MoFo

Thin strips of masking tape, a steady-ish hand and a decent pair of eyes.

:( It's peeling off the missile once the tape has been wrapped around? Or are you having problems getting the first bit stuck on to the body? Or is it just not sticking AT ALL? And, I feel silly for even asking this, but you're sure you're using the right side, right?

1. I think so. IIRC, it has a clear top, and says "flat base" (or "matte base"?) It should be part of the standard paint rack, though. 2. No idea, but it's surprisingly little. A few drops for satin, a few more for full-on matte. There may have been posts on HS on the subject, if you don't get an answer here.

I should point out that I have no personal experience in the area - I just airbrush Humbrol Matte or Satin coat over whatever I'm building. I didn't know Humbrol did a matte base, though. And anything you add to Future would have to be water/alcohol soluble. The Tamiya Matte Base ISN'T a matte coat. It's an additive to be added (ahem) to paints that will MAKE them matte. It's not like Humbrol's Matte coat, which is a clear matte varnish designed to be used as-is. If you use Tamiya Matte base on it's own, it would pretty much just frost whatever it's applied to.

AFAIK, the Tamiya flat base just deadens the sheen, so it should brush on pretty much exactly the same way that Future does normally. The best way to brush paint is with an airbrush, though. monketdance4.gif

^ What he said. No idea whether Tamiya Primer will work. If it can be thinned/removed with alcohol, ammonia or water, then almost certainly not; if it's thinned/removed with lacquer thinner, then it should be fine. The key is that the primer must be lacquer based.

Since I just sanded out the all-important bubbled cross-section seam on a T-4 (THANK YOU HASEGAWA! the seam is a GOOD sign, it means the canopy is ACCURATE!), I might as well throw in a couple of pennies on my technique. Scrape down the highest of the raised portions with an X-Acto - get rid of most of the excess plastic, but leave a tiny bit to sand away (it's better to remove too little than too much). Wet sand with some 600 grit paper, from front to back, to knock off the rest of the excess and smooth out the shape. Switch to some WELL used 600 grit (probably close to 1200 grit actually

That's probably going to be a bad idea, but not for the reason you think. "Acrylic", strictly speaking, refers to the paint particulate, it doesn't mean alcohol or water washable/thinnable paint. Both Gunze Sangyo Aqueous and Mr. Colour Lacquer paints, for instance, are acrylic. When Alclad suggests an acrylic base coat, they mean an acrylic lacquer - a paint with plastic particulate and a lacquer carrier/thinner - most sandable primers for instance. If you spray any of the normal, lacquer based Alclad paints over alcohol based acrylic, it will crack and spiderweb and your model will be ru

Your best bet would be to look in something like a supermarket or large grocery store - it would probably be down the aisle with other household cleaning supplies (barring that, look for it wherever you do buy household cleaning supplies). It will be a largish (~1L), probably flatish bottle of clear liquid.

B) Want to try that again, Joe? ;)

Actually, Klear is apparently "thinner" and not quite as user friendly as Future. They're basically the same, and Klear IS the European name for Future, but different manufacturing standards mean they have slightly different forumlae, so they behave... differently. FWIW.

Epoxy or watch crystal cement are probably your best (safest) bets. CA won't fog if the vapour can escape - turn the canopy upside down and blow on it while the glue is curing and you'll be fine (you should be fine just turning it upside down...). You can also easily remove the residue if it does fog, if the canopy isn't attached to the model - it's just like a fine dust that rubs right off. Polish the canopy with a bit of model wax before gluing with CA and you shouldn't have any problems at all.

Or a pen. Seems a whole lot easier.

You'd be better off using Crystal Clear or Epoxy, rather than Future since they shrink less. There really isn't any easy/good way of replicating clear lights - the other alternatives would be to paint it silver or white, which isn't terribly realistic, and any of the better looking alternatives will be about as "risky" since you'd have to carve/file out the existing ones.

Mr. Surfacer?

You can also have at it with acetone or CA debonder. Black is (for some reason) a notoriously stubborn colour to remove, so it may take some soaking.

Except the canopy, of course.

At first I was surprised that so many modellers have problems with washing, but when you think about it, it's not that surprising at all... :)

Also, if you've got a paint build-up on the tip of your 'brush, it can cause graininess. Otherwise, dial down the pressure, thin the paint more and just generally experiment. I couldn't really tell you how much I thin my paint or what pressure I spray at - I thin it until it's thin enough, and turn the pressure up until the paint comes out. :) Terribly unscientific I'm afraid.

Solder will work for bonding etch to etch. You (obviously) can't use it to join PE to resin or styrene. There shouldn't be anything in a cockpit that can't be glued with CA - it's not like there's any structural components facing substantial shear stresses. There's very little on an aircraft model that can't be joined with CA full stop. A couple of drops of CA applied with some fine wire or a pin will be more than enough for the vast majority of applications, though paint doesn't bite into etch, it just rests on top (again, obviously), so if you're gluing two painted parts, the bond won't

Matte paints shouldn't be (visibly) rough. If yours are, you have a problem. For the gloss, your best bet would be to apply a standard gloss coat over the finished paint. Rub the model out with some very fine sandpaper before spraying the gloss to even out the paint, then spray your gloss. If that's rough or orange peeled, you can sand and polish the gloss coat. If you want a car model type shine, apply another gloss coat over the decals, and sand/polish/wax it to a high shine. Your model will look pretty toy-like and silly, though. Even a full-on gloss would probably be excessive. Fo

Yes, it does work, though the main issue (apart from the difficulty of pulling it off successfully) is the "scaleness" of the framing - it often looks a bit silly with the framing sticking out THAT much. Not to mention the fact that if you're leery about being too inexperienced to polish a canopy, hacking into one and vac-forming another probably isn't the wisest of ideas.

That would probably be Bondo, which is exactly the same as Testors Red putty, except cheaper and in larger quantities. They're owned by the same parent corporation, so the Testors red putty is just re-packaged Bondo. I personally avoid everything except CA and Mr. Surfacer. The only model I've used anything else on in recent memory was the Testors B-2.

I prefer to outline my canopies in thin (>1mm) strips of masking tape, then apply the liquid mask. I found it difficult to trim any excess if I just applied it to the canopy - it would lift and pull as I tried to cut it. Of course, since I primarily build jets, the canopies are usually fairly simple, with a minimum of framing to outline - it'd be a major hassle to outline a WWII greenhouse before applying liquid mask.

Yes. Generic lacquer thinner. It's about the best thinner for pretty much any brand of enamel paint - MM, Humbrol, Xtracolor, Floquil... It can also be used as a direct substitute for liquid glue when building models. I haven't bought a bottle of Pro-Weld in years.