Bottle Drill Makes Painting Practice Real

One thing that has bugged me about painting RC racers was the inability to practice these outside-in paint jobs without ruining the clear Lexan body. Even with the use of decals, the backwards nature of the project can be confusing.

What’s needed is a cheap alternative.

It may not look much like the finished car, but what is actually needed is some type of clear, curved plastic sheet, about 1/10th scale—cheap and a lot of them. There are several designs I’d Like to try but it only works once. Cheap, disposable, round like a …. Bottle?

How about slicing a water bottle lengthwise and I’d have two car dummies. Sounds kind of lame but it’s cheap, round and disposable and we go through a lot of water bottles every week.

Also there is the idea of getting double duty (in some cases triple duty) out of two halves of a bottle. You can use it once to paint your "racer" from the inside out and you can use the same half to practice painting the outside.

Remember, that silly looking bear (left) will not compost, is not biodegradable and will not burn. He'll be with us a while.

To split the bottle, I want to try a DIY polystyrene foam cutter but I am a little nervous about the fumes the operation will likely give off….maybe outdoors on a windy day…

Now I just need a cutting jig that will move the hot wire through the bottle at about midpoint. This doesn’t need to be too exact, it’s only a dummy.

Once we come up with a few half-bottles it is time to get the coloring process underway.

Before you start splashing paint around you need to prepare your “model” by giving it a good washing to remove any surface oils and then make sure it is fully dried.

Now, decide how you're going to paint your bottle car. Are you going to paint it one color and then add decals? Are you going to paint it one color and add painted racing stripes? Are you going to paint it two or more colors? The colors and the designs are, of course, up to you. Try any design you like, experiment.

After all, this is practice. You want to try things you think will be too difficult and do the same design technique on five or ten bottle halves. The best practice drills are repetitive drills.