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Don't do what I did way back in the mid-70's, when I used Testor's plastic cement all over the legs of the LEM to glue on the gold foil -- all the cement turned the legs into the consistency of Jello, such that they couldn't support the weight of the lander anymore! The kit was ruined... I would suggest a sparing amount of superglue.
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Oct 2, 2011 20:15
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Phi230 posted:I have the Revell A-7 Corsair I'm doing for the quarantine and there's like this air intake that's 2 pieces, and there's a bad seam line inside the air intake. What can I do to fill and sand this seam line that is in a pretty narrow area that can't really be reached? A bit late, but what I'd do is first paint the inside of the intake parts white, then glue them together, then get some of the Perfect Plastic Putty (the water soluble stuff) and thin it a bit with water. Get a pointed brush and dab the thinned-down putty into the seam. Wait until the stuff dries, and reapply more of the putty into the seam if necessary. Better too much than too little. Then, get a slightly damp q-tip and wipe it lightly down the seam to remove the excess. Ideally you get the putty perfectly flat, but even if there is a slight depression it should be quite a bit better. Then after everything is dry, shoot some more white paint down the intake along the seam to even out the color and specularity.
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Apr 2, 2020 04:43
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Phi230 posted:Would this work with vallejo putty? I kinda tried this and it didn't work out, I'll post new pics. I've never used Vallejo putty, so I don't know. Any putty can be thinned, but the concern is whether the thinner will melt the plastic, so you have to be careful using it clean up excessive putty when sanding is impossible. The Perfect putty is nice because it cleans up easily with water, but it is delicate unfortunately.
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Apr 4, 2020 20:19
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Frenz posted:When i tried doing this the consistency looked fine in the cup (i always go for skim milk like) but after a couple of minutes it started drying instantly and spraying hairy foam. Here's how I work with Tamiya primer. I'm not necessarily recommending it, but I have a bottle of both their gray and white primer (and I want to prime in white for something that needs to white in the end) along with the biggish bottle of Tamiya lacquer thinner, so I've committed myself to use it as long as I can make it work. And I've made it work for me... When I first started to use it, I was new to the idea of priming a model. Primer seems to generally be different "stuff" than the paint we're used to working with. The consistency is different -- the Tamiya primer is very thick and goopy in the bottle, the bottle is very different from their other bottles, and it requires different thinner. The other major Japanese brand (Mr. Surfacer) is the same way. At first, I had problems with a gritty finish on some surfaces, especially on areas where two surfaces met at a right angle (think airplane wing roots, underwing pylons, etc.) and I had instances of what I thought was dust flying around, and then I figured out that it was thin tendrils of dried paint coming off the airbrush. I don't have those problems generally any more, and can deal with it when it crops up. I am using an Iwata HP-CS plus, which is a detail airbrush, great for freehanding camouflage patterns, but not the best tool for applying primer. I have a Paasche VL from when I was a kid, but I've always hated that airbrush (sorry Dad) and it took the fun out of building models for many years. It has a broader spray than the Iwata, so would be better for applying a uniform coat over a large surface. Paul Budzik (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8rO4Ei610) recommends using a spray gun not an airbrush for applying primer, but I'm not ready to do that yet. Thinning: I thin at least 1:1 up to 3:2, thinner:paint. I am using Tamiya lacquer thinner, not hardware store lacquer thinner. I use the latter for cleaning up, but it seems too volatile for painting. Using an eyedropper, I put some number of drops of Tamiya lacquer thinner into a mixing dish (I use the Mr. Hobby paint dishes) and then transfer drops of the primer over into the dish using a metal rod (I use the butt-end of the reamer from the aforementioned Paasche VL). If I put 10 drops of thinner into the dish, I'll add maybe 8 drops of primer. I mix that all up with the rod, then decant it into the airbrush. Then I put the cup cover onto the color cup to try to manage evaporation. I don't know if it is necessary, but it can't hurt. Then I settle down to prime -- my feeling is that evaporation is my enemy here, so I want to be painting as continuously as possible, making the most efficient use of my time and to keep down the amount of paint that might accumulate at the tip and lead to big drops and spider webbing. If I stop spraying for any reason, immediately before starting again, I'll shoot a big blast at my drop cloth to blow off any junk on the tip. Because of the thinning, I usually run out of primer sooner than expected. In a painting session, I might load up the airbrush once or twice more to keep going. More than that, however, and I get worried about dried up primer clogging up the tip, so I will want to clean the airbrush and stop for a while. Also, the fumes. I clean with hardware store lacquer thinner (oh god more fumes), so after that I usually want to do something else. While applying the primer, I keep the airbrush pretty close to the model, maybe three inches maximum, but as close as possible to keep it in a happy zone of not-too-wet and not-too-dry. If your light and vision is good enough, you'd like to see a slight sheen to the paint as it goes down and then to see that sheen disappear quickly. The paint should go on "wet" but not dripping wet. Also, my air pressure is at my usual 12 psi. Given this airbrush and its fine tip, the closeness of the brush to the model, and the fact that I have to hold the model somehow while priming I already know that I will have to spend a few sessions to completely prime a model, so it can be a few days of work. The spray gun starts to look appealing at this point. In between sessions, I can examine the model and look for any spider webs, or gritty surfaces, or dust somehow trapped under a thin coat of paint. The paint will dry pretty quickly, so it can be handled not long after painting. The grit comes from the airbrush being too far away from the surface, and the webs come from the airbrush being way too far away from the surface, and is usually overshoot -- I am painting a surface close to the brush, but some surface farther away gets the tendrils. Also, I think it comes from junk accumulating on the tip. The grit is managed at application time by getting the brush close enough to the surface, and maintaining as constant a distance as possible. The webs are managed by watching for overspray and occasionally blowing off any junk on the tip. Once these things are on the model, sometimes a soft art brush can clean up some of the grit away. Either way, some light work with a sanding sponge will smooth everything out and is recommended. So this may seem to be a big pain in the rear end, but primer is a different type of paint -- it needs to be very opaque, it needs to adhere to the surface more strongly then regular paint, it needs to be sandable and polishable, and it needs to fill and smooth out fine imperfections. Regular paint will do those things to varying degrees, but primer does it best. In order to do those things, I expect that it needs to be quite different in its makeup, and thus require different handling. That's my rationalization, anyway. Also, I'm retired now, so I don't mind spending extra time to get better at techniques. Finally, gently caress Lowtax.
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Jun 25, 2020 19:59
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SkunkDuster posted:Yup, this is exactly how I do it. If you are going the paint before glue route, you're going to want to use CA glue (superglue) to glue the parts together as regular model cement doesn't work on painted parts. I like the Bob Smith gel glue in the pink bottle for stuff like this. It's not necessary to use CA glue in this situation, a glue like Tamiya extra-thin will dissolve many paints, but either way, the usual idea is to carefully scrape the paint away from the mating surfaces and then apply the cement.
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Jul 7, 2021 19:44
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Booyah- posted:I'm working on my first model plane kit. I'm much more used to the easy mode gundam and games workshop kits but I'm hoping to airbrush this one and do some weathering with oils. What I would probably do with this one is start off with a painting session before doing any assembly -- paint the seat cushion its color; do the seat frame, top piece, and joy stick their color, then do the instrument panel, cockpit tub, and fuselage interior their color. Then do brush painting of the harness and buckle and instrument panel. Then assemble the seat and apply the decals after an application of gloss coat where the two decals go. Then apply the decals to the instrument panel (after gloss coat). Then dry brush the instrument panel to pick out knobs and details, etc. Then the side panel decals. Then assemble all the rest of the pieces. This would be a few days of work, giving time for paint and gloss coat and decals to dry in between steps. In the mean time, you can work ahead looking at test fitting various parts to see how well they fit together, sanding down the mating surfaces of fuselage halves to get rid of ejector pin marks, doing the same for fuel tanks and gluing those together, etc. The biggest challenge of these sorts of kits is working through the instructions and figuring out all the stuff they don't tell you. They don't tell you partly because it would be an enormous amount of work to tell you absolutely everything you need to do, but mostly because having it all laid out would take the fun out of it. (But also there is no "right" way.)
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Jul 7, 2021 20:06
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Vorenus posted:Also please ignore the overspray where I did the chevron, we're not gonna talk about it because it's going to remind me of decals. The rest of the finish looks good enough that the overspray looks plausibly intentional, so just call it a happy accident!
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Jul 16, 2021 15:46
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Smoke posted:I built me a Viper. Cool stuff. What did you do better this time than the previous model? What have you figured out to do better on the next model?
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Sep 3, 2021 20:09
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the paradigm shift posted:glad to hear I'm probably just overthinking it. I'll probably get everything else together over the next month and hopefully by the new year I'll have stuff to post. thanks again I think you're overthinking it -- buy a simple kit of a subject you like, and follow their paint color recommendations. Every model you build will be imperfect in some way, so learn from it and move on. Color mixing might be common for the elite modelers out there, but for those of us in the rank and file, we either just buy what the kit instructions recommend or follow online references. E.g., a Spitfire kit might call out dark earth and dark green, and many paint manufacturers will have those colors. Tamiya paints are the line that while easy to work with, are the most limited in color selection, but there are plenty of online references that tell you what the closest match would be or a simple formula to create something close. Also, I got the impression that while some folks paint Gundam kits, they are meant to be perfectly presentable without painting, and in fact painting might interfere with the fit and movement of the joints, so maybe not something for a beginner to start with.
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Oct 31, 2021 20:00
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Try using Tamiya tape, burnishing it down on top of the remaining adhesive and then peeling it up slowly to see if the adhesive would rather stick to the tape's adhesive than the clear plastic.
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Nov 9, 2021 03:15
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Something involving Rainbow Dash so we can finally understand the struggle of the Wehrmacht soldier.
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Dec 26, 2021 17:11
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Disgruntled Bovine posted:Sorry, when I said I had trouble getting consistent paint flow I meant I have difficulty applying the same amount of paint flow repeatably with a double action brush. I can't quickly stop and restart paint flow repeatably at the same rate. Instead of seating the needle fully forward before locking it down (and then having to pull back to get paint flow), can you pull it back a bit and then lock it down? That way you'll get paint flow as soon as you press the trigger.
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Dec 31, 2021 06:49
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tidal wave emulator posted:I've found for non-structural detail parts post-painting, and photo-etch etc I have mostly moved away from using CA and now use strong PVA like Ammo Mig's Ultra Glue. You get a lot more work-time than CA, it dries more flexibly and less brittle than CA and of course you don't run the risk of the CA 'blooming' and leaving a nasty white frost on your finished surface. This stuff seems to be impossible to find in the US :-(
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Dec 31, 2021 17:31
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grassy gnoll posted:Mod Podge will dry clear and pretty dang strong. If you want to go fancy, you can also get undiluted PVA from bookbinder and archival suppliers for cheap, and it's the same stuff as the AK glue. Good to know, thanks.
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Dec 31, 2021 18:57
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Bloody Hedgehog posted:They occasionally have a genuinely great model kit, but they're always surrounded by a sea of garbage. It's like they have one decent designer in the company, and when he starts a new kit design it's gangbusters. Everything else though is seemingly designed by boneheads with little care for the subject matter or attention to detail. And as has been mentioned before, they also have a trove of molds from Monogram, which was the only game in town (in the US anyway) for 1/48 scale military aircraft through the '60s and '70s, so if you bought this kit in 2011:  you were buying a version of this kit that I built in 1973:  but which appears to date back to 1959 if you believe ScaleMates.
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Feb 20, 2022 17:15
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lol at that review: "Patético"
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Feb 21, 2022 20:34
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from PYF:
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Mar 11, 2022 19:16
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Eduard sells photoetch for 1/72 Hasegawa, so that suggests it is popular anyway: https://www.eduard.com/index.php?la...%5B17%5D=1%2F72
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Mar 21, 2022 16:00
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For rolling photoetch, I use a drill bit (or a pin or a large needle that I have lying around) and a white polymer eraser as a base. If the curve is more than a (very) gentle arc, I will anneal the photoetch first. For cutting, I use a curved scalpel on a piece of clear plastic bought from our local Tap Plastics scrap bin.
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Mar 23, 2022 16:43
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Vorenus posted:Thanks! I'm a bit nervous to try that because the new one is working so well. The trigger action is so much smoother. I had replaced the nozzle and packing screw on the old one, deep cleaned everything, adjusted the packing screw back and forth. I think I posted a bit about it, but it was very fiddly avoiding bubbles in the cup when pushing air but no paint with a finger over the "muzzle". I also had replaced the forward O-ring so I'm thinking the nozzle is having issues seating snugly to the body - further supported by a bit of chapstick between the two helping. What do you mean by "muzzle"? The tip? If you cover the tip, press the trigger to start air, and pull back, the air will go back into the paint reservoir because it has nowhere else to go. People do this intentionally sometimes to mix their paints in the color cup. Vorenus posted:I did also notice that the new airbrush gave me some spotty grey primer laydown - idk the exact term, but when you basically have a visible, ugly buildup of wet paint on a part but the coverage is so uneven and poor you can still see through the coat. I'm running Stynylrez and vallejo air at 2-25 psi with a .35mm, so my core problem probably exists between the airbrush and the chair I'm sitting on, and I need to work on my airbrushing. There are some folks out there who are able to work with Vallejo paints OK, but I'm definitely not one of them -- my suggestion would be to try different paints if you're trying to figure out airbrushing, but you need to be willing to cross the stink-divide and work with solvents. Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner works ridiculously well as a primer, for example.
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Mar 30, 2022 15:57
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Vorenus posted:You can do it without pulling back, like I said air but no paint. It's a good way to check for obstructions. If I got air in the paint cup after blocking the tip and triggering air (but not pulling back for paint) I would assume that the needle is not seating properly in the nozzle, and thus offering a path for the air to travel back to the color cup.
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Mar 30, 2022 19:48
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Gewehr 43 posted:Have you ever stared at a word so long that it begins to lose its meaning? I'm 1/10th of the way through decals on the F-14 and "no step" has reached that point for me. This is the Tamiya kit, right? Are you using any sort of setting solutions to work with their decals?
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Aug 8, 2022 15:16
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I use the Xurons I first bought for hacking up old sprues before putting them in the trash. I upgraded to Tamiya 74123 cutters and they are quite good. At some point I splashed out for Godhands because you always need more tools, right? They are nice, but I could get by without them. Now I cut parts of the sprue using the Tamiya cutters far away from the part, basically at the sprue end of the gate. Then I use the Godhands nippers to get the nibs off, close to but not completely flush to the part. I still sometimes get little divots next the gate location, but I don't know if that is because of the cutting action or because there is a little bit of plastic sinkage at that location from when the hot sprue is ejected from the mold. I'll use a razor saw to take clear parts off their sprue because I'm afraid of them shattering. If the kit engineering puts a sprue nib someplace that will be hidden, I'll leave it on to be something for my alligator clip sticks to grab onto for painting. (If there isn't a mating tab or pin that can be used.) Then clean it off after painting.
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Oct 28, 2022 00:52
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PriorMarcus posted:I've tried searching for them but I'm not turning up any results. What are the little nub hoovers called that people have to tidy up their desk? I believe they themselves are a model kit? Search for "desktop vacuum" or "mini vacuum"? Amazon has a ton of these from such well-known brands as ASKLMO and IUJJRE and CVBHUUO.
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Nov 2, 2022 00:19
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Gundam-building people do that all the time, they tend to refer to it as top-coating rather than varnishing. Search around for guides on decaling gundams and many/most of them will talk about top-coating.
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Jan 11, 2023 17:21
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SkunkDuster posted:I'm trying to make a display for guitar picks that will go in an 8x11" frame, so essentially it will be a bunch of guitar pick shaped holes in the polystyrene to hold the guitar picks in place. Since there are no straight lines or scores to the edge of the sheet, I'm not sure how easy they will pop out after scoring, but polystyrene is cheap, so I'll give it a try. Thanks! Don't want to derail your vision, but a shadow box type of display would be a cool way to show off guitar picks and would eliminate the need for the polystyrene framing.
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Feb 9, 2023 20:41
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Yeah, I was just thinking of glue (of some sort) onto mat board, but it depends on how reversible you want the mounting to be. Archival double-stick mounting tape probably wouldn't damage the picks. I'm viewing this as a permanent sort of display, though, not a storage place for picks that someone would be using regularly, since picks are things you use and throw away when they get worn out...
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Feb 11, 2023 17:25
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Southern Heel posted:Speaking of equipment: does anybody outside of the “YouTube modelling community” use, either black or flexible superglue? I've started to use the VMS black "flexy" superglue for photoetch and small parts like pitot tubes and places like landing gear joints where I would like some more strength. I'm finishing up Eduard's F4F-4 Wildcat and the landing gear is delicate and finicky, so I've flowed in some of the VMS superglue into key joints to hopefully shore things up a bit. Ejector pin marks are where people recommend using this type of glue to fill because it is more readily sandable than straight superglue without being much harder than the surrounding plastic, but I haven't tried that yet.
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Mar 24, 2023 12:10
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Dr. VooDoo posted:Another dumb newbie question, sorry. I have the Tamiya acrylics for airbrushing but will they be okay for the small details that absolutely require a brush or for dry brushing? I looked online and from searching everyone says you can't do brushing with them and I'm wondering if that applies to any brush work or just using them for large brush work like base coating? Echoing the comment that Tamiya acrylics dry very quickly, but they sell a product they call "Paint Retarder (Acrylic)" that slows the drying time nicely.
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Apr 4, 2023 15:37
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Dr. VooDoo posted:I’m building my model in pieces and I have noticed that there is lips sometimes between the pieces when they join People usually call those "mold seams" and there are all sorts of tools and techniques for cleaning them up. Often these will be scraped and sanded down rather than trying to re-sculpt a smooth contour using putty.
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Apr 6, 2023 15:57
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The first few times working with PE are definitely a learning experience. As for how to paint cockpits, the short answer is you do it however gets the results you like within a time span you can tolerate. I like how it turns out when I paint pieces separately and then assemble. If there is a separate blue oxygen bottle with silver straps, I can spray the whole thing a gloss blue, then mask off the tank and spray the straps, then hand paint the valve and knob. Then glue it in. It takes a while to go through all that but I like the result, and well, it's a hobby. Those Infini cutting mat things for cutting thin strips of masking tape are super useful. Infini Easy Cutting Type A, e.g.
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Apr 25, 2023 15:51
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therunningman posted:Trying to do my first photo-etch on the Tamiya Challenger 1 and I removed the plastic that gets replaced before prepping the photo-etch. 1) order the photo-etch to get a replacement for what you screwed up 2) scratch build! 3) "battle damage"
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Apr 25, 2023 20:22
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....and now what?
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McNally posted:Anyway, I'm trying to get back into it now. With the demise of Testors Model Master acrylics I'm gonna need pointers on new paints. I got an airbrush for Christmas a couple years ago and I'm looking forward to giving that a go as well. I was in a similar situation a bunch of years ago when it was clear that Model Master paints were no longer a viable option. The closest hobby shop had Tamiya paints, so I tried them out and still really like them (especially with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner), but don't like that the color selection is so limited. Mixing paints for small items is not a big deal, but mixing a largish amount of paint for the fuselage of a 1/48 scale airplane is not really what I want to do, so I tried Vallejo Air paints next. I liked their color selection and the squeeze bottles are handy, but having the paint be constantly dry on the tip of the airbrush and constantly fiddling with adding thinner and flow improver and blowing out the nozzle quickly became a pain in the rear end for me. The paint is quite fragile as well, requiring a primer coat to stick to. So I next tried Mr. Color and have stuck with that since.
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May 22, 2023 17:53
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Zoukei-Mura are top-notch as well. I have enjoyed building every Eduard kit I've built, with the possible exception of their 1/48 bf-110 and its awful engine nacelles. Their instructions and paint call-outs are great. Every model that I've built and said "Wow, that's awesome" has been an Eduard 1/48 WWII subject. My sense of the Chinese manufacturers is that their tooling and engineering is generally pretty good, although their research might be occasionally faulty -- people complain about profiles and shapes being wrong. Their instructions, however, range from not good to awful. You will need to "model" -- test fit, look for parts being held off from where they're supposed to be and either remove or add material to get things to fit properly without ridiculous clamping force. Be prepared to stop and take a walk around the block so you can figure out how to get the drat thing together. I've tried Hobby Boss' A-6A Intruder and am currently on Kinetic's F/A-18C, and they are work. MyronMulch fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Jun 23, 2023 |
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Jun 23, 2023 16:22
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Modern Airfix has been good, too.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:23
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moparacker posted:Thanks everyone for their info about working area stuff (cutting mats and storage). I like the idea of little bin things for holding subassemblies. Really like that decal bath thing! I use those little circular plastic takeout sauce containers for holding cleaned up parts and assemblies. I have some of them marked "left" and "right" and "top" and "bottom".
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Jul 13, 2023 15:57
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This series of videos might be interesting for those new or returning to the hobby: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4khtUfadv0ES4DGMAZLFZCOo4ox9aCRK I haven't watched them, but have watched loads of this dude's other videos where he goes over the same stuff while progressing through builds, and his advice is generally solid.
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Jul 22, 2023 22:44
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The Scalemates page for at least one of the Dauntless kits has a link to the kit instructions which give Gunze-Sangyo paint callouts, so check out the page for the kit you decide on. (Note you might have to use Aqueous Color for some where there was no Mr. Color equivalent, but they are perfectly good paints as well and thin perfectly with old faithful Mr Color Leveling Thinner.)
MyronMulch fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jul 24, 2023 |
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Jul 24, 2023 15:51
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Less aggressive options that still work for the wipe-away-excess-filler technique are isopropyl alcohol and old-faithful Mr. Color Leveling Thinner. That is, for the solvent-based fillers like Tamiya putty and Mr. Surfacer. There are water-based fillers out there, but they are really soft.
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Aug 15, 2023 15:38
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Charliegrs posted:It's time for me to paint the machine guns on my Abrams model. A M2 and a M240. The manual says I should use gunmetal for them. I've used that before and it just doesn't look right to me. Every pic I've ever seen of these guns they look almost totally black. However if I painted them in flat black I think that wouldn't look quite right either. I was thinking maybe if I mixed some Tamiya gunmetal and smoke together maybe that would darken it enough but also still make it look like metal? Anyone have any other ideas? For gun metal I always use Gunze Mr. Metal Color 214 Dark Iron -- you are supposed to be able to brush it, but I always use an airbrush. After it is dry, buff it gently with a cotton swab until it looks good. This stuff will clog up a double-action airbrush, so I always lock the needle back a mm or two so that the pigment comes out immediately when pressing the trigger, so it takes a bit of care -- no practice air-only sprays, just gun the stuff out. And then clean the airbrush well. Either way you apply it, first stir it up and mix it really well. A big pain to use, but it really looks nice.
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Oct 7, 2023 16:33
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