June 7, 2020
The dashboard. My Achilles heel. A part I thought would be easy has caused me nothing but drama. I started out painting the top air con fans and front strip with flat black. I then taped the centre and painted the rest in the recommended colour of 7 : 1 middle grey : purple. It was a horrible colour and it looked nothing like the real thing. It just wasn't going to cut it. I decided to mix my own colour of 6 : 8 : 2 neutral grey : purple : black and go over it again. Glad I did until I realised I'd gone over the fans on top and the paint seeped through the tape on the front. I ended up going back over them again with flat black, but it ended up on the grey part so I gave that another coat, but in doing so couldn't get a clean look without large brush strokes which got on the fans again. After this frustration I went over the fans with a fine tipped Sharpie along with the bleed on the front. I then went over the front in clear gloss for the decal to stick to, avoiding the fans and knobs as best as I could because I wanted to keep them looking flat. The speedometer decal ripped, but the front one went on okay. I wasn't happy with the colour of the front decal so I coated it in Tamiya smoke, but ruined the front fans in the process. The paint stripped and I had to go over them with the fine Shaprie. The grey ended up being way too glossy so I coated it in a clear flat and finished it off with the photoetched logo.