Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

First thing is to make sure that you have the "wet or dry" kind of sandpaper. It should say this on the package. I go with the recommendations that others have echoed on brands -- all have worked well for me. As far as how wet, I just take the sanding film and immerse it in water. When you...

If you brush it on, is it 'self leveling'? or will it really show brush strokes? I don't know about the Surfacecer 1000, but the 500 grade is not self-leveling. It kinda piles on and leaves strokes. What you need to do is let it cure (treat it as if it were putty) then sand it. To me this stuff is ...

Another note on sanding... When using Squadron Green Putty or any kind of putty for that matter, I get putty pits. This even happens when I thin the stuff. I use the putty as a 'base coat' just to fill the area that I want to sand. After allowing the putty to cure, I then use a thick coat of Mr. Sur...

Sometimes washing the parts in warm soapy water will help. I know this probably won't help now. I had problems with paint adhesion and found out later that this was due to the mold release that is still on the plastic. Don't know if this is the case with the 1/100th shuttle. By the way, I have one o...

ok but what do you do if you're dealiing with really thin wings? This, I did just last week. I had the upper part of the wing which was essentially a .08 thick piece of styrene. What I did was roll the leading edge (which at that point was square) over a piece of sandpaper. You basically drag the p...

I always find it helpful to use sanding film wrapped around a block of wood or plastic (anything with a smooth and hard surface) . It makes the job much easier.

Darkov wrote:"But the Pool was Cold......."



Sorry Couldn't resist

Is that you, Costanza?

I'm building wings for a spacecraft -- I'm making these out of styrene. I'm dithering on whether to use styrene sanded to shape or A + B Putty to make the leading edges.

Any ideas?

To keep the resin from heating up too much, mix slightly less catalyst (hardener) to it. I don't have a chart or anything, but the heat "bottled up" inside a larger, thicker part will be more than enough to cure it, so why use more catalyst than needed? A little less hardener will let big...

When doing resin casting, how do you avoid/minimize shrinkage?

This looks like more putty than rubber. Looks convenient enough, but was wondering if anyone had used it.

Silicone Putty (MicroMark)

Use a thickening agent to make the silicone brushable, start with a super thin coat then use thicker coats to get it about 1/2" thick. Then cover it with a plaster jacket reinforced with burlap strips, making sure to key the silicone before covering the rubber with plaster. That saves on rubbe...

I'm dithering with the possibility of using plaster instead of RTV rubber for making a rather large mold (13in by 8in). I've had success with RTV, but the cost of the stuff gives me pause. Has anyone had experience with using plaster? Aside from having to use mold release, are there any extra precau...

Has anyone used AutoCad for doing desingwork to be used for a scratchbuilding project? I found it extremely valuable. Basically AutoCad is a computer aided design tool that lets you draw stuff out on the computer. I can't draw worth a darn and this helps --especially with getting measurements down. ...

Ken Duffey scratchbuilt a 1/72 A-90 Orlyonok Ekranoplan. The step by step pictures on his page are very informative. He used small plastic strips in between the bulkheads to form the ship's skin, then filled the gaps with epoxy putty and sanded everything smooth. He has more pictures here Frank Fra...

Thanks This helps me a lot.

There was an Italian scratchbuilder (Massimo Barbieri) who built some awesome 1/24th scale WWII fighters using the plank on frame technique (lengthwise using strips)

I've always wanted to try this -- and now I'm going to give it a go

I'm a fan of the plank on frame technique of styrene construction. This is good for approximating compound curves so that little sanding is needed to get a smooth shape. There are two ways that I have seen. One is where the styrene skin is fitted 'up and down' between two adjacent styrene bulkheads....

Mr. Badwrench wrote:even putting the blade between the pages of a book.

Now why didn't I think of that?? The book idea is excellent!

Thanks

Use several pieces of styrene that have different diameter holes -- put these onto the cone as a guide and scribe around the styrene. The only challenge here is making sure that the styrene template is parallel to the base of the cone while scribing. You might have to do some guesswork in making the...

I've heard a lot about slush casting but have had limited results in doing it. Basically it involves pouring a small amout of resin in a mold and slushing it around until there is a fine coat of resin on the surface of the mold. Subsequent layers of resin are added for thickness. I sometimes wind up...

Has anybody used Alumilite? I'm curious about how good it is. I've used Kwik-Cast from TAP plastics... the stuff smells like cheap wine but otherwise I have had good results. You have about a 3 minute working time before it starts to harden. Shrinkage is a bit of a problem though, but using microbal...

I was trying to use a #80 drill bit in my dremel to make holes for fiber optics in a Republic Star Destroyer. But the bit would quickly get hot an just melt to plastic even on the slowest speed. I started looking in to getting a Dremel speed controller and found that they are a bit expensive. I cam...

I'm using sheet styrene to skin a styrene frame -- the frame has curved cross sections and the skin will fit over each curved bulkhead. I want to laminate each skinned piece. I plan on starting with .010 using super glue to attach it to the frame, then skin over it with .020 or .030. This way I can ...

Has anyone tried cutting sheet styrene using a variable speed drill and a saw blade from a dremel tool? I tried this on a piece I made (Laminated styrene). It worked, but was very rough. In retrospect I should have cut each piece to shape before laminating the damn thing. I used a saw blade by the ...