The Energon Pub

by **J.T.Silversmith** » Sat Aug 12, 2006 12:43 pm

This repaint is a new personal best in the "procrastinating a nearly complete custom" category. I got a Swindle for Christmas last year that I intended to turn into Trailbreaker, and started working on it in Febuary. I thought it might a good project to try dying the plastic instead of painting. And so I gave it a try, and it almost worked. I didn't know how far I could effect the color of something with dye, but I thought the benifits like more scratch resistant surface and not gunking up joints with paint would be worth taking a shot. Some parts took the dye very well, others did not, and so even with days of soaking in the dye the doors, hood and body of the jeep never got past very very dark green.I paintes the arms and legs while soaking the car body in dye again, hoping for some change in color, but it never happened. The car body panels would never be black, and because there were several different plastics in the bodyshell the colors would never match. So the project ground to a halt, and sat for months. Last week I was doing some spraypainting for a home improvement project, and decided to paint Trailbreaker while I was at it. In a matter of hours, it was done, and looking pretty good. Because of the dyejob, it only took a quick spray to the top surfaces to get everything looking good, and I did not have to paint any joints, so there weren't sticky hinges to worry about. I used a dullcote matte clear spray to get the fenders and rollbar back to the right texture, and a little but of touchup paint and some stickers and one of my old Trailbreakers missiles, and I was done.

I just rotated the left hand upside down, and folded it up, and put the missile in his hand, so he can switch between missile or hand easily, and the missile fits behind the back seats quite nicely.

I thought about using the old head mounted signal jammer as well, but I actually liked the idea of using the bottom of the "head door" for it.

This is only my second Alternator repaint, and I am very pleased with how it came out.