How to replicate carbon fiber with paint

[Joaquin]

I know some of you don't use decals to replicate carbon fiber but painting with a mesh or stocking.
Can anybody explain the procedure and show some example?

Thanks

[Daliracing]

I follow a guy on Instagram who nails it everytime and has made some sort of how to post:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNZ3RdejjXI ... MyMTA2M2Y=

[racingkars]

I have seen people using black, metallic black and smoke to get a nice result.
But not as good as CF decals or the post on Instagram.

[JamesB]

There's a few mentions here at f1m. But they are old threads, with no pics. Search carbon fiber mesh cloth.
There's an old Russell Wells thread bit deleted too
Enter Kamimura...
https://gdist43.com/ferrari-f2001/
With a bit of patience you'll find the wip posts...

[racingkars]

There is also this on my website.
You can scroll a bit down and see Gravity Paints CF set.
http://www.racingkars.nl/index.php/comp ... ian-vettel

[smirkoff]

I don't like to use CF decals. So I use a combination of techniques. First, I never use black as a color base for CF, but RLM 66 or other very dark grey for the "black" CF, and other colors for Kevlar etc. In this TS020 I used the good old silk stocking as a mask to spray a mist of very diluted silver over the parts. You have to press the stocking around the part to get it as close as possible of the surface. It's not possible to do that with every part, but if you get the effect over a curved surface, I think the result is far more beautiful than the boring regularity of the CF decals.

Other way I'm using now is to draw thin lines over the base paint using a 8B pencil. This requires a lot of patience, sometimes the lines are too spaced, sometimes too close, but with a bit of training it's possible to get some regularity. If it's going too wrong, just erase and start again... When I'm happy with the result, I seal it with a clear. In some parts I give an extra thin coat of some metalic paint, to get a different texture. What is interesting with that technique is that the graphite shines a bit like CF (it's carbon, anyway), which is other factor that the CF decals lacks.

What I'm yet to test is to do those chess patterns of some later CF. I think the drawing technique is the best for this, but requires much more training to do little squares.

[JamesB]

Other way I'm using now is to draw thin lines over the base paint using a 8B pencil. This requires a lot of patience, sometimes the lines are too spaced, sometimes too close, but with a bit of training it's possible to get some regularity.

Great idea! White and light sand color pencils also open good possibilities.
Now you mention, there’s PE templates for carrier flight decks that might come handy for this.

Also for spraying now I think it!
Your results are amazing, Marcos!

[smirkoff]

Thanks, James! I must say that the inspiration came from my other hobby, free hand drawing. When you do a lot of hatching, specially white cross hatching over black paper, the idea became obvious. I'm using regular 8B pencils, but as you mentioned colored pencils, those Prismacolor ones can be fantastic for many effects seen in real cars. Current F1 car floors are full of different CF patches.

[Shunter]

I put this on my blog many years ago. I’m sorry but I don’t know who the author is, please let me know if you do.
It’s a step by step with some great tips.
https://motorsportmodeller.blogspot.com ... -look.html

[goodyear]

Why not use water transfer printing or hydrographics
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_transfer_printing
I wonder if it is available for small scale modelling or anybody tried this before ?
https://youtu.be/-tXpsR04Dm0