What is the best Dremel attachment for battle damage?

[jdeleonardis]

Ive got two models I want to bang up - a Falcon and an Xwing. I want to make the bolt marks on top of the Falcon (you know, the big chunks that are missing!), and I want to make like a grazing blaster shot across one of the wings of the Xwing. I guess I cant really go wrong with any Dremel attachment to do that, but any recommendations? Any other way to go about doing it?

[QuincySapien]

Hi,

I used a soldering iron for such damages and was very glad with the results. Especially for energyweapon damages as the iron melts and pushes the material aside and you get real molten material. Also works for stright lines.

http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh28 ... CF2085.jpg

Greetz Quincy

[jdeleonardis]

That looks really good Quincy. I like that. Ive seen that written other places, but Im afraid of melting too much off with the iron.

[Kylwell]

I use a sanding drum to first thin the plastic from the inside. Then series of round burs and cones to rough the holes out.

[bluesman]

What Robb said.

[MillenniumFalsehood]

This is the best way to do scale battle damage that I've *ever* heard of. It produces incredibly realistic results!


First, cut out the section of the hull where you want the damage and sand down a 'shelf' on the plastic edge. Then take a piece of aluminum foil and cut out a piece of it to fit on the shelf. When its the right shape, you attach it to the plastic with superglue and the punch a hole in the center. Pull at the edges until they're as tattered as you want. If the hole gets too wide, simply put the piece of plastic in the freezer overnight and the next morning the superglue will be brittle enough to scrape off without too much damage to the plastic. Then use Mr. Surfacer or whatever putty you like to blend the edges of the foil into the rest of the model.

After the foil is the way you want, cut a piece of styrene slightly larger than the hole in the plastic and greeble it up with wires, conduits, and electronic parts, and paint it. Then take a piece of silver styrene (I get mine from a Revell 1:48 P-38 Lightning kit sprue) and put it in a blender, and shake some of the resulting shredded styrene onto the plastic and superglue it down(to keep styrene glue from melting it). This simulates shrapnel trapped in the hole which was blown away too quickly for the explosion to darken it. When the superglue is dry, glue the assembly on the other side of the hole.

Then assemble to model as normal, finish it, then airbrush the streaks of burnt paint on the outside. The aluminum foil will lend a natural metal finish to the shredded hull material and the inside will still be shiny metal plate, thus saving you from painting the interior and risking damage to the aluminum foil

Here's a visual article on this very site which illustrates this technique perfectly:

http://www.starshipmodeler.com/tech/tm_bdamage.htm

[Kylwell]

Cody's Coop also has some great info on battle damage.