A somewhat windy day when I felt as though I was riding into a brick wall on this mornings bike ride. However the journey home was a breeze with the wind behind me. Something that has stuck with me since I started serious bike racing in my teens was a piece of simple but very sound advice from another experienced rider which was that if you can cycle into the wind on your journey out do that so the wind blows you home. Nothing worse then turning back and having to fight the wind on your way home. Strange how advice like that sticks with you for your life and something I pass onto others.
Other sound advice I have found during my years of model making is that there are times when you need to take your time and think about what and how you are going to do something before you actually do it. It may sound logical but sometimes, just like chess you need to be thinking several moves ahead. Not something I did in my earlier years when I built a model and then wondered how on earth I was going to paint it so that it didn't look like something involved in a paint factory explosion. Take the rear wheels on the Scania 143H. I have not fully assembled them so that it is easier to paint the hubs which are a different colour to the rest of the wheel. I also did this sometime ago well ahead of painting the other wheels so that they were all ready to be painted in one go.
Today I actually started the painting process not only for the wheels but also the mudguards, front valance and side skirts. The rear of the valance and skirts in real life are undersealed to resist stone chips and rust. Therefore they would not look right being painted in red which will be the colour on the front and upper faces of the various items. So using that sound advice of thinking ahead I painted the appropriate surfaces with black paint. I don't want the surfaces which are to be red undercoated in black as this will make the red too dark as the undercoat affects the final look of the final top coat of paint. Having matt varnished the black surfaces the parts were left to dry.
As I also need the wheels to be painted ready for fitting before I fit the mudguards these were painted black too. The wheels will eventually be aluminum in colour and black is the perfect undercoat for that paint. The four wheels with the red hubs had to be masked before painting. I actually made one mask by rolling some paper to the diameter of the hub, taping it and then using it as I painted each wheel separately. I can then use the mask again when I airbrush the aluminum paint.
As you can see painting can be a dirty process but on occasions can get you out of assisting Mrs. W with folding the washing! As it is acrylic paint it scrubs straight off under the tap once the washing folding activity has been completed!
Hoping that tomorrow will allow the various parts to be painted in their final top coats so the areas painted black need to be masked off. This is also where thinking ahead plays dividends. It will be much easier to touch in the black areas, which are mainly hidden from sight, with a brush should any red paint seep under the masking. Touching up the highly visible red paint with a brush would be a much more difficult thing to do - for me anyway! An hour of masking will hopefully ensure a neat job. All will be reveled soon!
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