Saturns (cars) where some of the first to use it and had problems with it just peeling off.

Waterbase has come a long way since it's early days, because there is no solvent bond to the substrate below adhesion is an issue. Even PPG using the only true water base now with Envirobase has to run detergent in the basecoat to raise the surface energy to promote adhesion. Everyone else is using a solvent/water hybrid or a latex base as their water systems.

My Ibis Mojo mountain bike was painted with a water based primer, and the Imron top coat peeled off of it like vinyl stickers.

They repainted it no charge, and it’s been fine since (which is about 25 years ago now)

I suspect they did the repainting with solvent primer, but I have no idea.

Water base primer sounds terrible. I only know of one water base primer in the automotive industry and it's only for small repairs. Paint peeling is always caused by lack of adhesion, or in this case an issue with the water based primer still evaporating its thinning agent from underneath the topcoat and pushing the topcoat off.



I was in the shed cutting a board for my walker project and pulled these out.

Somewhere in the last 20 years the N1's canopy has gone missing from the sprue... these kits have had multiple moves. I will have to substitute another canopy. Im wondering if I can make a spare Eduard P51 canopy work. To be honest I don't know that I will ever build the droid fighter as they didn't excite me all that much.
I'm thinking however it might be time for my next build to tackle this podracer!
Thanks for the inspiration to pull these out StevenBills.

Cheers,
Josh

 

[Iskelderon]

Somewhere in the last 20 years the N1's canopy has gone missing from the sprue... these kits have had multiple moves. I will have to substitute another canopy.

Just go the "Pimp My Starship" route and make it a convertible!

 

[starks]

Just go the "Pimp My Starship" route and make it a convertible!

But where will I fit the 6 TV screens? On the plus I suppose I can go for some chrome landing legs and a paintjob that's too lazy to get under the sill, that will save some time!

Cheers,
Josh