Repainting Lledo vehicles

[AzSteven]

Hi All - I got a pile of Lledo cars, trucks and vans recently to convert over to pulp, Back of Beyond and VBCW roles.  I was planning on repainting them, but I noticed when I started to take them apart for spraypainting that the vehicles don't use screws - they have rivets or some such!

Has anyone here done any disassembly on these for painting?  Or are you just masking off the chrome and plastic bits before spraying?

Your collective advice is most welcome!

[matakishi]

http://www.matakishi.com/ironworker1918ford.htm



http://www.matakishi.com/ironworkerpickup.htm

[Oldben1]

I am by no means an expert, especially at weathering.  I too tried to take my early cars apart without a lot of success.  I found this to be frustrating, but as I have little access and the proper tools I gave up.  I don't like the way chrome looks anyway so I usually mask off the windows (or remove them) and blast the whole model with a colored primer, usually black.  I also found that if you have a car that has good colouring, you can spray it with a clear coat and it will dull the shinyness.  You can than weather the paint around the wheels on the hood.  I found the clearcoat allows you to drybrush the vehicle somewhat.  You can check out my flickr account to see the results. The grey pick up was sprayed with clear coat and weathered.

[Cultist #3]

If you have to disassemble them, drill the head of the rivet out, and you can glue them back together after painting.

[Wirelizard]

I've had good luck so far with just using spray primer straight over toy vehicles, windows and all - I prefer painted windows, party because it makes the vehicles a better match for "proper" wargaming vehicles in resin, and partly because I'm far too lazy to faff around properly masking off the windows before reaching for the spraycan!

None of the vehicles I've done this to have any significant chrome, though, so I can't offer advice there. Masking it off would preserve it, on the other hand painting it would, like doing the windows, blend them into the rest of your figures, scenery and vehicles a bit better.

[Burgundavia]

I too just primer over the whole thing assembled. It has its downsides, but is good for getting something on the table relatively quickly. Most models don't really have much interior that you are going to lose anyway.

[AzSteven]

I too just primer over the whole thing assembled. It has its downsides, but is good for getting something on the table relatively quickly. Most models don't really have much interior that you are going to lose anyway.

That was the path I was figuring on, in that most of the chrome was unimportant to me.  The only concern I really had was the dissimilar materials (metal and plastic) sometimes get different paints.  And the plastic tire 'rubber' - those I need to cmoe up with a way to mask or remove, as paint never seems to adhere well to that sort of soft plastic.

Thanks for the replies guys - some lovely example in those threads!

[Burgundavia]

That was the path I was figuring on, in that most of the chrome was unimportant to me.  The only concern I really had was the dissimilar materials (metal and plastic) sometimes get different paints.  And the plastic tire 'rubber' - those I need to cmoe up with a way to mask or remove, as paint never seems to adhere well to that sort of soft plastic.

Thanks for the replies guys - some lovely example in those threads!

The tires can actually get damaged by the paint. I lost one tire to this process. As for differing adherence, I haven't seen any with several differing makes of diecast cars.

[Ignatieff]

The tyres come off pretty easily.  I then spray the vehicle black and start the repaint from there.  Pretty simple really.

[Daeothar]

I originally wanted to repaint the whole of the cars, but after two of them, I decided to do things the easier way, and I've Dullcoted the rest.

You can see the different results as they appear in my Car Chase thread over in the Workbench section: http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=34855.0

The red and the blue cars are the ones I completely overpainted. the blue one was originally green, and I wanted it blue, so there was no avoiding a full replaint on that one. But the red one gave me some headaches, especially since it was red to begin with! I disassembled the car, lightly sanded the red parts (as the rest was either black or metallic, and was simply covered with some black spray paint) and then had to use at least 7 layers of red to get an even coat (which has never happened to me before, even though red is difficult to get an even covering with). And even now, it still isn't looking right. Ah well; after that, I did some simple shading and highlighting on both the red and the black.

Originally, I wanted to do the metallic parts in NMM, but I changed my mind. See; the Dullcoted cars had all their chrome shinyness reduced considerably, and this made it match  a straight coat of Citadel Chainmail. So I went for that instead, even though I really liked the chrome. Still; this will make the cars look more like gaming pieces, and a thin inking with some black and blue mix will bring out the details enough to be just right. For some extra kick, I suppose a highlight with some Mithril Silver could always be applied.

All in all, the Dullcoting and then further detailing is a much faster and better looking method than the full repaint, at least IMHO. But nobody is stopping you from a full repaint, for instance to match the rest of your collection.

One thing I am in the process of, is the creating (in Illustrator) of traffic signs and licence plates. I will print those plates on photopaper, cut them out, varnish them, attach them in the appropriate place and then paint the backs and edges (where visible) in either black or metallic (pending further research). This will add to the realism (and I'm just a sucker for that...).

Oh; and don't forget the indicators and rear lights; for some reason, the manufacturers seem to forget to colour those half the time, so it's easy to overlook them!

[Damas]

I have nearly a dozen different Lllledo on the workbench currently. My penchant is to dis-assemble them entirely by drilling out the rivets with a dremel, (other rotary tools are available!) giving them a bath in original Dettol for a week (it does no harm to the plastic at all) and building them up as I would any other model.

This technique also allows for conversion possibilities, tanker trucks to flatbeds, hadtops to coupe etc. At some point I may even show the results of my endeavours!