Painting Bodies
On this page I will show you how to paint a Radio Controlled car or truck body. I will demonstrate on both a lexan body which is the most common and on a harder ABS plastic body similar to those that come with many of the Tamiya Kits. The first body will be an ABS plastic body that came with my Clodbuster kit.
Above you can see everything that was included in the kit. The only items not pictured are the hardware kit and a bracket that holds the tailgate onto the body.
Pictured here is the parts tree that contains the tailgate, front bumper filler, mounting blocks for the light bar and the front half of the lights (in yellow).
In this photo you can see the body shell before it is painted. The most important thing to remember when painting any body is to keep it clean. At this point my first step is to wash the body thoroughly with warm soapy water you can use dishwashing soap or liquid hand soap I recommend dishwashing soap. The body should be washed at this point in order to remove any oils left over from the manufacturing and molding process. Also wash your hands before you wash the body to cut through the oils that are naturally on the skin. Dry the body with a lint free rag.
Once the body is clean and dry you can use modelers putty to fill in any unneeded hole or seems you do not want to see after the body is painted.
Here is what the body looks like after it is painted. Now you can paint on the details. I like to mask off the edges and then paint it. On this body I painted the edges of the sunroof, the edges of the marker lights, taillights, door handles and vent windows. The parking lights on the grill were painted with a yellow paint marker. To paint the actual grill I liberally covered the area with black paint and then ran a wet paper towel over the top to remove any excess. Below is a picture of the finished body on my Clodbuster that I built to run in the snow. Click HEREto see how this truck was built.
