Greetings. I am posting this as I am hoping that maybe someone else out there may have run into the same problem. I got some of Zero Paints Jaguar colors paint and wanted to do a spray out on a spare body that I have. Only was going to shoot the rear quarter panel as it was just to see how the color came out. Did the prep work just as I would when building a kit. The rear quarter panel had a small raised mold line, just like many other kits have. I trimmed it off and then began sanding to finish the prep, going up to 12,000 grit wet sanding. Mold line was completely gone and all nice and smooth. Gave it 2 coats of Tamiya White primer, once cured wet sanded with 1000 and 2000. Looked fine, smooth no problems. Shot the paint on and the color looked really nice. Very smooth no real problems but a bit of orange peel, me doing too fast. But aside from that seemed fine. No sign of any mold line. Once flashed off turned on the heat in my paint booth and let it "bake". When it was dry looked at it and where the raised mold line was was now an indentation line right where the mold line was.
Have never had that happen before. Looked on line and there were a few posts about this, indicating to use some body filler/putty over the are where the mold line was. So I did that. Once cured repeated all the prep steps. Again, all looked fine, no sign of indentation. Primed, painted and had the same result, but was not quite a noticeable, but nonetheless, still showed.
I repeated the process on the opposite side, this time "adding" a fine line of CA glue over the putty covering the mold line. Again, all the same steps to finish, and still had the same problem, but again it was not much but stood right out.
Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated. I am going to give it another go but will see if anyone has any thoughts.
Thank you,
Ed
I have never seen that Ed. That "groove" looks too even to be some random artifact of the molding process, but I guess stranger things have happened.
For what it's worth, I have done all the things you described EXCEPT putting the painted body in a dryer/dehydrator. And have never seen a problem with the painted body. How deep is the groove? Fingernail depth? It's a pain in the ass, but worst case you could fill and sand it out and repaint that area.
Chris
Hello Colin. It is on both sides, rear quarter panel. I ran into the same problem as the first time, as I re-tried on the opposite side. Again same problem, however was not quite as bad but still stuck out like a sore thumb. Now if the Jag was a 4 door, would have just been a nice door seam. I do like the idea of the triangle file and the filling back in. Might give that a try, but will also wait for a bit to see if anyone else has run into this problem.
Ed
G'day Ed, great post!!
I've been thinking about this since we started throwing around the issue some time ago.
Question, is this only appearing on one side of the body or both in the same quarter-panel location?
I got to thinking about the actual injection-molding process and potential issues. Hear me out, this will either be a genius moment or brain-fart moment!
BUT.... it IS possible that during the molding process a ''void'' was formed at this point where the molds meet (hence the mold line). Microscopic type air bubbles can form at these points if the molding process isn't spot-on (eg: pressure and temperature not optimal for the plastic, gasses nowhere to go, forming micro bubbles inside the plastic as it cools).
Here is a link to an easy to read description from a company called Polyrocks (injection molding Company)
https://www.polyrocks.net/news/abnormality-solutions-of-bubbles.html
I haven't found a fix just yet, and most sites I came across online offer corrections for the molding process but nothing to correct a finished product, but if this is right, then this could explain the constant sinking / showing of the lines as over time these pores would possibly ''absorb'' whatever coating, filler, paint etc you put on it.
Just wondering, how this would go if you sealed the inside of the kit body? Effectively creating a barrier so any outside work stays in place?
Maybe sanding the living daylights out of it, filing into the body with a triangle file, getting the plastic as thin as possible over a wider area, then doing some magic with filler, literally eliminating the trapped bubble section??
Just a couple of thoughts, but keen to hear what others have to say as this could definitely be a recurring issue with this kit. I actually have a couple of old Jag kit wheels here where sections of the inner hub haven't formed due to air bubbles (about the size of a small pea), so I guess it's not too much of a stretch to say that the quality control on some of the 1/8 Revell Monogram XKE kits is probably about as sketchy as the actual cars that rolled off the production line in Coventry! Talk about authenticity!!!!