Moving into April, I’ve continued the work on the F40 and Probe builds. I also reached out to a friend to help me with a paint booth revamp idea.

F40

After nearly 12 years of staring at the kit sitting on my shelf, it was a treat to see it in color! I applied the decals and the next day I cleared the parts with decanted Tamiya clear. While I was spraying the body, I felt that I wasn’t building up the proper sheen. I think the 2 part clear I used on the Mazda Cosmo has spoiled me even after one use! I decided to spray the clear directly out of the can. It was unnerving to see how the clear built up on the paint. It looked incredibly thick. After a half hour or so, I noticed that the clear settled into place and looked good. I decided to spray a second coat out of the can for a total of three coats including the airbrushed layer.

The last coat was too much! After a few hours, the clear settled and it look ok but it wasn’t until days later that the F40 logo in the wing finally looked normal. I did cause the paint built up on the edges around the headlights and one of the doors to “melt” and pull away from the primer. It is pink on those edges but I have a plan to fix it. I’m not going to let this project down!

Probe GT

I painted the Probe while I was working on the F40. Again, I started with decanted paint and finished up with paint out of the can. This is the second color that seems to leave grit in the paint once it is sprayed…as if the metallic flakes are standing up. Sanding between coats seemed to help. I followed up the next day with Tamiya clear right of the can with no issues.

Prior to spraying the clear, I decided to tackle the front emblem. I applied bare metal foil and filled in the spaces with Ford engine blue. It’s not the best representation of the blue oval but works well enough for me.

Since this appears to be the new way I’m going to build, I attached all of the parts from the Probe to sticks, alligator clips, or bottles and sprayed them in primer and color. Although this starts out tedious, the work pays off by having everything ready for assembly with minimal time.

Once all of the parts were painted, I quickly assembled the Probe. I flocked the interior, assembled and wired the engine, detailed the wheel and painted the glass to name a few details.

Using Parafilm, I masked and sprayed all of the body details. Once complete, I was able to quickly assemble, finish the detail work and complete the build.

Booth Rework

During the workshop reconfiguration, I added a damper to the duct for the booth. I decided that I needed to start using a filter to capture paint to help keep the “automatic” damper in good shape. I knew that dropping a filter over the inlet duct was going to cause paint build up quickly. While pondering a solution, I decided that I needed a box similar to a furnace filter box. A friend of mine is a sheet metal worker by trade and was happy to build the box. Once I picked it up, I wasted no time integrating it into my booth. The box almost replaces the entire back of the booth. Overall, the flow through the box is greatly improved and now I’m using the entire filter. I look forward to future builds. Thanks Jake!