Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Second Rocketeer’s approach. Once you have the pencil line, you can also wrap (a few layers of) masking tape along the line to give you a raised straight-edge, to help line up the foil strip.

I'm not familiar with this particular paint, so take this with a grain of salt, but is it possible that the pigment for this color has some transparency and the action of thinning this particular paint increased its translucency, resulting in an effective lightening?

If you are looking to spend the kind of money that they charge for that Grex I'd recommend getting a Harder & Steenbeck Infinity. I replaced all of my regular double action AB with these two years ago. The 1.5 mm tip will give a super fine line and they a SUPER easy to clean. I absolutely 100% ...

If you have a ReStore nearby, it's worth a trip. I may have the only workshop in the area with Corean tops for my shop sink & paint bench also go a bunch of kitchen-grade cabinets and stainless sink/faucet all for <$300.

Another alternative is aluminum duct-sealing tape (http://m.homedepot.com/p/Intertape-Poly ... /206313672) (not the same as duct tape—it's basically adhesive aluminum foil).

I didn't mean make the broach out of a needle file... I meant use hand tools like needle files instead of a lathe to make the broach

If you have (or have access to) a lathe, you can make a custom broach pretty easily. Here's a quick tutorial: http://www.sherline.com/tip20.htm If you're broaching styrene, you can probably even get away with skipping the hardening step. In fact, styrene is so soft, you probably could make it out of...

You definitely need to do all your work on the surface and the primer. You want the black primer coat to look like a mirror BEFORE you shoot the Alclad. I had really good luck using the following process: 1. polish raw plastic surface to 800 grit. 2. shoot Mr. Surfacer 1000 3. polish from 1200–6000 ...

No way glitter will go through a brush. I'd recommend shooting a base-coat, then dusting the model with the glitter while the paint is still wet... then covering it with a light top-coat.

Saw this today... pretty cool idea. I need to get some of this shapelock stuff:

http://blog.makezine.com/2013/03/05/how ... ng-blocks/

What I would do is decide on a DC voltage to support, and spec out both US and UK power supplies (AKA wall-warts) that have the same DC supply output.

Yeah Johnny I must be getting old...ER! :shock: I didn't think to try and find something on Wiki before I asked the original question. :oops: But I wondered if in space things might be a little different. I mean is there a standard attitude of ships that has to maintained at all times? Do they have...

The fumes that CA gives off when it cures (the same fumes that will craze clear plastic) can make most modeling-grade FO brittle to the point of breaking at a touch. If you're really lucky, or if you can avoid fume concentration, then you can get away with CA, but it's definitely courting disaster i...

As a prop, it's got to stand up to a little more wear and tear than a typical model. Aves Epoxy putty all the way. You can order it right here from SSM.

Agent Orange wrote:Would it give off more light with a standard LED if the strand was given a milky coat of paint?

steve

Considering that the paint would block some of the light... no.

I use Aves... not exactly glue, but much easier to control, and doesn't harm the FOs

I think I agree with Kekker. I used to use Tamiya putty a lot, before I was inducted into the faith of Aves.

Distilled Water?

Kylwell wrote:Well fine, send it to me and I'll paint it.

But who would take home the award?

So fix the flaw and bring it. Looks very interesting. I've pretty much reached my frustration tipping point with this model. There's only so many times I can strip down a paint-job and repaint, especially since painting is my least-favorite part of a build. I still love the subject, but I don't thi...

Thanks guys! :D It feels really good to actually finish a model for once and get good feedback. Something I'd love to explore in the future is extending this design philosophy and aesthetic to a small universe of related craft, a' la MaK. Kenny: I had it at WF last year... I might bring it again if ...

Thanks Dr. Yo. Your comments are much appreciated, as that's exactly what I was going for. I really struggled with the cockpit notion, as I definitively don't want a canopy... I briefly considered building it as a pre-launch scene, with the cockpit open and a pilot climbing in, but I wanted to show ...

I finally managed to document the build for the model I started for the Starfighters Contest. While I did finally finish the model, it was too late both for the SSM contest and for Wonderfest (and there was a major finishing flaw that occurred while racing to finish at the last minute, so it will ne...

Helpful stuff. Thanks everyone. I knew you guys would be able to help.

I'm nearly done with my first model of the year: a 1:1 scale plasma grenade. There are a couple of seams that I'd like to cheat with o-rings but I'm not sure where to find o-rings with the rather specific dimensions. I need one at ~2.8—2.9" inner diameter, and another at ~2.1—2.2", with a ...

Aha! No wonder I couldn't find it. Thanks!

I've got a part that I've carefully modified from a kit that I'm using in a scratch build, but the last coat of Alclad I put on it has affected the plastic something awful. I'd like to cast the part as a backup before trying to fix it, as it's pretty crucial to my build, and I'm not sure I'll be abl...

Has anyone ever tried turning a foam shape on a lathe? I want to make a round fuselage shape like the space ark or Mercury 9. I have done this with great success. The trick with turning the blue or pink foam on a lathe is to run a bolt or screw through the piece of foam, and chuck that up. The even...

Has anyone ever tried turning a foam shape on a lathe? I want to make a round fuselage shape like the space ark or Mercury 9. I have done this with great success. The trick with turning the blue or pink foan on a lathe is to run a bolt or screw through the piece of foam, and chuck that up. The even...

You may also want to start a greeblie kit collection. If you look around, there are some great-looking armor kits that go on sale periodically. For example, Squadron is currently selling a 1/35 scale Trumpeter M1132 Stryker ESV for $38 ($29 with the right coupon code) Some detail pics: http://www.sq...