Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

I've had a few parts printed in fine ultra detail, and they have a waxy coating. I cleaned them with hot water and isopropyl alcohol, then put them in a Sonic cleaner with hot water and dawn.

The grow lines were obvious, so I sanded against the grain with wet 1000 grit and that made the parts smooth.

I'd be in for one simply due to the price.

Hmmm, apparently, I became a victim of Shapeways "one minute its printable, the next its not" phenomena. Last month I had a model printed, and after looking at it changed a couple of features, and resubmitted it. However, now they're saying that it's unprintable, and when they highlight th...

Attack of the dreaded double post

It's a 3D printed secondary hull that's hollow and only has a hole about 1/4 inch long by 1/8th wide that runs through the neck to the hollow area. Since it's printed as a complete part with the sensor dish area there's no way for me to put a weight in there to make the model more "bottom heavy...

The interior is hollow, but the holes that get to it are kinda small, so I thought about pouring rtv in to give the model some weight to help it balance.

Has anyone used RTV silicone to fill a hollow model to give it some weight?

I got to thinking about a current project, and need to add some sort of internal support, and was thinking about using something of a 1/16" diameter as an insert. I hit the proverbial wall though, when it comes to whether a 1/16" tube is "stronger" than a 1/16" rod. More or ...

I shopped around until 1 in the morning online, and decided to go with a Paasche D220R with a regulator. It's a 1/6 hp, so it should meet my needs.

My old airbrush city compressor took a crap on itself after sitting unused for... well, too long. I was looking on bearair.com and was thinking about this one: http://www.bearair.com/Polar-Bear-1000-Single-Piston-Compressor/productinfo/120305/ Any thoughts? It's similar to my old one, which worked p...

I just got in a couple of test parts in made from Frosted Detail. Seems fairly smooth, and though I can see the resolution lines, I can't feel them. I didn't have a problem with minimum thickness, cause I took that into account when designing the part. I'll have to redraw them since I got a few thin...

Thanks for all the tips guys! I made a trip to hobby lobby today and found some 1/8th inch cellufoam sheet that I'll cut to shape to use inside the halves and will use a thin brass rod to keep it straight and even. I'll post a build thread soon.

I'm about to start building a vacuformed kit, and was thinking about whether it would sag over time. The kit is of a flying wing, so the overall body is really thin and wide. I was thinking about putting a layer of Aves on the inner sides of both halves so they're more sturdy when put together. Is t...

Should it be primered first? I would assume so, but I've never tried painting metal to look like another metal.

Does anyone know of a certain technique to making brass look like another type of metal, say stainless steel or aluminum? I've got an idea in my head for something but I'm not sure how to go about it.

It's a great brush. I usually break mine down after each painting; I've done it so often that I could probably do it blind folded. I wouldn't recommend that, though, since many of the parts are rather small.

Food color and future sounds like it would work. Long time ago, I used really thinned testor's enamel to put a thin transparent coat over a ship that had some panels painted ranging from white to dark gray. The overall effect looked like it was different shades of the transparent color. Back then I ...

I've seen a few use rubber cement applied with a sponge, then after letting the paint dry, just rub it off. Obviously put silver or something underneath the primary coat.

Clear varnish as in Future? I've been looking for a way to achieve this sort of effect with acrylics. i was able to do it years ago with enamels and a lot of thinner, but have moved away from thinners since they need solvents and all sorts of stuff. Great work by the way!

Depending on how thick it is, and how sloppy I was when applying it, I usually use 150 grit, or 100 if it was really bad. Diamond files also are good.

The molds were a few months old, but were never used before. I'm not sure if Smooth-On's Oomoo is tin-cure or not, but that's what I used. I also didn't do the oven thing as I heard it was dangerous to use the oven for cooking food afterwards... not sure about that but didn't decide to risk it. I've...

I made a couple of molds of small parts about a couple of months ago, and used the 325 colormatch resin to cast a few of them up today. I got the colormatch because that's what the art supply store had in stock. The first set of casts turned a solid white and frankly still slightly sticky six hours ...

Ah, helicopter pilots! Cool, I'll look into that, thanks!

I'm looking for a source for 1/48 pilots without the oxygen mask to use in some sci-fi kits. WWII era pilots don't have big enough helmets, and some of the modern pilot figures I've seen all have the mask attached. I'd prefer to get them in some sort of detail set, but if I can only get them with a ...

I remember reading somewhere, most likely on a build on this site, where someone was building a aliens style drop ship and they used those nametag stickers. Even though they're paper, I remember him saying he put a few light coats of primer over them and they didn't degrade after paint started to go...

I saw these the other day in a Texas Art Supply... obviously only in Texas, or at least I assume. I'll have to give these a try whenever I build something that needs an aluminium finish.

All cool ideas! I'll try the dry sanding and brushing, since I have those readily available.

That might work, but could be really thick, making the lines rather wide. I've used the baremetal foil dental tool, a pin-like scriber which looks like an exacto handle with a thick nail attached, curved scribing saws from SSM store, and a #11 hobby blade. Honestly, the easiest to use is the #11 bla...

I was just scribing some panel lines into a piece of a styrene kit, and can't seem to get rid of all the "slag" that builds up along the edges and sometimes in the line itself. I wet sanded the piece, and most of the slag from the edges goes away, but the lines themselves seem to get fille...

After striking out scouring many sources for a complete and informative tutorial, I ended up compiling and editing the info, and then working in my own experience, into hopefully a helpful document that covers it all: http://amp.rokket.biz/lib_resources Hopefully this will help :shock: Now that's a...