Alright, after getting pretty much all the building done on my Firebird.... http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_9370531/tm.htm
It's time to get it ready for paint and paint this bad boy!!!
Please be patient with this thread. I have to complete a couple of other jet paint jobs as well as mutiple motorcycles, so the Firebird is getting worked on in between other projects. However, this is the start!!!

So, this will be a thread about prepping, painting, clear coating, and polishing an RC jet.

I am going to start the process from the point of prepping a primed airplane. You can go back to my build thread to see a bit of the filling and sanding up to the point of priming. The reason I am going to start this thread from this point, is it realistically is not much different than prepping your standard Gel Coated ARF jet which is what most people are building and painting these days.

So for the first step in this process, here are the materials you will need:

1. 800 Grit wet/dry sandpaper (prefer the 3M brand, it is the most even cut, and lasts the longest)
2. Guide coat. You can purchase actual guide coat in a rattle can or if you don't want to do that, and you want to use your paint gun more, some dark colored base coat paint will work as well.
3. Spray bottle
4. Paper towels and or a squeegee
5. Your model
6. A medium hard sanding block (foam rubber type) Soft enough to follow most contours, but hard enough to actually block a surface out flat.

Ok, onto the process.

Picture 1. Begin by spraying a light coat of guide coat on your model. Guide coat is a thin paint that is designed specifically to contrast the existing color of the surface you will be working on. In this case, I am using PPG Guide coat in a rattle can. Don't worry about getting even coverage, the guide coat is there to show you low spots, sanding scratches, imperfections etc.

Picture 2. Begin sanding with your 800 grit paper. Sand first in one direction, then 90 degrees to that first direction. Try to avoid the urge to sand in circles and if you see an area that is low, or has a very deep scratch, avoid the urge to use pressure in just that small area. Sand over a large area until the area blocks out. If you put pressure in just one small area, you will just sand a low spot in that will show up very badly in your final clear.

Picture 3. Almost immediately you can start to see the sanding scratches or any blemishes that might have been in the surface. These lines will all show in the final clear and worse yet, if you spray a metallic or pearl, they will show 10X worse in that paint as the flake will lay funny in the scratches and reflect the scratch itself. Use your squeegee (or paper towel) to wipe the surface continually so you can see how your sanding is going. You want the scratches to disappear completely.

Picture 4. Once the area you are sanding has no more guide coat showing, move on and do another section.

If you run into an area that won't block out, that will need some filling. That will be the next step. In the next segment, I will be doing some minor filling on leading edge seams, as well as fixing up a couple of small pockets along sharp edges of some molded parts.