"Update, Update, read all about it" (pic heavy)
I am finally able to drive my SCX again. I purchased the Team Raffee Co XJ hard body and wanted to get it installed. I didn't realize how much work it is/was. When I got into this hobby I saw stuff from iamthatguy and Pardonmynoob and thought "That's exactly what I want my rig to look like!" please note my stuff doesn't look ANYTHING like theirs but they were the reason behind me wanted to get a hardbody. Plus I think if I comp next season Class 1 with an Axial based rig is probably going to be easier for me than an RC4WD based rig.
Anyways my noob endeavor continued with the purchase of the XJ hardbody at the end of February. I also received some cool hop-ups from my wife for my birthday around the same time. I spent the better part of 4 days getting the paint on the body. I started with sanding everything down with 100 grit followed up with 400 grit. After that I went with Tamiya Primer. I learned a valuable lesson here... Tamiya is Acrylic based and the automotive paint I used is Poly based. This caused my paint to not be 100% smooth. It looks almost like it has a textured finish. If your gonna paint with primer, base, and clear make sure they are all the same kind of paint.
So on 3/1 the body showed up and I started putting it together. There are a ton of screws and many of you probably already know. There was a ridge on the top where the two halls go together so I tried my hand at bondo. Yeah... I suck at it so its not pretty but lets call it a learning experience. Another thing I found was that the instructions are not step-by-step so I put the grill together before I installed it onto the body, yeah, that doesn't work, you need to put it onto the body before you GLUE in the lights. Because of this I have one turn marker that is busted out. I plan on putting some colored packing tape on it and calling it a trail mark
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As for painting I laid down the Tamiya primer and let it dry about an hour. I then laid down about 4-6 coats of Dupla-Color Chrysler Metallic Forrest Green. The color is beautiful. I let the paint dry about 20-30 minutes between coats. In retrospect I didn't lay down enough but I will get to that. I had masked off some areas and laid down some Dupla-Color metallic black to do the trim down low and on the hood. The next day I laid down the Dupla-color Clear coat. I noticed it didn't come out super smooth and glossy like a new car, I can only attribute that to laying Poly based paint over the Acrylic first. It doesn't look bad but was not the finish I wanted. When the paint was finished I used a sharpie to fill in the rubber gaskets around the windows and on the hinge for the lift gate. To glue in the windows I used some canopy glue. It takes a while to set so make sure you tape it in good or use magnets to secure the parts while they dry. The glue does dry clear though which is nice.
Mounting the body proved to be tricky. I wasn't sure how exactly to use the included mounting hardware so I just figured something out. It is installed but I will change the rear mounting in the near future. First I thought I would use some of my aerospace grade velcro on the hood and build a bracket using styrene and the stock body post mounts. I got it all set the right height I wanted and velcroed it down. The velcro was so strong that it busted my styrene bracket... I opted for some 1/8th thick rare earth magnets. They can hold 18LBS each so you can literally pick up the front of the truck with the magnets. For the back I used a piece of hobby ply and some of that velcro (very little velcro this time). Using the existing hardware on my Wertymade The Stout rear bumper I was able to get the back to mate up perfectly with the wood. What I want to do is glue a hinge to the body and mount the hinge to the hobby ply in the end. The one thing I found out was that this body is more narrow than the stock body so I had to tuck my sliders in all the way to get them to look right.
The SSD aluminum diff cover was painted black so when I hit rocks it will scratch up. I wanted it to look worn down the road and I think this will make them scratch up pretty quick.
Anyways enough of the chat here are some photos:
I want to put in inner fenders next. If anyone has a templet on how to make them with styrene please let me know. I planned on eye-balling it. (see my busted turn marker)
I need to get paint for the tail lights. I am hoping one of the local guys has some extra thats why they are not glued in yet.
I need to come up with a rack. I might use the stock one but am thinking about getting one custom made. My mind isn't made up yet.
Out of the box
Sitting on the body posts to see how it looks.
First layers of base coat on.
Base coat was finished here, added paint to fender flares and grill
mock up with the grill. You can see the turn markers were glued in here... damn it
Close up of the final paint with clear coat. You can see the finish I am talking about. The paint scratches easily. I wonder if I would have laid down more paint, and did more clear if it would be a little more durable. I misted about 6-8 coats of clear over two days.
-M
