Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

If you want practice one, Michaels sells this: Memory Keepers Vacuum Former . The bed is 5.5 by 5.5 inches, so not super huge. Fine if you're making canopies or smaller pieces. It's $142 through Michaels, or $88 through Amazon. It comes with four sheets of plastic, but the replacement sheets are rea...

And you should probably wipe it with alcohol to take off any remaining adhesive. Get it back to a smooth pristine surface.

Funny thing is, the filming model was covered in bare metal and aluminum foil! Adam Savage did an ep from his youtube series where he looked at the model. They covered it with the foil, found it was a little too shiny for the filming work, and then dulled it down just a little. So even the pros use ...

I have two of them and they work great! One has the airbrush mounted to the compressor as a hand grip, the other has the compressor separate with a hose to the airbrush. I use the handheld compressor one strictly with acrylics, with the other one having an in-line moisture trap that I use for spray...

Unfortunately now we need a conversion chart for the Model Master paints...

I built that (mumblety-mumble) decades ago as a kid. Back then it was Testors tube glue all the way. Seemed to work fine. Also did their heart and the eye. Kind of glad I can't see what a hash I made of those kits! They are all long, long gone.

Have you thought about the shrink wrap tubes that have low temp solder in them? Like these ? They can work with just a lighter. The tube shrinks, the solder melts, boom - waterproof soldered join. The ones above are just an example, I'm sure with a bit of looking you can find a set of the size and a...

I have way too many paints of various brands and types to even think about a rack system! I've been collecting paints for years, and have been replacing some with newer types like the acrylic enamels. My solution was to split up my enamels and acrylics, and then group them by color group. Red/orange...

Some Gunze, some Aeromaster, some Testors, and I think a old Floquil.

At least they were still liquid the last I checked, some may have fossilized in the meantime!

I've seen a technique that is supposed to improve the strength of pieces. Basically you encase the work in plaster of paris, let it dry and heat the whole thing above the melting point of your print material. This essentially melts the material into a solid piece, and removes any areas of poor adhes...

Assuming you mean the scratches from sanding, etc. - fill, sand, prime, sand, check. Repeat as needed. Natural metal finishes are the trickiest to get right, since the reflective nature of it shows every tiny surface flaw. You need to get the plastic and filler as smooth as possible. Use a good prim...

Ok, boomer.

Get some UV curing resin. It's fairly thick, and will stay in place. It will cure with any LED UV light (I've used a couple of UV flashlights and the one that comes with a Bondic pen). I wouldn't use Bondic itself for the windows, as it's pretty soft even when cured. The resin used for embedding thi...

So I noticed this place called Ghost White Toner over on another board, and thought I'd bring it up here. Yes, it's what it says on the box - white toner for laser printers. The down side is that they only have it for a couple of HP and Canon printers, and the least expensive one goes for just under...

Get as much of the old paint out as you can. If it's tar, scrape it out. If it's a solid chunk, try chiseling off bits with an old knife blade. The less you have in the jar, the less thinner you have to use. To minimize what you use, start with one jar, wait until it's done its work, then pour into ...

I looked through the documentation, and this looks like a really good (if $$) solution to a lot of lighting problems. Being able to control multiple types of lighting effects through one interface is really nice. And from what the site says, you can use one control module (the most $$ part) to contr...

You can get pure limonene online from multiple sources. Make sure you get the food grade pure stuff, as there are a lot of products that have limonene as only part of their formulation and have soaps, emulsifiers, other oils, and surfactants in them. I doubt they would work as well. Naturally, I'd s...

I used Tamiya smoke over copper on my 1/1000 TOS E. Looks pretty good.

Kev

Giving this a bump - are there any newer modeling software options out there? I just got an Ender 3 printer as an early present (Thanks, Mrs. Kekker!), and would like to get started on doing some of my own design work.

Kev

Ok, did my bench test. I drilled some holes in a strip of .060. I filled some holes to overflow, some even with the surface and left one with an air bubble. I then sanded starting with 320, then 600, then the tri grit stick. The resin sanded down nicely even with the styrene, and became pretty shiny...

As far as fumes, it actually has very little smell. When I've cured a largish test blob it gives off a woody, almost pleasant smell. Kind of like cedar. I haven't made anything large enough to need sanding, but it is very hard, almost brittle.As a guess it seems like it would sand pretty well. I'll ...

Been a while since this one's been written in - but here goes a new suggestion: UV curing resin I have tried the Bondic-type repair stuff, and it sets kind of rubbery and a little sticky. Plus, it seems to get yellower in the tube as it ages. The stuff linked above sets super hard and is crystal cle...

Yeah, that blue clay is super sticky! What I found to get it off pretty quickly is the Model Master enamel thinner. I have the one in the black metal rectangular can.

Wet a paper towel with it and it just wipes away from the part. Then wipe the part with some alcohol to clean it all up.

Kev

I've been doing this with the teeny greebly molds for the Discovery. I found that painting the mold with Tamiya white primer, I can use that UV setting resin. Without it the surface doesn't seem to cure completely, leaving the part sticky. Painting it first gives crisper detail and a nice hard surfa...

I've got a set of these, and they are great. RB Productions Saw blades They're super thin (much thinner than the Zona) and the finest has teeth you can barely see. They cut great and you can shift the blade in the holder to get a deeper cut. The only thing that is a very minor nit is that the screws...

HOLY HELL ](*,) !Glad I never saw that made for TV P.O.$. Oooohhh, no! It was a theatrical release! I went with a bunch of friends from my college Sci-fi/fantasy club. We were, to say the least, underwhelmed! I think we spent more time trashing the movie afterwards then we did sitting in the theate...

Just don't go the Stella Starr route and glue entire sprue trees onto the model!

Saw it in the theater and I was going, "Uhh... that's the tree from a Mk. III panzer..."

Production values on that film were.....


Less than stellar!

Kev

Found some really nice ones at a sporting goods store. You need to find one with fly tying supplies, and look for “cone heads”. These are small metal rounded cones that are hollow and made of metal. They even come in brass, nickel or black, and are available in different sizes. Thought I’d pass that...

The flat from Tamiya is just a flattening agent. It has to be added to a carrier of some kind to work.

Spraying just the flat base is generally a disaster. It covers it with a white snowy layer that is hard to strip off again.

Kev

So I was browsing around over on the RPF site, and someone mentioned this stuff: Molotow Liquid Chrome pens. Poking around on Youtube, there are several videos showing this stuff in action. It really does produce a chrome-plated, mirror-like look! In some of the tests, you can see detailed reflectio...