Re: Just What This Forum Needs: Another Ironman Build
I'm going ahead with the least expensive color for my first finished suit. The Merlot Red is really growing on me, but I just want to knock one out really quick and see how everything looks assembled, so I've basecoated everything in Colonial Red:
I also decided that the aluminum collarbone pieces needed to be shinier. Polishing them up worked out to be a welcome mindless distraction yesterday afternoon. Here's a "before and after" shot:
Here's a closeup of the finish after a quick sanding:
I was aiming for a brushed metal finish, so 150-grit sanding was probably enough:
Then I got curious to see what they'd look like after a 220-grit sanding:
Since I was on a roll, I pulled out a piece of 400-grit paper and smoothed them out even further:
Unable to help myself, I graduated to 600-grit:
When the sickness had fully taken hold, I had sanded them down to a 1500-grit just to be sure:
I stopped myself before I started digging around for the microfiber cloth or the buffing compounds. Still, shiny:
I think they'll work:
I texted a picture of the polished parts off to the fabricator that made them for me and he said, "you wanted them polished? I could've just put them in the tumbler for you."
Jerk.
Once I was done with that, I went ahead and moved my parts inside to avoid any early morning dew:
So that's that. Today's goal is to mask everything as needed and spray the gold parts. The paint I'm using will set up pretty quickly, so I should be able to put the clearcoat on everything tonight. I'm using an automitive clearcoat to make the pieces as scratch-resistant as possible.
Stay tuned...