Episode: 3124
Title: HPR3124: Matchbox Restoration Part 5
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3124/hpr3124.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 17:17:14

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3124 for Thursday 23 July 2020. Today's show is entitled
Matchbox Restoration Part 5
and is part of the series' model hacking. It is hosted by Tony Hughes, aka Tony H1212,
and is about five minutes long
and carries a clean flag. The summary is
in this fifth in the series Tony discusses the painting process on the castings of the MK10 Jaguar.
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Good day to all in HBR land. This is Tony Hughes coming to you again from Blackpool in the UK.
To recap, this is the fifth in the series of shows about my hobby of restoring matchbox and other die cast models.
In the last show, I went through the process I used to remove paint and prepare the casting for repainting and reassembly.
In this episode we will look at the painting of the castings and spoiler what I do when things go wrong.
After polishing and before painting I degreased the casting in some alcohol.
I use a cheap own brand nail polish remover from Co-op
but there are many ways of doing this and there's many products on the market.
So use what you have to hand and a good clean with in hot soapy water and dry with a lint free cloth and then wipe over with alcohol wipes works well as well.
Remember to wear gloves when handling the casting after this process as the grease from your hands can undo all your hard work.
So the first thing to say is that I'm still in the early stages of learning this hobby and use what was referred to as rattle cans in the community.
It just means spray can painting rather than using an airbrush which I will be moving on to at some points.
I can mix my own paint colours and not just use colours that are available in spray cans.
So far I've been painting the casting outside during the warm weather on dry days with little or no wind or in a shelter spot
behind the garage of the wind is a little too strong but I've now set up a small portable spray booth in the garage for this.
So we'll be able to paint all in all conditions weather wise which will make life easier and there's a picture of that in the show notes.
So back to the casting. I used a hemostat clamp to hold the casting of this model.
It's attached to the post that holds the model together as it will not be seen when reassembled.
I used a grey primer spraying light coats all over the model until it is completely covered in the primer.
Priming helps smooth out any small imperfections for the final paint coat and as the casting is over 50 years old it also lays down a consistent base colour
and ensures that the colour coat should be the same all over when final paint is applied.
As you can see in the picture it also shows up the casting lines and if desired these can be filed away prior to final painting.
As this is a restoration I left this casting as original as possible and left these in.
See the next couple of pictures. After leaving the casting to dry for about an hour I came back with a colour coat.
The original model was a metallic brown but the nearest match I was able to find at the local pound shop is a metallic gold.
Not perfect but the final results look good but a little lighter than the original paint.
I applied the paint in smooth fine strokes getting what is called a tack coat of paint all over the model casting to start
and then applying the other coat, what they call the wet coat all over until there is no signs of the primer and it all looks smooth but with no runs in the paint finish.
The balance needs to be just right with not too little or too much paint but with practice you get there in the end.
On foreseeable on this occasion there was a reaction with the primer on the rear of the model which caused bubbling of the paint and you can see that in the next couple of images.
So after allowing the paint to fill a cure I used a little wet and dry fine sanding paper to smooth out this area
and gave the casting another coat of paint and fortunately this time always well as you can see from the following pictures in the show next.
While the casting was fully curing to my attention to the screen plastic I found the best of the ones I had selfish from the four castings
and see picture 8 in the show next and gave it a polish with some more to soul polishing compound using a cotton bud and it came out quite nice.
I then gave it a washing soapy water to remove the residue of the polishing compound and after drying gave it a dip in some pledge floor shine which works great.
See the next few images. After coating the screen in the pledge it's placed on a pad of paper towel and covered with a plastic pot to stop dust getting on it while it dries and that's the next image.
Although the original casting had a black painted base I like the look of the polish base so decided to leave this as it was but if painting the base it's the same process as the main casting.
Well that's it for this episode. On the next I'll look at putting the wheels and axles back on the base and the reassembly process.
So this is Tony Hughes for Hacker Public Radio saying goodbye for now, keep safe everyone and I'll be back soon with the next instalment.
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