Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

Tamiya's spraycan lacquer comes in a colour called 'Pearl Clear' TS-65. It's a fantastic gloss clear that puts a very fine metallic fleck over your paintwork. I've just used it on a project and it looks amazing.

I'm really sick of soldering. It's such an imprecise exercise for me. Where ever possible I use a wire wrapper now. I'm much happier! Much the the electronics on the cold-war era space missions and prior were wire-wrapped! You can pick up a wire wrapping device at most electronic component retailers.

I was preparing to purchase this last year. I contacted a local Roland representative to demonstrate. He 'organised everything' then never got back to me. One concern is the inability to do undercuts... but that's a problem with most router-type subtractive processes. The resolution looks very nice....

Important point - and it's rather easy to do as well. I believe MicroMark has a kit - which I have not used - which 'eliminates' decal film, but I'd only believe it after trying. It's intriguing though. It would certainly eliminate that "wash bleed into decal film corner crevasse issue" th...

It wont harden at all... I've left it on overnight in a dark room and it did not harden. 60 seconds of sunlight though, and it's a little harder than styrene, and can be drilled and sanded.

With walnuts! And make sure it's real maple syrup, none of that log cabin or mrs butterworth stuff. But once you've used up your Squadron putty, get some Bondo spot glazing putty or 3M Acryl Blue. Squadron Putty is terrible stuff. It can seperate and actually destroy your plastic! Bellerophon's adv...

I find deadlines are the only thing I need to inspire me - this is usually for work by the way! However, for a modelling project, I'm surprised by how motivated I am once I give myself a deadline. If it's a creative issue, I put myself out of my comfort zone, by looking at, or participating in thing...

May June would be better - a lot of kits for certain US residents would have been purchased at Wonderfest, I'm guessing. I may have something I could build in a day, come to think of it....

Once I got a resin 'clear' canopy. I polished it, and polished it, and polished it, but surface imperfections refused to go away leaving a less than clear surface. I was stumped until I took a look at the surface with a magnifier. There were TINY bubbles in the resin which made it less than clear. S...

I've used that product to good effect. It's basically foil. Very thin, not that adhesive, which is actually a good quality, since you need to pull it off sometimes and reposition! I might take a look at how it goes on the Naboo fighter, when I get around to it...

One of my 'quests' as a modeller has been to get a perfect mirror metal finish. I've experimented with all kinds of paints. My best results, predictably, are with Alclad's Chrome. I'm wondering what other possibilities are available, thinking outside the airbrush-sized box. Kosutte Gin-san is a japa...

1) can you use an acrylic/water wash on a model that was painted with enamel oil paints? Yes. Some people call it a 'sludge' wash. 2) for very small wear around panels and exhaust, what do people recommend? Does anyone have any tutorials they could share? There are plenty of techniques. My favourit...

I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate paintbrushing sometimes, especially for figures, with paint drying out too quickly, especially when I mix up a custom colour in figure painting. I don't have retarders available. However I just came across something which looks very useful, and easy to p...

One bright Falcon engine? That's what I want! In fact, I'm aiming for 'OMG I CAN'T EVEN LOOK AT IT!'
Thanks for your quick reply.

I've got the Fast Tramp Freighter Kit, and so far it works great. I'd like to add extra engine LEDs, however - the wide diffuse blue bright ones. 1) Can they be powered by the kit, and if so, do I add them in series? Or what's the best way? 2) What sort of luminous intensity are the current ones, so...

I ordered some resin which cures a bit too fast for my liking.

Does anyone have any experience with retarding cure times for resin? I'm mainly interested in preventing the onset of the gel like phase....

Wow Jospeh that turned out nicely! Now I really want to get some! How does Tamiya primer or other lacquers stick to it? Any experience?

I'm constantly reviewing options.
However... solutions like RepRap are still not 'there' yet for me, the resolution is just too low. I'm keeping my eye out though, it's an evolving tech. And it's an amazing tech, once the resolution gets better. It's going to be transformative...

Anyone used delrin? I heard it turns well on a lathe. Does it cut well otherwise? Glue? Best online provider?

I have a Lian-Li mouse-pad made out of aluminium that I have found fantastically useful in all sorts of situations.

I do find that an expensive set of very good tweezers is invaluable as well.

I'm finally one the home stretch of my FineMolds Millenium Falcon. Collecting dust in the box has been Madman Lighting's kit for the Falcon which I bought a couple of years ago. I'm wondering if anyone else has pics of their fitted lighting kit. I'm considering the addition of some extra firepower i...

Hi folks RE: Degassing RTV I've got a vacuum pump, and for the chamber I'm going to use my pressure pot which should work fine from what I understand. As I don't have an acrylic lid (like so many vac chambers do) I won't be able to see if the rubber has finished bubbling. So my query, is once the va...

Here is another 2 cents. Good resin is expensive stuff. Manufacturers in the GK industry are always looking for ways to save money. One way is using an 'extender' for resin. A very commonly used extender is kerosense, because it's easily available and cheap. Kerosene is also sometimes used as a rele...

To be honest, my favourite flat white is Tamiya's rattlecan Fine White Primer. A couple of nice coats of it and you're done for a flat base.

I would love a mill attachment but they don't make one for my size. I might have to make one myself. I did a bit of milling with an ersatz vice, but it was far from satisfactory! Next I need a ball turning attachment. I have a feeling I'm going to have to make my own there as well...!

A couple of items I have been building have been put on the backburner because I lacked the necessary tooling and kept dithering on whether to farm out the work to someone else. After a months' research and prevaricating I took delivery of a miniature lathe over the weekend. Within a couple of hours...

I've used Tamiya gloss over decals with no problems - Hasegawa and Bandai decal sets mainly. I did have a problem a long time ago - but I had not allowed them enough time to dry.

Like Ziz says, go with a metal spraycan colour - silver even, block light a lot better than non-metallic colours due to the metal content in the paint. You will be surprised at how good it is a blocking light.

Hi Alex. What kind of wash did you use there... it actually looks quite effective. I have this kit too... and I have held off on this as I don't feel like repainting it again, but it looks like you've got a more than adequate finish there to be honest. Looks like you polished that twin canopy quite ...

Very informative, thank you!