Keith
Sr Member
This is my Luke ROTJ blank from Anakin Starkiller.
The paint job turned out nice, so i thought some of you may find my painting method useful.
1) First of all give the areas that will be painted a good sanding, but avoid sanding the parts of the grip rings that need to be left bare metal.
2) Mask off the handle and emitter and prime the whole unmasked area in primer grey.
3) Remove grey primer from the grip rings. I will tell you how to do this later.
4) Mask off the part that needs to be painted gold and then spray on the black. I used satin black from an aerosol. This is how it will look:
5) Then you need to remove the black from the rings. To do this, take some very fine sandpaper and just rub the very edge of each ring.
Its VERY important to only let the sandpaper make contact with the edge of the ring while in an outward direction/moving out of the groove. If the sandpaper makes contact moving into the groove, it will flick little bits of black paint off from inside the groove and leave you with a rough edge.
You then end up with this:
6) You can then just scratch off the black paint from the rings with your fingernail, as the paint will only scratch off upto the point where you sanded the edge of the rings. Notice in the photo above, i have removed the black paint from one of the rings already.
(Use this same method to remove the grey primer from each ring, like i was talking about in section 3).
7) You then need to mask off everything other than the section that needs to be gold. Take care when masking, as the tape can pull the black paint off. Wrap the saber in paper first and only let the masking tape touch the silver rim just before the gold section starts. Masking the emitter will not be a problem obviously.
8) Spray on the gold. Again, i used automotive paint from an aerosol.
Then remove all masking tape. There is a rather awkward area where you need to scratch off some gold paint with a sharp knife. I will point this area out later.
9) Mask off the handle and emitter again and spray the whole area with a few good coats of clear lacquer to seal it all.
Here is the end result:
Here i've pointed out the rim which is the awkward area where the gold needed to be scratched off before clear coating:
I thought that the bare metal rings may look a different shade of silver after a clear coat, but its impossible to tell they have been clear coated at all. The lacquer i used is Halfords brand from here in the UK, which is really good stuff and its very tough. Its now possible to handle and polish the saber without any risk of damage to the painted areas.
Keith.
The paint job turned out nice, so i thought some of you may find my painting method useful.
1) First of all give the areas that will be painted a good sanding, but avoid sanding the parts of the grip rings that need to be left bare metal.
2) Mask off the handle and emitter and prime the whole unmasked area in primer grey.
3) Remove grey primer from the grip rings. I will tell you how to do this later.
4) Mask off the part that needs to be painted gold and then spray on the black. I used satin black from an aerosol. This is how it will look:
5) Then you need to remove the black from the rings. To do this, take some very fine sandpaper and just rub the very edge of each ring.
Its VERY important to only let the sandpaper make contact with the edge of the ring while in an outward direction/moving out of the groove. If the sandpaper makes contact moving into the groove, it will flick little bits of black paint off from inside the groove and leave you with a rough edge.
You then end up with this:
6) You can then just scratch off the black paint from the rings with your fingernail, as the paint will only scratch off upto the point where you sanded the edge of the rings. Notice in the photo above, i have removed the black paint from one of the rings already.
(Use this same method to remove the grey primer from each ring, like i was talking about in section 3).
7) You then need to mask off everything other than the section that needs to be gold. Take care when masking, as the tape can pull the black paint off. Wrap the saber in paper first and only let the masking tape touch the silver rim just before the gold section starts. Masking the emitter will not be a problem obviously.
8) Spray on the gold. Again, i used automotive paint from an aerosol.
Then remove all masking tape. There is a rather awkward area where you need to scratch off some gold paint with a sharp knife. I will point this area out later.
9) Mask off the handle and emitter again and spray the whole area with a few good coats of clear lacquer to seal it all.
Here is the end result:
Here i've pointed out the rim which is the awkward area where the gold needed to be scratched off before clear coating:
I thought that the bare metal rings may look a different shade of silver after a clear coat, but its impossible to tell they have been clear coated at all. The lacquer i used is Halfords brand from here in the UK, which is really good stuff and its very tough. Its now possible to handle and polish the saber without any risk of damage to the painted areas.
Keith.
