BigJets

WTFC BJ

I vote with your daughters. 'The pretty yellow and blue plane' doesn't have to stay yellow or pretty. We don't need to tell them that, of course. BJ

Second the palm-of-the-hand recommendation. I use my forehead, but the philosophy's the same. BJ

Polly Scale for me. But that's not to say anything bad about other solutions. I like what Polly Scale does, and the price is right. Good enough for me. BJ

I have the Pacific Coast Models IXc. For ten bucks I could be convinced to buy a sheet of decals. BJ

Shoot me a PM, I might be able to help as well. BJ

Got a 404 when I tried to access your site, about five minutes ago. BJ

Brand-name Q-tips. They're the only brand I've used whose tips won't come off. BJ

A good pair of cuticle scissors might also help, and might at the same time obviate the need for a punch-and-die set. BJ

Fish out the skulls and stir with the non-bristle end of a brush. The skulls are a gimmick (like I needed to tell you that); I keep them because I have a friend who's gaming motto is 'Rivers of blood, mountains of skulls', and one day would like to give him a little vignette comprised of RM skulls sitting next to a ribbon of gloss crimson. I continue to buy Reaper Miniature paints for that reason, and because they also make for good filter-fodder. I don't use the skulls for mixing, however; and I don't recommend them for mixing, for reasons as have been discussed. BJ

Some of the Reaper miniatures paints come with tiny skulls inside the bottles, which themselves are plastic. Supposedly this facilitates stirring/shaking, but I've never gotten past an old admonition never to shake a jar of acrylics so I don't know how well this works. I always stir my paints; something about old habit and reproducible results. BJ

Some brands of paint react badly when applied to vinyl; unfortunately I don't know what brands have what reactions. Experimentation is the key; I'd find a bit of unused vinyl and buy a bottle each of the most popular brands and apply a little of each and see what happens. I prefer the individual links myself, no issues with paint that I've used. BJ

A word of caution about using ear swabs and pipe cleaners. They both can leave residue in the brush. Cheap ear-swabs will leave the whole tip in the brush, ask me how I know. It's simple to pull the bud out with a pair of tweezers, but you still don't want to have to fuss with it if you can avoid doing so. Pipe cleaners generally work better, but they too can leave little bits of debris behind. BJ

My wingtips had some big gaps. Nothing not manageable. The plastic is thin, but again nothing not manageable. Buy the Eduard PE set, you won't be sorry. BJ

Epoxy putty, sanded first. BJ