1/12 pan wheel arches

[Dal]

Hi Folks

As a recent noob to 1/12th pan I have received my first painted body today.

Just need some help with how to cut the arches, specifically the rear arches.

On my 1/10th touring shells, I would line up the axels of the car with the wheel-arches and then make small pin sized incisions in the plastic where I would then later on use a compass cutter to stick the center pin into.

On my 12th bodyshell, the front wheel arches have masking tape at the center, so I'll be able to work out the alignment, I can also see the wheel arch mold line so I can follow it.

The rears though are completely solid in paint, I think im gonna have to mount he body and eyeball the rears, is there any other way to do this? I want nicely aligned wheel arches (rear). :)

Thanks in advance!

[john333]

mount the body and mark where the rear wheels are and scratch a bit of paint off roughly where the rear axle is? then do your stuff same as the front. must admit I could normally "see" the tyre through the paint, but it sounds like it may be thick paint!

[SlowOne]

I'd do what John suggests. Find where you want the body posts, drill them out, cut the shell to the lower lines (not above, against the Rules!), trim out the rear section and then compass-cut the front arches. Now you can see where to remove the paint so you can see through the to rear wheels. It helps if you put a dob of snowpake on the end of the axle (each side) to make it easier to see. HTH :)

[Dal]

Thanks guys, makes a lot of sense, will try it out!

[eyeayen]

Depending what it's painted with a small amount of neat screen wash will take off any water based paint, but risks running into the rest of your body and messing the job up.

If it's thinners based you could try a bit of thinners, on a cotton bud or something ? Once again risk of completely messing everything else up if you're not super careful !