I was hoping to have a big reveal by now on what I've been working on, unfortunately I have had never ending problems with the paint I've been using.
Everyone knows by now that last year I made that battleship out of wood. This year I set off to make a car out of wood. I like many cars both old and new, but I decided on a 1970 Dodge Challenger T/A due to it seemingly being easier than modern cars that have much more complex shapes in their design. I was wrong about it being easy, as even with a fairly simple design, it has been very hard to capture the details.
For reference, here is what a real one looks like:
Every part of my model is ready to be put together, but unfortunately the entire project has been stalled thanks to the orange paint. The color is Hemi Orange. I've spraying it with aerosol cans. I went with enamel paint straight from Mopar (Chrysler) after reading that enamel dries glossy. After painting a few small pieces in orange, it seemed no matter how long I let it sit, it didn't dry. It seemed dry to the touch but oddly sticky at the same time... sort of hard to explain. When I picked it up a finger print would show up no matter what.
I bought two other orange paints from other companies, and they did the same thing. All in all I've spent $60+ on damn orange spray paint I'll never use again after this project.
I brought a couple pieces of test wood outside, hoping that the lower humidity and sun would help the paint dry better.
After spraying the test pieces, it seemed to be okay, so I went a head and painted the body of the car.
The first coat seemed to dry okay, but unfortunately the following coats developed the same problem of leaving finger prints. I went to a Lowes hardware store and talked to someone in their paint department about the paint. They suggested leaving a fan blowing on it for a while. Well I've had a fan blowing on it for 3 days, and it is still the same.
I've done some reading online, and I guess enamel paint takes forever to dry, and sometimes the outer coat dries but the coats underneath stay moist... creating a hard shell over soft paint. Right now I'm praying that's not the problem, and I guess I have no choice but to just let it sit for a long time.
Anyways, here is how it sits:
If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can help it dry fully, I'm all ears. I've but a lot of work into this. I know it seems small, but it has taken 2 months to get to where I am now with it, and I'd like to see it finished.
In happier news, I finished this painting for a friend.
In other news, Sherdog... at least the sub forums I'm interested in (F7 and the new MMA pics forum) seem to be dying. Most of the old regulars are gone and there doesn't seem to be many new posts compared to how it used to be.
