The Story of Seven Cranes and their Transformation - Part II
The story of the seven cranes that wanted to be part of a family continues in our second part. The mage bluebarn came to visit bobm2004 on this past Friday and helped bobm2004 install a new 250 cfm exhaust fan, as the wise engineer he was perceived that all the painting about to occur would overload the small exhaust fan, which to this point had been adequate. The mage bluebarn saw the seven taken apart, neatly organized on two work benches and smiled. The process of transformation to the family Mammoet was in progress and the progress was good.
(okay so I still have lost my mind, but I still am happy)
As we left it last, the seven had been disassembled, and now it was time to remove the old coatings and prepare for the new. To that end, meet my friend, Mr. Blaster. A handy tool in any shop and rather inexpensive from the noble wizard tool shop, Harbor Freight.
As these are older units, the paint ready stripes off with a few minutes needed per piece in Mr. Blaster. If not, then magic potions need to be employed, lacquer thinner or stripper. When using the potions, be careful never ever to put plastic in them, as they will turn to goo!
One of the items that is very hard to repaint and have work without ruining the finish is the outriggers. Here are a couple of tips I use to ensure that they work and also retain their finish. I stuff the outrigger chambers with paper towel before painting, so paint will not any thickness at all.
Then I do not prime the outriggers either, they get just one coat of black paint. By doing these steps they will work, not bind and not scratch the finish.
On occasion The pulleys from the mast head cannot or should not be removed, like when a large pin is inserted through it to support a jib. When this happens, I tape off the pulleys with model masking tape so the pulleys will be bare metal and work better.
And here we have three of the seven hanging in the booth stripped and ready for priming.
And now, after we have primed we are ready to paint the red
I love the painting, the model starts to come to life!
And many hours later, with a great results from my new fan, all seven have their red completed.
My favorite part of the entire repaint is the red under stripe. After painting the red, I mask off the stripe with model masking tape, and then spray over with Testors dull coat to seal the edges. After the black is painted, my favorite part is to remove the tape and reveal the bright red under the gloss black
The same with the boom tips, only adding the black to the red sections.
And thus concludes the second part of the conversion of the seven!
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