Building Whistler: A Little Bit of Paint

Tonight I finally had a chance to do a little more work on Whistler. It started this morning actually when I took my kids to Home Depot for their free building class. I thought I'd swing by the spray paint and check on the green I had been planning to use for my droid. I couldn't find it anywhere, and the people seemed to have no idea what I was talking about, but suggested I check next door at Hobby Lobby. I didn't think they'd have what I was looking for, but figured it was worth a shot, plus I needed to pick up some flat black enamel for my husband's work on his 501st costume. No luck there for me, so I was starting to think maybe they had stopped making the color shift paint at all. And I was beginning to really kick myself for having not picked up any back when I had seen it at a store months ago. (With the hefty $20 per can price tag I figured I'd wait until I was ready to actually paint something.) So I decided I'd try my luck at Lowes. And there it was! And the price has recently come down to the still absurd cost of $15 per can, but it's still less! So to avoid this paint frenzy in future, I decided to go ahead and buy 2 cans. I still needed to make a stop at my local Ace hardware on the way home though, and came across a metallic green there that is priced comparable to a standard color, so I picked up one to do some testing with. I showed both to my husband this evening, and it turns out the panic was for naught, because the metallic looks like it is the winner in the looks category as far as a color match as well as in the price category. Thankfully we figured this out without even doing a test with the color shift, so I have 2 cans to return the next time I'm down by our local Lowes.

After all the color stress was over, I wanted to at least get SOMEthing painted, so I taped up my dome and gave it a first coat of metallic. I'm using Super dome, and the previous owner was kind enough to start lining it out and to have primed it for me. It needed some light sanding, but I soon had taped off the entire upper portion where the green panels still need to be lined out, and was ready to paint the lower section of the dome with a first coat of Valspar Brilliant Metal in Silver (66010). I figured I'd give a quick coat to my fixed holos at the same time. The weather tonight was good... little to no wind, and still in the upper 50s, so I ran outside and painted them up. I did have some problems with the initial flow on the paint, and the first section I painted will definitely need some sanding before a 2nd coat. I ended up with 3 very silver fingers, and a few drips off of the drop cloth because of a leak below the spray head. But so far I am very happy with the results. I brought the pieces in to dry fully over night, and the reflection is just beautiful. I can't wait to get it sanded up and the 2nd coat on... maybe tomorrow evening. And then get started on lining out, taping off, and painting the panels.