Here I'm starting the wet sanding process with 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper and a sanding block. This one happens to be a Guinness key fob made of rubber. You can see the orange peel-like texture that I'm trying to get rid of, making everything nice and dull (which equals flat).
The shine is getting knocked down nicely. The white appears grey as I'm using my phone camera which lacks a proper white balance function. My apologies. One of my favorite sanding blocks is a long-dead battery from a Nintendo Gameboy.
Here you can see the lines from sanding with 1500 grit paper. The previous sanding with 1000 grit ran perpendicular to this. For the final sanding I go back to swirls. Some will scream foul but that's how I do it.
After wet sanding it's on to polishing. First thing I do is clean the body with naptha to remove any grease/oils. I use a three-part system I purchased in Japan of 3000, 7500 and 9000 grit liquids. Each step has its own foam applicator/polishing block. I do postcard size sections by hand. When the entire body is done I clean it with naptha and then move on to the next compound. Here you can see the applicator pad as well as some residual purple from the original eye-stabbing color.
Mmmmmmmmm, polishing froth.
After the 7500 grit compound. I use a plain washcloth to gently wipe away the compound when I'm done with a section and polish with a section of my wife's Mickey Mouse fleece jammies.
And there she is.... all polished up and nowhere to go. I'm currently of the mind of letting her sit until I can formalize the plan to add the graphic element and the Japanese characters I have planned. Currently my old-man hands don't quite think they can do justice to what I see in my head. Might go ahead and assemble her just to get everything back in place. We'll see. Watch this space.
Ah, a little progress today. After some brain storming I reached out to my network of friends and my buddy Les Baldwin over at FOTOSFX and a friend from the old neighborhood Jason and both were able to do a little pixel magic for me converting a squadron symbol in one of my photographs into an image I was able to work on in Photoshop for the sakura design. The sakura is a cherry blossom, very popular in Japan and a symbol of the transient nature of life. It is also the symbol of the 305th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the Japanese Air Self Defense Force or JASDF. The 305th Hikotai is based out of Hyakuri Air Base north of Narita airport and one of the most amazing locations to photograph aircraft anywhere on the planet. During my time in Japan I became very aware of how the Japanese people understand this impermanence that our lives are, especially in light of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and ensuing tsunami. This design will, I hope, tie together my respect and admiration for the Japanese people as well give a nod to the men and women of the JASDF and their wonderful aircraft. Many thanks guys, I appreciate your help!
Kickin' it old-school despite the masses of technology around me. Couple different sizes and lots of location pondering has gotten me... well, tired mostly. But the process marches on.
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