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Great Seam Filling Stuff


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Hey All,

 

I have to say that even though I've been building models for many years now, when I was a youngster, and now as an adult for over 10 years, I still consider myself a newbie/novice in many area of the hobby, and one of those is filling seams and scribing panel lines and making rivets.  I've just never been good at this, and it's mostly due to my fears at ruining the wonderful molded detail that many of today's models have.  But, I also realize that failure to fill those seams is perhaps worse than the subsequent lack of recreating the lost panel lines after the filling and sanding has taken place.  I've been a fan of using acrylic, water based fillers, like Perfect Plastic Putty, which works well for certain things, and I love how you can use water to clean up the residue, which I find ideal for things like wing/fuselage joints, where a damp or wet Q-Tip can clean things up before the putty dries, with no remaining mess.  However, the acrylic putty, for me at least, often doesn't do a stellar job of making the joints/seams completely disappear.  For that, I've found something that I"m sure many, if not most of you have long been aware of, but I only recently discovered while watching one of Doog's Models  P-47M series.  It's 3M Acryl-Red Glazing Putty.  Though is has ''acryl' in the name, it's not water based, and I've found i tiny bit of Gunze Mr. Leveling Thinner makes the putty a little thinner and more easily applied.  But this stuff dries quickly, within 20 minutes, and while it does take a bit more effort to sand and smooth compared to water based putty, it leaves the seams absolutely perfectly filled, with no observable joint at all.  Again, this is more than likely no news to most of you, but for me, it's a revelation, and is another thing on my way to being a better modeler.

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I've tried a lot of stuff including perfect plastic putty, 3M Acryl, Mr Surfacer, among others. I still use those sometimes, but keep going back to Super Glue (any brand Cyanoacrylate) and ZAP Zip Kicker (to cure it ultra quickly).

 

 You have to be quick with it before it cures to hard to sand, but nothing else fills seams as well and makes such a smooth finish without shrinking and showing the seam later.

Edited by dmk0210
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I do both; large/long gaps I do CA glue, but for smaller imperfections I use Tamiya white putty (used Squadron white putty for 30 yrs before they changed the formula; they lost my business).

Basically it's like a sculptor using a hammer/chisel for general shaping, and a polish system for fine-finishing.  The CA is the hammer/chisel, getting the majority of the job done.  The Tamiya white putty is the final fine finish.

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For gaps between perpendicular (or close to) surfaces like those between jet intakes and the fuselage or the fuselage and wings, I have been using AVES Apoxie Sculpt for years. Its a very fine grained two part epoxy putty that can be worked, smoothed and thinned with water. I roll thin sausages and use a tool to press it into the gaps. I don't worry about how it looks yet. Then I come back with water moistened Q-tips and smooth away any excess until I have a perfect smooth joint. Once dry (about 3 hours) it can be sanded and will feather out beautifully. It is rock hard and can be scribed using a needle or, my preference, thin razor saws. The joints created are extremely strong (its epoxy).

For everything else I use either Tamiya fine white putty or super glue (though I have never mastered using it so do so sparingly).

Edited by Mstor
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9 hours ago, Mstor said:

For gaps between perpendicular (or close to) surfaces like those between jet intakes and the fuselage or the fuselage and wings, I have been using AVES Apoxie Sculpt for years. Its a very fine grained two part epoxy putty that can be worked, smoothed and thinned with water. I roll thin sausages and use a tool to press it into the gaps. I don't worry about how it looks yet. Then I come back with water moistened Q-tips and smooth away any excess until I have a perfect smooth joint. Once dry (about 3 hours) it can be sanded and will feather out beautifully. It is rock hard and can be scribed using a needle or, my preference, thin razor saws. The joints created are extremely strong (its epoxy).

For everything else I use either Tamiya fine white putty of super glue (though I have never mastered using it so do so sparingly).

 

What do you use if there is gap between horizontal surfaces ? i.e. one panel surface is higher/lower than the other

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4 hours ago, BraggPeak said:

 

What do you use if there is gap between horizontal surfaces ? i.e. one panel surface is higher/lower than the other

 

Well, first I try to fix whatever is causing the misalignment to bring both panels into alignment. If that is not possible, I will usually try super glue first while holding the panels in alignment until the glue has set. If lucky, the super glue will hold them in alignment and I can just sand the area smooth. If not, well then its down to spreading Tamiya putty into the area and then doing a lot of sanding to make the area look OK. After that, there is usually surface details that need restoring, panel lines, etc. Not my favorite part of model building as I am not so good at it. Needless to say, I try to avoid that last option. Lots of careful pre-assembling to try to figure out how to avoid such problems. Of course, sometimes it still ends up out of alignment. Best laid plans and all that :dontknow:

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 8/3/2020 at 10:42 PM, Mstor said:

For gaps between perpendicular (or close to) surfaces like those between jet intakes and the fuselage or the fuselage and wings, I have been using AVES Apoxie Sculpt for years. Its a very fine grained two part epoxy putty that can be worked, smoothed and thinned with water. I roll thin sausages and use a tool to press it into the gaps. I don't worry about how it looks yet. Then I come back with water moistened Q-tips and smooth away any excess until I have a perfect smooth joint. Once dry (about 3 hours) it can be sanded and will feather out beautifully. It is rock hard and can be scribed using a needle or, my preference, thin razor saws. The joints created are extremely strong (its epoxy).

 

 

This sounds a lot like Milliput. I've been using that for similar situations, or even for scratch building small parts that I can shape.

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12 hours ago, dmk0210 said:

 

This sounds a lot like Milliput. I've been using that for similar situations, or even for scratch building small parts that I can shape.

 

Yes, it is essentially the same kind of stuff, but I have found the grain of AVES Apoxie Sculpt to be finer than even Milliput fine and, it comes in separate plastic jars so keeps much longer than the logs of Milliput.

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8 hours ago, Mstor said:

 

Yes, it is essentially the same kind of stuff, but I have found the grain of AVES Apoxie Sculpt to be finer than even Milliput fine and, it comes in separate plastic jars so keeps much longer than the logs of Milliput.

Interesting. Thanks.  I'll try some of that to compare. I love Milliput, but keeping it fresh is a problem. 

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