Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

That, my friend, it the best part! "Prime" your surface, ANY surface (metal, plastic, resin, brass, paper, cloth, whatever) with one of their Base coats (dark base, white base, clear base, or aluminum base) and you are set! Spray a color, flash it over with air - takes all of about 15 to 2...

I don't see why not. They're used in automotive paint shops with urethane clear over them all the time. I use lacquer clear coats over them without any problem. The one "No-No" is that you can't mix the AutoAir with the AutoBourne paints. They're fine layered one over the other, but the Au...

It is designed as a low VOC aqueous automotive paint. You can spray it with with a gun and paint the entire car, or use an airbrush and create some stunning murals and artwork. However, due to it's Super Fine pigment, it is PERFECT for modeling and illustration work. I've only worked on models with ...

OK, so if you've read any of my posts sighting the wonderous praises of Createx's new AutoAir and AutoBorne acrylic airbrush paints, then you know I'm pretty fond of the stuff. But it can be pretty hard to find - until NOW. I was in A.C. Moore this morning (big chain art supply store here in the U.S...

Welcome to the fun house! Sounds like you're off to an ambitious start! I've always thought that super detailing a pinball machine would be a lot of fun, but a HUGE challenge because of the needed durability of the component models and such. Keep us posted. The Borg cube sounds particularly challeng...

I KID! I KID!

Don't take me too seriously!

Actually, that's really dang impressive!

Yeah, it's cool, but it 70 hours. I could have done the same thing in the studio in like, 1/125th of a second

It depends on your experience level, and how much effort you're willing to put into the project. I was at an IPMS Regional contest a couple of years ago, and there was a guy there who tore apart old watches and used the gears to build FUNCTIONAL windows and window cranks in 1/24th scale cars. So, Ye...

I've never heard of back flushing harming anything. The air has to go somewhere, and the easiest path for it to travel is back through the feed port into your paint cup - taking all of the crud with it. Shouldn't be a problem - unless the seal is already cracked and leaking. Removing the needle to p...

As a beginner, I'd suggest you get familiar with your brush BEFORE you start working with plastic. Also, Lighting and airbrushing are two very different skill sets, and I'd take learning them one at a time if I were you. Get comfortable with the airbrush, and then tackle lighting. Just a suggestion....

Ahhhh, the Partially Submerged X-Wing in the Swamp.... For it to be well submerged as it appeared right after Luke "landed", the dio is going to be pretty deep. Or you will need to shave off the lower section of the ship and have it disappearing into the murk. Either way, you can go to the...

How about this?
http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/ms_wash.htm

Which Aztec are we talking about? The plastic bodied one pretty much stinks. It's too light in your hand, and just doesn't feel right. I've been using the Chrome body for the past couple of years as my principle model/hobby brush, and I like it quite a lot. The wide selection of heads, including a &...

Yep. I use flat Tamiya acrylic paints for all of my color work, and then finish off with the appropriate sheen clear lacquer.

I've seen it done, but it is very tricky to set up and get working properly - especially if you want to be able to remove the ship from the base for transporting, examining, zooming around the room, etc. Probably your best bet would be to use power pick-up brushes from an old slot car model - two li...

Go take a look at a motorcycle's stainless steel exhaust. When it gets super hot, it turns a blue/purple - especially around the exhaust tips. Paint the part silver, or aluminum, or whatever your base metal color of choice, and then spray a LIGHT coat of transparent blue followed by an even lighter ...

I've used architect's compass' with two pin tips for this. Make several light passes to get a groove going, and then you can use your favorite scribing tool to deepen and widen the gap as needed.

Yep. I try to think about "scale" paint effects too. 80 grit would be like rubbing the surface of the ship with boulders. Typically, I start at around 400 grit, and finish at 2000 - just a little coarser than notebook paper. :D You can get variety packs that fine in any automotive supply s...

CA or "super glues" work well in these instances. The cement holds well, and if something breaks apart, it will usually take the paint off with it.

Stay away from the clear parts - those will get fogged by the vapors.

When I putty, I use a small painter's pallet knife as a mini-putty knife and get the putty as smooth as I can BEFORE I start sanding. I used to have the same problem when I would use my finger to more or less "glob" the putty onto the seam and try to sand everything smooth. Get it as smoot...

Just based on my limited experience with a couple of different decal papers, including the Testors Ink-jet, I'm going to go with a reaction with the Krylon clear coat. Testors makes their own decal sealer, and I don't know what the difference is, but it does lay differently on their paper as opposed...

All of the ComArt and Golden Airbrush paints come with BB rattle-balls in the bottles. I too have thought about adding them to other jars, the Tamiya metallic paints would probably be very useful.

Welcime Aboard! 1. Change your avatar size. da' Rules say you can only have an 80x80 max. 2. When that kit was released, it included several "grain of wheat" light bulbs, not LEDs. If you stick with some basic lighting, and don't worry about flashing circuits, etc. you can do quite a bit w...

Alright, so now I have my decal paper... Does anybody have an approximate CMYK or Pantone values for getting my decal work CLOSE to various Tamiya Paints. In particular, I'm looking for Tamiya X-15 Light Green, X-14 Sky Blue, and x-6 Orange. I figure I can get it pretty close by eyeballing it on my ...

Buy smaller bottles of CA.

Alcohol works pretty well for Epoxy, but I don't think it does anything for CA.

I've said it before, you can't go wrong with an Iwata :D I'd probably go with the 3.5mm needle to get you a finer line than the 5mm will allow. General coverage won't be a problem, just pull the brush away from the model a little further, and add a little more pressure. It will give you a very smoot...

Dad and I went to see the new movie not long after we had been working on the lights for my Defiant model. THAT was one of the FIRST things he mentioned during the film.

"Ah-HA, and you thought you had the lighting all figured out didn't ya..."
Good Times

Total BUMP.

I've been working on this one, but have had a couple other projects (including one of the IPMS Journal) trump my building time as of late. More progress photos coming soon!!

The other big trick it it can't give off toxic fumes when burned. Which leaves out vinyl as it tends to out gas chlorine compounds when burned. That just piqued my interest... you're doing WHAT with your tape? Seriously though, there was a thread a few months back about a "knock-off" pain...

NO! Most of your hobby F.O. is plastic, solvent cement melts it, CA makes it brittle and crack off easily, and hot melt glue isn't good either. Use good ol' white glue.

have fun!