Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Welds are pretty easy with some kind of putty, like Milliput or Mighty Putty. The technique can be seen here...

You basically just lay an uneven strip down and then stipple it with a shaped piece of sprue or toothpick.

-Rog

This is probably too late, but I just came across this, which is an example of what good panel shading looks like. You can see how varied it is, so it gives the feel of real weathering.

-Rog

marcus0311 wrote:those clamps that look like scissors.

I believe those are called hemostats, which can usually be gotten through medical supply stores and websites. You know, if you don't want to cut yourself to get them for free.

-Rog

I've used them a lot in building wargaming scenery. It seems like superglue always worked for me, although I would suggest giving it a good cleaning and then a light sanding to rough up the surface that you're gluing. I've also used hot glue, but that's usually not very pretty if it's a visible join...

Ditto on the Duplicolor.

If you use Castrol Super Clean, um...

WEAR GLOVES!!!

Mostly because it can "super clean" your skin right down to the bone if you let it...



-Rog

No, you'll definitely want a two-part epoxy putty. That stuff shrinks and cracks if you use it in large amounts...

-Rog

...mis-aligned mold seams. I couldn't possibly care less about flash. Yeah, it's some additional step that I have to take, but if I didn't like the building process I wouldn't build models in the first place... But misaligned seams are pretty annoying, especially when it occurrs where a panel line ...

The first thing that I thought of was heat-stretching clear sprue...

-Rog

redfinger wrote:I have been using warm to hot water to warm cans up for years, it is harmless. I first started doing it when at my first job in a auto body shop...

Hey, me too!

I also used the method when I was doing custom guitars even when it wasn't cold because lacquer can be a bear to spray on...

-Rog

Well, I guess we'll have to wait until the contest ends and see what he or she really meant.

It'll go something like...

If Water joke: Fail.

If Hydrogen peroxide: input WTF?

-Rog

I'm going to be irritated if it was some cute way of saying "water", since that would be dihydrogen oxide (or monoxide)... I was trying to figure out what hydrogen peroxide would do. Obviously it would fizz but also oxygenate the paint, which would...well, that's all the farther I got. If ...

In one of the new entries in the BSG contest (the Ovion Warrior), says: The Ovion Warrior was airbrushed with craft-store acrylics thinned with Future Floor Polish, Windex and hydrogen dioxide. I definitely get the Future, somewhat get the Windex, but haven't heard of using hydrogen dioxide, which c...

Like I said, it's hard to tell from the picture, and from just one angle, but that's what it looks like to me. Personally, the way they did it looks little too much like they were trying to make it appear that each panel is almost concave, which is kind of weird looking... So I would probably do it ...

It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but it looks like they probably just masked around the edge of the panel and then either airbrushed or drybrushed away from that, which is really simple to do.

I could be wrong though.

-Rog

I fourth the hot water bath method.

I also got in the habit of removing the tips from empty cans and soaking them in thinner for awhile to clean them out. That way I know I always have a spare one that's not going to spit.

-Rog

I just thought I'd share one of my secrets... I recently discovered the Texas Instruments site . That might not sound like anything profound, but if you go under Samples they'll send you electronic parts for free. This is especially useful when you need, say, an LED driver or microcontroller that on...