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Polishing over raised rivets


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As the title suggests, how do you gurus deal with this?  

 

I just started working on the Williams bros Model 10 electra and to make it look decent I'm gonna have to re-do all of the rivets and panel lines. Issue is, its a bare metal finish, and for that, the surface needs to be immaculate.  Plan is to sand, fill, sand some more and polish the whole thing.  Then, scribe the panel lines, and then add resin decal type rivets.  After that step, I'm gonna have to once again prime the whole thing... and then wetsand/polish once more.   

 

So... how do I take care of the last step without destroying the rivets?  

 

 

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Well that is the plan, but since the rivets come on carrier film like any other decal, and the finish will be bare metal, I'm afraid the film may show. 

 

 

Everything I'm reading about applying these rivets instructs to seal and prime over them before final paint... to avoid having the carrier film show.  

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Seeing as the rivets are all but undetectable standing right up next to a fullscale airplane, how can they be seen on something 1/72 of its size?  For example, if a rivet head is .375" (3/8"), then a model of it is 1/72 of that, about four thousandths of an inch.  And OP is talking about  what I'm guessing is a flush-riveted airliner.  A nominal viewing distance of two feet from the model would put the observer 144 scale feet away from the airplane.  I don't see any rivets on anything  from 144 feet. 

 

Just a thought...

Edited by peter havriluk
typo
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On 3/16/2019 at 2:05 PM, peter havriluk said:

And OP is talking about  what I'm guessing is a flush-riveted airliner

 

I believe the Electra had raised rivets. Hence the OPs predicament in sanding and prepping for a a NMF. It is 1/53 scale.

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I agree with you for most models, but on the Electra, the rivets really stand out.  I've seen the restored full-scale replica of Earhart's Electra at the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the rivets are like smack-you-in-the-face obvious, even from the far end of that room (which is a few hundred feet).    I think it's the fact that they are raised, there are A LOT of them, and the whole aircraft is bright polished aluminum.    

 

I'm still on the fens though.   The rivets I got from Archer are nice, but I think they are too large.   I do want to model the rivets, but I'm OK with them not being raised.  Not quite sure how I'm going to pull that off.  Maybe paint them on?  Maybe decals?  

Any insight is appreciated. 

 

 

 

 

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