1/24 Tamiya Porsche 911 Carrera

Modeling Descriptions and Photos

Roof Roof!
To make this diary work, I intentionally damage the roof. I added some dust spots, scratches, and even embedded hair! How cool am I!?

Roof Roof!
Here is another picture of the "damaged" roof. This is a real life situation and I bet it happens to everybody!

I can repair this by sanding it down and repainting again, but I am confident I can also repair it by polishing it out. The concept is that I will remove the top portion of the damage paint and level out the paint beneath. This works here because I applied multiple coat of black. Let's practice this now.

Wet Sanding!
My experience tells me that the paint damage is not serious. So I will start with 600# sandpaper and move my way up as I proceed with sanding. All of my sanding from this point is wet. This means, I use water as lubricant as I sand away the paint. This prevents sand dust to collect possibly damaging the surface.

See Spots?
I don't sand in a circular motion. Only in a direction of top/down, left/right! This is what I have after 600#. Not bad. I can still see the hair damage. Don't worry about the dull shine or the scratch, it is quite normal at this point. Let's move onto higher grade of sand paper.

800#
I used 800# sand paper and lightly performed another wet sand. I am making progress here. The hair mark is gone and scratch is getting finer.

2400#
Now I switch to a polishing cloth for sanding. A polishing cloth is nothing more than a thick cloth backed fine sand paper. I see that the raised area (A) is exposed and showing the primer. I am not worried about this as I can touch it up later. It is inevitable not to expose raised area when sanding away the top portion of the paint...

3600#
I am beginning to see glossy surface, but not quite.

6000#
At this point, I am just removing fine scratches. I should not have any dust marks or deep scratches. 6000# will not remove those.

8000#
Make sure the paint is fully dried. Acrylic paints dry outside to inside, when top layer of paint is removed, it is possible that the paint beneath maybe still drying...

12000#
12000# is highest I have. I am satisfied with the roof finish now. I still see very minor scratch, but I haven't started my polishing compound magic yet!

Polishing Compound
This is the magic part.

Take a clean cotton cloth and apply small amount of Tamiya's polishing compound on the roof. Gently rub it around the surface and you will soon notice the cloth is actually removing the paint. The polishing compound works the same way as finer sand paper removes fine scratches.

Repaired Roof!
The roof is now fully repaired. The polishing compound leaves white residue, I simply wash it off with water. Some hard to reach area can be cleaned with a wooden toothpick.

Reflection
To show how clean the roof is, I put a paper next to the roof and verified a perfectly good reflection. I like to note that Tamiya's polishing compound does not react with Tamiya's acrylic paints. This means, I can also apply acrylics based clear coat afterwards. Make sure you check your paint reaction if you are using another type of paint or polishing compound for clear coat.

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