| MIATA BUILD |
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 | |  | July 9, 2007 - Success!
The Opel Rosso (aka "Flame Red") is the right color. It's a bit orange, just enough to make it really pop both in person and on film. This is what I was looking for. That's the Lamborghini Arancio Diablo on the right and Opel Rosso on the left.
There's a problem, though. I was planning on painting the stripes in a base/clear combination so I wouldn't have steps between the various colors. I'll lay down the dark blue first, then the cyan and red on top of that. The clear will flatten all the steps out. But the Opel paint isn't available in a basecoat formulation, only a single stage. You can't mix chemistries (I'm told) and you can't put clear over a single stage until it's cured for a month.
I could also try to add red to the Lamborghini color, but it'll be difficult to do and also end up with a mix I can duplicate if required.
Argh.
So what I'll have to do is get another two cans of blue and cyan mixed up in single stage. If I decide they need clear, I can shoot that a month down the road. The good news is that the single stage paint is about 40% cheaper, so it won't be as big an expense as the first purchase. I could return my clear coat materials as well.
And if you look carefully, you'll notice that the cyan and orange look a whole lot like another iconic vintage paint scheme. Hmm, I wonder when that will come in handy?
entry 242 - tags: Martini | | |  | July 15, 2007 - A big change in the stripe design.
I was grabbing a few parts before heading out to the shop to work on a car, and got distracted by the racer again. The shape of the stripes over the hardtop has been bothering me. They have too much of an arch shape. I've been trying to find the best way to bring them over the hardtop but to no avail. It always looked like a New Beetle.
So yesterday I decided to stick to the lower body. I tried to exaggerate the shapes of the car. I think this works much better, giving the car a longer, lower appearance and flowing better. I'm not sure how to deal with the hardtop yet. The Lancias would probably just leave it all white, but I want a bit of color on it. The current upper edge of the stripe on the bottom edge of the hardtop is awkward, and I'm thinking I should just leave it off the hardtop and A pillar completely. We'll see...
entry 243 - tags: Martini | | |  | July 15, 2007 - The Targa Miata visits the track for the first time.
I didn't take it out at all, it's not ready for that sort of use. I was the support vehicle for the FM Westfield. But I did put about 50 miles on the car today. There's a lot of tuning left to be done on the engine management and I did a bit of that today. It certainly has that very eager lightweight feel that I enjoy so much. The lack of a windshield or rear window helps exaggerate that of course! The car had very few problems and although the suspension leaves a lot to be desired, it will grip quite well already.
Getting the car out of the garage also let me walk around and look at the stripes from a few angles. The rear is great, I love it. It does the job of highlighting the rear arches. The way the front loops around is less successful, but I'm getting close. The recent change to the straighter, lower stripe was a good one. The car looks longer because of it.
A good day, but I'm a little windburned.
entry 244 - tags: testing, Martini | | | August 3, 2007 - Operator error.
Whoops, ignore this particular entry.
entry 245 | | |  | July 26, 2007 - Battery comparison time.
I've become fed up with trying to keep used batteries alive, so I sprung for a new one. See if you can guess which one it is!
The big one is a stock Miata Panasonic battery, only available in a new Miata - and no longer available at all, I guess. The blue stickers are on the Mazda replacement one, and the little red thing is an Odyssey PC680. It's about half the weight of the others, has more cranking power and it's a tough little AGM. I've been using one of these in the Seven for a couple of years and I love it.
entry 246 - tags: weight loss, other cars | | |  | July 26, 2007 - Carbon fibre!
Ricky Nietubicz offered this to me in the hopes that I'll do something cool with it. At least, that's how I understood things.
And I will do something cool. I'm thinking headlight covers. Small, relatively simple and a good place to learn. Plus the factory covers are amazingly heavy. Once I learn how to do this, there will be no stopping me.
First step, though, is to get the car painted in time for the Flyin' Miata Open House.
entry 247 | | | July 27, 2007 - I'm going backwards!
In order to paint the stripes, I need to strip off some parts of the car. A couple of pairs of hood pins, the door handles, mirrors, taillights, various trim pieces - I'm starting to pull it off now. Now I just have to finalise the shape of the stripes on the nose and I'm good to go.
entry 248 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 29, 2007 - It's masking time.
This is an ambitious job for someone who's only just learned how to spray paint. But that's how you learn, right?
For masking the stripes, I'm using plastic "fine line" tape. It bends and curves much easier than masking tape and should leave a nice sharp edge. I sure hope so, I'd hate to have to do this again.
entry 249 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 29, 2007 - The fine line tape makes it very easy to lay down nice curves.
I've reworked almost every section of the car slightly, and pulled the tape up over and over to get a slightly better arc. I'm very happy with how the rear's turned out, but the front was still bugging me.
entry 250 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 29, 2007 - The lateral stripe across the nose had never worked to my satisfaction.
The original mockup had the stripes originating from the turn signal lens, so I tried going back to that. Think Lancia S4 instead of Porsche 911 for the source.
It took a whole lot of trial and error, but finally I stumbled across a look that I think is a big improvement. I was careful to have the stripe width constantly increasing, that was trickier than it sounds given the compound curves of the nose.
With both sides taped up like this, there was no question. I'd found the shape.
This picture shows the detail masking starting up. I spent a lot of time underhood and inside door jambs making sure I didn't get ugly overspray. I probably still will, but at least I tried.
entry 251 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 29, 2007 - The big masking job begins.
It's tricky masking a convertible with a roll cage and no glass. The masking paper I bought from the paint store makes the job a lot easier than it could be. I thought about using plastic but I'm pretty sure this was the right decision.
One thing I did realize is that the hardtop complicates things. The top covers some of the rear fender when it's installed, so I have to paint the stripes on the topless car. But that's going to make it very difficult to align the stripes properly on the hardtop, and it's pretty obvious I can't pop it on and off when the car is masked. So I'll paint stripes on the car and the base color on the hardtop. Then I'll unmask the car, install the hardtop, mask off the remaining stripes (cyan and red) and spray it then. It means five painting sessions instead of three, but it'll also mean a much better look when I'm done.
I will mask off the wheels properly before spraying, and I might extend the "skirt" right to the floor. I sure hope this tape gives a clean edge. Not that I'm worried.
entry 252 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 30, 2007 - Eric suggested that I do a test panel with my tape since I'm so worried about it.
Duh. So I taped up a random piece of metal and shot it with spray paint. The metal was unsanded, slippery and slightly greasy aluminum. The end result? Very good. So that's all right then.
entry 253 - tags: paint | | |  | July 30, 2007 - All bundled up and ready to go.
I sanded down the rear fenders a bit with some 600 and 1500 grit to smooth out the rough original paint - remember, that had a fair bit of bonus texture. The rest was scuffed up, then cleaned. I went over every bit of the tape to ensure it was well attached for a nice clean line.
One thing that isn't immediately obvious in this picture is that after doing the update last night, I noticed that the arc going into the front wheel was a touch more aggressive than it should be. So I eased it off a bit to match all the other arcs going into the wheel wells. Can you see the difference?
entry 254 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 30, 2007 - First, the dark blue.
This paint is "tape free" in 4 hours and deliverable in 24. I'm assuming "deliverable" means you can hand it over to the happy customer. I'll tape it up tomorrow night, then shoot the cyan.
The VW blue was fairly nice looking as I laid it down although I'm not sure I'd want a whole car this color. I did miss a couple of pinpoints of solvent (perhaps that last degrease was overkill) but I'll deal with that with touchup or by laying another stripe over top.
entry 255 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 31, 2007 - Time to start taping for the stripes.
This is taking up an inordinate amount of time and it's both fun and fairly new to me - so there are going to be a lot of pictures.
One of the most dynamic parts of the car, speaking from a stripe point of view, is the front corner. So that's where I started. The piece of green tape has the "ideal" proportions marked out - even size for the two blues, and the red is the size of three blue stripes. To make my life easier, I'm making the stripe width a combination of my tape widths. In this case, the stripes are 12mm wide, a good match to two widths of the 1/4" tape. You can see where I've used a couple of short pieces to ensure the gap is correct. The light blue tape is masking what will eventually be dark blue in the final scheme.
entry 256 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 31, 2007 - So much for playing by the rules.
The stripes running along the hood didn't look right at 1/2" wide, so I narrowed them down to 1/4" plus 1/8". I also tapered them down slightly at the front. This small change altered the front from being a little stodgy to being very graceful. This is a game of millimeters.
entry 257 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | July 31, 2007 - One fender done!
Okay, not quite done. The top stripe at the rear of the wheel opening has too much curve and doesn't quite work in the "graceful" stakes. I hadn't planned on having the dark blue stripes meeting in a point on the fender, but that's how it wants to go.
This is taking a while. I'm learning fast, though, and I think I'll be able to do the rest of the car pretty quickly. The door is almost done already, but it's easy because the stripes are a constant width. It's the flares at the wheelwells that take a while. Only three of those left, and I'm hoping the layout I'm doing now will help. I'm pretty excited, I think it's going to look really good.
Speaking of looking good, this picture almost makes it look like I can lay down paint!
entry 258 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | August 1, 2007 - The next three corners did go faster as I learned what the "right" shape was for the fender flares.
I also got better at running a straight line of tape. The human eye is great at picking up slightly wavy lines - I could spot when my tape lines moved from 10mm to 11mm apart. Of course, so will anyone who's looking at the car, and I know there's going to be something odd that will show up.
A bit of asymmetry revealed itself. On the right side of the car, the red will dip down to touch the fender. On the left, not quite. I can live with that. Overall, the car was surprisingly consistent from side to side.
entry 259 - tags: paint, Martini | | |  | August 1, 2007 - How do you spend four or five hours masking a car without crippling your back?
Well, if you shop at the Snap-On truck, you have a cool little rolling stool that moves up and down and has a padded bench. If you shop at Home Depot, you have a little gardening seat with big wheels. Sure, it's not as cool as the Snap-On version, but it was $10 and it has a cupholder. Beat that!
entry 260 - tags: paint, Martini, tips | | |  | August 1, 2007 - The world's ugliest Martini livery.
The green tape (well, most of it) is masking off what will eventually be red, the blue tape is masking off dark blue and the exposed dark blue will be cyan. I ended up with a lot of red on the car although not quite as much as it appears here due to tape overlap. How will it look? We'll have to see.
entry 261 - tags: paint, Martini | | |
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