Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

I'd use resin and pour in a little at a time to avoid any heat that might warp the part. Maybe even drop some BB's or something along with the resin. Way cheaper than silicone, IMHO.

Major Focker wrote:will getting the chip from tea candle leds work?

That has worked for me a couple of times and it's easy-peasy and cheap.

Future? It works as a barrier coat between different paints, so it might work in this case.

You know how awesome a plain old off-the shelf Stratocaster can sound when played by someone who knows how to play it? And how utterly horrible the very same instrument can sound when a ham-handed goofball gets hold of it? It's the same with airbrushes. Stick with a major brand-- so you can get repl...

I've used black primer many times, but I prefer Duplicolor's black sandable primer. Some people use Krylon primer, but I think as a whole Krylon spray paints are too troublesome to use on models. Black primer with a light color coat is a common method for painting Vipers & X-Wings.

When using the acrylic craft paint, what is the best thing to clean the air brush with? Thanks! If you are cheap, plain water mixed with a little ammonia or windex. If you want to use a commercial product, Createx airbrush cleaner works well and is economical. Lacquer thinner works for dried paint,...

Did you do several coats to build up the thickness? If you only did one or two coats, it can be hard to get the mask to peel off the surface. You could try painting the mask over the area again and do several coats to build up a good thickness, then peel it off and it "should" pull off any...

Yikes. Masking fluid should come right off by just rolling it off with your finger. The alcohol might dull the paint a little, but you can polish it back to a shine. I'd try some warm water first before I tried alcohol, though. What brand of masking fluid is causing the problem?

I am interested in this subject also!

9V batteries don't have very much capacity, so I've always built my simple lighting projects around 4 AA-size batteries. Can you refit your power supply to use 6 AA or AAA batteries, or possibly a 9V wall wart?

If the paint is still liquid, it's still good. If the solvent has evaporated out of the enamel paint and it's dried out, it's probably toast. Sometimes if it's a little gooey, you can add some mineral spirits or turps or even lacquer thinner and mix the pigments back into a usable paint. On a simila...

I've only gotten FUD (frosted ultra detail) parts from Shapeways. In my opinion, the quality of this material is good but not great. It's a good compromise between cost and quality. When/if they ever give us a chance to specify the printing orientation, parts in FUD will be a great choice.

Salamander wrote:Thanks. Is Tamiya lacquer primer just their normal gray or white primer, or some special primer?

Their normal Surface Primer or Fine Surface Primer. Whatever you do, don't spray it with any enamel hobby paint or you'll be stripping it.

Your only real concern is a potential cure problem with the rubber. Platinum rubber is almost certain not to cure against your vinyl unless you seal it with something. Future and Tamiya lacquer primer will seal it. Tin-catalyzed rubber may or may not have a problem. After it's sealed, the molding pr...

It is true a single 2D image does not contain enough information to create a 3D model. But take an array of several 2D images of an object from different angles and you can turn that data into a 3D model.

Still sounds like you have air leaking around the head assembly. I've always used beeswax to seal the threads on the head assembly. Is it possible your new parts are not 100%? I have one of these generic airbrushes that I treat pretty badly and it works well. Will it spray plain water?

Airbushed acrylic post-shading or applied with a brush? Pastels and oils are generally used because they are easy to remove or blend away on a sealed surface. Acrylics usually don't have that quality for brush or sponge application-- they tend to dry too quickly. But if you're airbrushing the post-s...

No, don't use decal paper intended for inkjet printing in a laser printer. The coating will melt onto the fuser. There are specially-coated papers for use in Lasers & Alps printers and they are different than inkjet papers. It is possible you could get away with running it through a laser if the...

You can either undersize the white underlying decal or slightly oversize the color decal for the top layer; either way you are creating a "trap" to ensure the white edge is not visible. Adjusting or adding a stroke to the graphic image makes this process very simple. Papilio.com has some g...

FWIW, I print white backing decals with Alps all the time for some of my customers who use high-quality inkjet decals for the colors. Works very well. Depending on the complexity of the decal outlines, another option is to print them with inkjet on white decal paper and then contour-cut the individu...

The biggest car modeling forum on the web is http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/ Lots of good information and some very talented folks. Be forewarned, though; your typical model car-building guy is not the same type of sapien as your average science fiction modeler. There's also Scale Auto Magazine'...

Thanks a bunch fellas. I'll look those up. Anyone ever use enamels for the filter over acrylics? What's the advantage of oils here? The translucency and very slow drying time of oils make them ideal for this technique. If your base paint is enamel, it is very important to seal it against the minera...

Do a Google search for "dot filter technique" or "dot filter weathering" and you will get many hits from various modeling circles. I've used it with oil paints and it works very well.

I recently got a Silhouette Cameo and it is awesome.


That is all.

It should run on just about any voltage from 6 to 12 because all it looks like is a simple 555 circuit. Do you have a multimeter to test the adapters and see what their true outputs are?

What happens when you touch the adapter directly to the circuit's leads that you snipped, bypassing every potential problem in the breadboard?

Are you sure your adapter is working and that its connections to your breadboard are solid?

You could sand the LED to create a dull surface that will disperse the light around a little. You could also try putting some frosty clear plastic in front of the LED to diffuse the light. If the spot still looks too "hot", you could try finding another LED with a larger viewing angle.

Auto primer is perfect. As always, make sure all the model's surfaces are clean, dry, and free of any greases or oils.

bjblasko wrote:So is the advantage of the lacquer that it won't yellow?

That's one advantage. Another is that it dries much faster than enamel, which usually takes a week or more to fully dry.