Touching up some replicas, advice needed.

[Continuum]

Hey folks, a couple of months ago a friend of mine who works at a replica company asked me to touch up these replica pulse-rifles from the Alien movies. I'm pretty good with this type of thing, but inexperienced. They have a few scratches and dings, and I'm not quite sure of the best way to go about it. I went to Lowe's and they were able to sell me some color-matched paint, but I'm a little apprehensive about the application of it. The paint is applied to what looks like resin, and I've never worked with that. Should I sand the area around where I'm to paint? Should I use any kind of primer? What type of brush will give me a smooth surface that matches the rest of the piece? Any pointers you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Here's some photos of what I'm working with:

 

[Continuum]

Bump.

Anyone?

 

[Garthok]

Bump.


Anyone?

Mate you have to give it some time. You have only had 8 views so far. Plenty of people will chime in with some handy advice. I had a look myself, but all I thought was "why not leave it be? it looks like great weathering" But that wasn't what you asked.

cheers

 

[Continuum]

You're right of course, my apologies.

I'm just chomping at the bit a little I guess, I tested the application with a brush, didn't work out. I'm going to try blotting it on with a microfiber cloth here in a minute.

 

[Garthok]

Hang off for a bit. The last thing you want to do is something that ruins them or makes a lot more work to fix. But you will get some great advice. Some of the people on here have skills that just blow your mind. If you are desperate, change the title to include "Pulse rifles, and urgent advice needed"

 

[Continuum]

Yeah I've been looking around at the different threads. Can't help but feel a little bit out of my depth, haha. It's not urgent, I'm just used to other forums I guess where after a thread drops to the 2nd page it's never seen again. I can wait, I have a Predator mask to work on in the mean time.

 

[Ozymandius]

Couple of problems right off the bat.

I hate to tell you this, but you are starting out all wrong. First off, no can of house paint from Lowe's is going to match that. It may look close, but it will be noticably different once dry. And second, you're not going to get a smooth finish with a paint brush, especially with an acrylic.

To do it right, you need to try and contact the manufacturer and see if you can find out what paint they used. I may have misunderstood you, but it sounded as if your friend works at the shop that made them.

When you have the proper paint, then you need to sand the area to smooth out the dings and create a grit for the paint to stick to and respray it. If you can, remove the panels that need paint and spray them seperately. If you can't remove them, then you will have to mask off the black areas thouroughly.

If you can't find an exact match, then you will probably need to respray the entire colored piece so that it is consistent. Chances are you will be able to find some rattle can paint that matches it pretty closely and use that to respray the covers.

 

[Continuum]

^Thanks for the info, I had a feeling it wasn't going to work out, but the can was only 10 bucks and I figured it was worth a shot. I'm not sure how close he's wanting me to get anyway, being that he could send it back to the manufacturer if he wanted an exact match.

I did find some spray paint that looked pretty close, but I figured the computer at Lowes could mix up a color more accurate than my eyes could gauge. Didn't figure on not being able to apply it though.

I'll see if I can get in touch with the manufacturer, although I'm guessing that would cost just as much as him doing it himself. We'll see I guess.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

 

[Ozymandius]

Okay, that gives me a better idea of what's going on. So these are just your friend's rifles and he was wanting them touched up, I take it.

If that is the case and you've already found a spray can that's close, I'd do a test spray on a scap piece of something and see how close it really is. If it's close enough then you can go ahead and remove the covers and get to work.

When you sand down the dinged areas, make sure you get down to at least a 320 grit sandpaper. Anything heavier and it will leave nasty scratches that will show through the paint.