Anyone figure out how to tell if a Prowl has the crappy paint or not yet? I'm thinking of just buying a new one and customizing my old one into a Jazz because his door paint and decals have gone to shit. Anybody?
I'm looking for a cheap replacement. Henkei's cool and everything but you know the chrome on his spoiler kinda spoils it for me. Anyone know if just spraying it with some paint sealer right out of the package would save his door paint?
yeah did it with mine. Relatively painless considering all the tacky parts pop right off and on. So just buy one, dont touch it, spray it with clearcoat and put the doors back on.
Sweet I bought clearcoat for my fist one but it was far too late. The doors were quite smudged up. Any idea how long they should to dry?
Pay $40 for a very slightly moded figure? Hell no, better get some clear sealent and protect the suspected areas. People might consider getting a mat clear varnish in a bottle and apply it with a brush. Allows more precise work than using a canned varnish.
I haven't done that (I didn't realise about the tacky paint till I'd become a victim of it - I'm repainting the offending areas myself), but if I'd known, yeah, I'd have just clearcoated them out of the pack. It's the door/wing sections and roof that are the ones you need to watch out for (basically the parts painted onto clear plastic). Everything else seems to be fine.
I had the sticky paint problem on mine but I was forewarned by having read the review and QC threads here so I knew what problems there might be and not to handle those parts too much once I felt the paint was slightly tacky. Locustreign put me onto a spray varnish called Purity Seal which seems to have done the job. Dunno if there were other ones besides the satin (which was all they had in the shop) so it's left Prowl with a plainer finish, but it doesn't bother me as long as the paint problem is solved. Since the finish was changed from the glossy I sprayed the whole alt mode to keep things consistant, and in case any other paint apps decided to wander. Admittedly I am still wary of handling it too much, at least I know it's protected some against getting any worse. A healthy coating took about fifteen minutes to become dry to the touch, but my paranoia compelled me to leave it overnight.
I can get it off eBay for $30, which is quite similar to what the regular Universe Prowl will cost in most stores here (if it ever shows up). I think the vastly superior paint job on both Henkei Prowl and Sunstreaker is worth it. I won't bother with Silverstreak, though.
^^ silverstreak is a great figure...much better paint job than prowl.unless ur talking about not getting the HENKEI version only
yeah i just sprayed mine with some hardcore matte sealer. Added a lil bit of texture to the figure but not noticable unless its next to an uncoated one. but basically do this. Get a black sharpie and cover the gaps in the car mode that are visible, you can also put a lil white out on the edges that are white, they arent as noticeable but it makes it look a million times better and even the Henkei version didnt fix that. then take the doors off and fold them in a lil so you cant coat every edge. leave prowl in car mode and spray the main body as well, so the finish is consistent, then spray the doors. Let it dry then pop it back on. Perfect. THEN buy a higher end silver paint marker and paint those missiles. it looks soooo much better.
spray was the way I went. a brush is good, but if you have patience enough to wait, about 3-4 coats of the spray clear coat is the method I chose. when first opening him I actually used rubber gloves even, to avoid oil from the skin making contact with the paint. I carefully popped off the sides at the balljoint. Be careful doing this as they are balljoints AND clear plastic, so they can break easily. From there, carefully take a tiny phillips screwdriver to remove the roof/windshield. Once removed take the lights and the white plastic square and set these aside, they won't need painted. After you have these three troublesome sections set aside, apply the clear coat. Again, patience is your best friend here. Allow it to completely dry for a few hours in between coats, to ensure that you have a complete covering.