Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

That's really neat. good design, good painting.

RTFB? Read The F***ing Boards?

Is the oil still wet? Did the oil thinner make the acrylic base coat sticky?

Depends on how thick it is. Oils can take weeks to dry, months to cure. But something sounds funny here. With just a thin oil wash, it shouldn't take that long to dry. I could see a day or two, but longer than that is unusual. What did you use for a base coat?

MM enamels are certainly better than their little brethren but they still smell the same and are long to cure. I have heard tho', of people thinning with MM enamels with lacquer thinner to speed the cure time and get them to lay thinner & smoother. That's what I do too. Lacquer thinner works re...

Best not to use vasaline. Salt weathering is a better idea- put your metallic base coat down, then spritz water on in spots, and dust on fine grained salt. Wait for that to dry, then apply a top color coat. When that dries, scrub the salt off, revealing the base coat, and scratching the top coat up ...

That looks fine man. Brass tube was a perfect solution.

Do you have hobby shops or model train shops in your area? If so, they will probably carry plastic stock in sheet, rod, and other shapes. Hopefully you can find some stock that will suit your needs, or something that can be easily cut and sanded to shape. Regular hobby shops are a good place to look...

You can use a sharp x-acto blade to poke holes in the bubbles, allowing the Solvaset to wick down under the decals.

Yeah, my usual order of operations, (after painting), is gloss coat, decals, gloss coat, paint chipping, pinwash, flat coat mixed with transparent oils, filters & drybrushing, more paint chipping, flat or satin coat, then any mud or oil streaks I might need.

Gloss coat it again after the wash. Actually you probably ought to put the decals on before any washes, but what's done is done.

That will look very cool when you get it painted. How do you plan on making to Red Bull logos?

Decal setting solution is mostly vinegar, so maybe something is growing in it. Mold or rot. Did you put a clearcoat on top of the decals once they dried?

A razor saw works in a lot of cases. Also the scribe-n-pop method works just as well for deconstruction as it does for cutting sheet styrene or resin.

Start with white primer. Do you use an airbrush or spraycans? In either case, Tamiya makes a great fine white primer, which sprays smooth and even right out of the can, or can be decanted and sprayed through an airbrush. It produces a smooth, very opaque finish. What to do next depends on what you'r...

I've wondered the same thing myself, and ran into the same trouble - What the heck is this porous media that people use for female buck vacuforming? You got me curious, so I googled "air porous plaster", and this is what it came up with: http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/porous-plaster.html ...

Well, hot, soapy water is worth a try, it might work, and it won't hurt the model to find out. Windex or Simple Green will probably work better, but might damage the paint, depending on what kind of paint you're using.

That's rubber cement. Might work, I've never tried it. The hot glue I use isn't from a hot glue gun. I got a hot glue pot from a craft store. It takes the same sticks, but melts them and keeps them warm and gooey in a little metal tray. Dip a toothpick or disposable paintbrush into it to apply the g...

Have you tried hot, soapy water? Windex? Simple Green?

scratchy wrote:The brand of Cyanoacrylate that I use.

That's Bob Smith CA. Hobby shops all over America, (and elsewhere, for all I know), buy the stuff, put their own label on it, and resell it. I've never figured out the story behind that.

I use hot glue. It doesn't get hot enough to damage the fiber, and remains flexible when cured.

What Steve said. Are these airfoil in cross section, or triangular, with flat sides?

Music wire is basically just guitar strings. Using drill bits for antennas is not a bad idea, I've just never heard of anyone doing it that way. It's probably more expensive, as a package of ten bits probably costs as much as a mile of wire, but it's only a few bucks in either case. PS: You want a H...

The real question is, why are you using drill bits as antennas, instead of music wire?

Drill bits are harder than just about anything you might use to cut wire with. They're designed to cut other metals, even the sort of metal your nippers are made of. Andrew has a good suggestion, the ablative silicon carbide disks that come with Dremel tools, (the ones that look like a black or dark...

I don't know about putting decal bonder on old decals. But when they stick to the backing paper, yes, you can just soak them a little longer. Try warm water, with a drop of dish soap in.

Enamels will thin just fine with hardware store paint thinner. As you get better, you might want to move up to Model Master thinner. It flows through the airbrush better, I have no idea why. It's also about sixteen times as expensive, but since you are only using an eyedropper at a time, it doesn't ...

Would a miter box help?

Didn't you already post this in the Star Wars forum?

Very impressive Karim. Your design work is outstanding.