Fellow Modelers:
Can someone advise on how to get swirls out of plastic? What steps/methods are needed to prepare a kit for a Natural Metal Finish?
Natural Metal Finish
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cajunwolfman
- Posts: 96
- Joined: Tue Jul 14, 2009 11:15 pm
- Location: My Town USA
Re: Natural Metal Finish
Swirls?Do you have puctures?
Re: Natural Metal Finish
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 primer. A popular choice is a gloss black, which some natural metal finish paint lines also carry. Different colors of primer give different finishes, but black seems to be what many prefer. If you use a flat primer, you should polish it to a gloss finish. Move it around under a bright light at an angle to see if there are any flaws. If there are, touch up with something like thinned putty or Mr Surfacer. Sand it down, re-shoot your primer where needed and check again. It can sometimes take a couple of iterations to get the finish you want, but that's the price of perfection!
Once you have the surface all shiny and smooth, hit it with your metallic paint of choice in light layers. Naturally, this might show up some flaws, so you'd need to fix those spots as above.
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 primer. A popular choice is a gloss black, which some natural metal finish paint lines also carry. Different colors of primer give different finishes, but black seems to be what many prefer. If you use a flat primer, you should polish it to a gloss finish. Move it around under a bright light at an angle to see if there are any flaws. If there are, touch up with something like thinned putty or Mr Surfacer. Sand it down, re-shoot your primer where needed and check again. It can sometimes take a couple of iterations to get the finish you want, but that's the price of perfection!
Once you have the surface all shiny and smooth, hit it with your metallic paint of choice in light layers. Naturally, this might show up some flaws, so you'd need to fix those spots as above.