Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472, and today, I’m reporting the trickle of progress on the Pac Man Ghost Pi case. Let’s get started!
When last I left off, the paint needed a little sanding to get rid of brush strokes. I used 1000 grit sandpaper on it, but I ended up smearing the blue touch up paint onto the white iris. Additional sanding to get the smudges and strokes off the white rubbed straight down to the red plastic.
I ended up having to repaint the whole thing. Dealing with paint on this project has been a two-person affair, and my father has been quite busy any time I’ve been thinking on the project, and time to dry just compounds the problem.
The first layer to be redone was the biggest, red body of the ghost. As a pro-tip, my father showed me how he peeled back the masking on the eyes a little to get that bit more of coverage. From a diagram I saw some months ago, I believe that will help avoid a hard line in the final product after all the tape comes up and everything.
The second layer was the whites of the eyes. Nothing much special happened here, except the eye holes were covered with tape this time. To my dismay, my father explained the correct tool for the job if I wanted to spray the eyes on. It turns out an Air Brush is a lot more handy than a full spray can, but he did figure out why it didn’t work so well the first round of touch ups.
The solvents in spray paint evaporate quickly, so he maximized the amount of solvent by spraying upside down to get some extra propellant, as well as use some mineral spirits to help combat premature paint clumping.
As it stands now, there was a little bit of an accident with the blue spilling into white territory. Without an Air Brush, it looks like I will just have to endure a few brush strokes on an imperfect surface. At least the clear coat will still protect the looks it does get in the end. The whole thing is already looking awesome, but my dream of it looking absolutely perfect is something that will need to wait for a bit more experience.
Final Question: Have you ever wondered why you couldn’t do something, only to realize you don’t have the best tool for the task?