Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

The wings I added to this demoness were from a vinyl craft-store figure. I primed them with Tamiya spray primer, and all seemed to be well; but I could not get the color coats (oil paints) to dry. I then mixed up some Milliput, and added water until I had a slurry. I applied about five coats of that...

I've built up rings around wire by cutting a strip of lead foil and wrapping it around the wire. Soak the whole thing with runny superglue after, touch up with a file. Works very well.

http://www.paragrafix.biz/product_detai ... m=PT-WPW-2 ??

I usually use Milliput White or Aves (white), but I have also had success with automotive two-part glazing putty (Evercoat), which sets up really really fast and wet-sands easily. It's most useful where you have to smooth a large surface; I apply it with a putty knife.

My experience with solvent-melted styrene has been poor. It seems to go on shrinking forever.

Hi guys, I need help. Im having a hard time getting the mating surfaces of two pieces of resin absolutely flat. Any tips? I usually go super slow sanding lightly and testfitting often. But for some reason this piece just refuses to play nice. Any tips I can try? Why make it flat? When I have two bi...

Or you could order it over the Internet:

http://www.bare-metal.com/bare-metal-foil.html

Brucebruce wrote:...My girlfriend will at least pretend to be wowed though!

Sounds like a keeper!

...I have lots of the thin wire that's coated in rubber/plastic...I think it's maybe bell wire? Say I had 5 of them for the positive line, would I just strip all five ends, twist them together then solder them to another bit of bell wire? So that, like you said, there would only be two wires coming...

Your picture looks right. You don't have to have a lot of wires coming out the bottom of your model; you can gather all the "plus" wires together inside the model and solder them to one larger wire, which would extend out the bottom of the model. Ditto for the "minus" wires. Two ...

An LED takes about 3.3 volts, so your proposed series wiring scheme wouldn't work; all six LEDs together would require 6*3.3 = 19.8 volts. But you can wire two LEDs in series; 2*3.3=6.6, which is less than your 9-volt battery. LEDs need to have resistors in series with them to limit the current to a...

Bare-Metal foil is the bee's knees for this sort of thing. Thin, shiny, self-adhesive.

Andrew Gorman wrote:A cut-off wheel on a Dremel makes guitar strings easy to cut, and just bend them to smaller radius than the final one you need.

If you heat guitar strings red-hot and let them cool slowly, the steel gets softer (annealed) and is much easier to work with.

Wow, what a project! Good luck!

I had something similar happen; the o-ring in the air valve was swollen, presumably by exposure to lacquer thinner.

I've used the hairspray technique pretty successfully. I used Tamiya spray gloss aluminum as the base coat; Tamiya spray paint, when dry, is very durable. Then a layer of hairspray, then an airbrushed coat of green enamel. Since I used enamel, and not acrylic, I had to do the scrubbing under warm wa...

Can you post a picture, or give a link to one? That'd make it easier to figure out how to do what you want.

I've come to prefer Tamiya masking tape. It has just the right amount of tack, and it's possible to get very crisp lines using it. Since it's expensive, I only use it for the edges, and then fill in the larger areas with ordinary blue painter's tape. It also helps to go around the edges of your mask...

Scale Coat paint remover is easy to use, and is about the only thing that will touch Tamiya spray paints (Purple Power won't).

Here, this is the stuff:

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Scalecoa ... -10568.htm

No. A rod will always be stiffer and stronger than a tube of the same diameter.

In your position, with a rod/tube 1/16 in diameter, I'd use solid rod. No appreciable cost difference, and a bit stiffer. And if I wanted it to be stiffer yet, I'd use steel instead of brass.

I realize that this maybe isn't what you wanted to hear, but why don't you try etching them yourself? MicroMark sells a home photoetching kit that works pretty well; I've used it to make bits for a French land ironclad and a nameplate for a Space Pirates model. Here's a thread on another site which ...

Yeah, some kind of burner face would be nice. Or maybe a rocket nozzle way up in there. You might be able to find some photoetched circular tank inlet grilles that'd look nice. I'd add several "layers" of stuff inside, to make individual bits less recognizable. I might also consider adding...

Kylwell wrote:...You can also use guitar strings...

If you heat them red-hot, then let them cool slowly, it anneals the steel, and they're easier to bend.

TazMan2000 wrote:Rocketeer's idea worked like a charm...

There's a first time for everything!

My record is a four-parter that I used to cast wooden chairs in 1/25th scale.

How about a light coating of thinned white glue? Ought to hold long enough to get the mold done.

lsufantc wrote:...Ordered some of that tape as well

Expensive, isn't it? I usually use the Tamiya tape to do the edges, then fill in the big areas with cheap hardware-store masking tape. I stick the hardware store tape to my pants leg first to reduce the stickiness a bit.

A good forum about show cars:

http://coffincorner.proboards.com/index.cgi

Always use a sanding block. If you just use your fingers, you get "waves" in the surface, or valleys. Always wet sand. Keeps the paper cleaner; clogged paper causes grooves and scratches. The wet surface also makes it easier to spot irregularities, especially waves. Probably not necessary ...

Just use yellows and oranges. Find a picture of real lava, squint at it a bit, and just copy the colors onto your model. The squinting helps you bring your right brain into play; it's better at this sort of thing. The left brain, usually dominant, is symbol-oriented. It sees the lava, says "Oka...