What is on your bench right now ? Share a picture :)

[PanzerWomble]

1 minute ago, harv said:

Nice. What's to consider? ....harv 

Not mucking up the upper wing attachement ...esp after a night in the pub , I'm thinking this is job for the morning . 🤣

[GazzaS]

3 hours ago, PanzerWomble said:

Not mucking up the upper wing attachement ...esp after a night in the pub , I'm thinking this is job for the morning . 🤣

haha...   yes, never build while drunk.  Rigging?

[GazzaS]

Experiment in HVAC tape.  

Note:  I'm not saying all HVAC tapes are the same.  I'm only mentioning what's happened in my case and not vilifying  any brand of tape.  Also, I live in Australia, where there are a lot fewer brands than I imagine are available in the US.

 

The first tape I bought wasn't actually made of aluminum.  Much to my disgust it was of some rubberized mylar stuff completely useless to me.  That was 20 bucks wasted.  This roll I ordered by mail and is actually aluminum and also cost 20 bucks.   But  then there was shipping and handling.  Another ten bucks.

First thing I attempted was the wheel bulge from a 109G10 in 1/48 scale.

While I was attempting to burnish down the foil, I had to apply more and more pressure.  Before too long, I realized that I had broken the part underneath.  Though I admit that I did my best to thin the part way down to get a more realistic look it needed.

 

Next was this large part on the upper wing.  Try as I might, I was not able to get the desired result.

Red/Yellow Arrow:  The thickness of the aluminum doesn't make for easy trimming.

Green/blue Arrows:  The glue is too thick for my purposes.  No amount of burnishing could remove all of these artifacts from the surface.  I could move them around.  But not eliminate.  I even experimented with trying to thin the rubbery glue with iso...   but no thinning effect occurred.  And everything else I have will dissolve the plastic.  Any other chemicals I might try?

Black/Purple Arrows:  There is a thickness that may be a bit more than I would like in comparison with my usual method.

 

Finally I decided to see what will happen to surface details.

Again, thickness was the problem.  And I think I have to put all of the blame on the glue.  Just too thick to do anything with.  More wasted money...    now, wtf do I do with all of this shiny tape?

[Jeff]

I tried that HVAC tape too, and yeah a bit thick, but I recently tried 'Chrome" tape from the automotive section of Canadian Tire and it is much much thinner and works very well for my applications.... and it seems I can 'burnish' it somewhat, I took my Exacto knife handle and gave it the old one - two and it resulted in acceptable results.... for me anyway... the stuff I got was for fixing 'chrome' on cars... it came in a roll about 2 inches wide and was about 7 bucks Canadian....

[GazzaS]

3 minutes ago, Jeff said:

I tried that HVAC tape too, and yeah a bit thick, but I recently tried 'Chrome" tape from the automotive section of Canadian Tire and it is much much thinner and works very well for my applications.... and it seems I can 'burnish' it somewhat, I took my Exacto knife handle and gave it the old one - two and it resulted in acceptable results.... for me anyway... the stuff I got was for fixing 'chrome' on cars... it came in a roll about 2 inches wide and was about 7 bucks Canadian....

I'll see if I can find it here in Aus  Jeff.  Thank you!

 

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, GazzaS said:

I'll see if I can find it here in Aus  Jeff.  Thank you!

 

I'd be curious if you can find some and if it works....

[GazzaS]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

I'd be curious if you can find some and if it works....

The ones I have seen for sale seem to be the same nylon-ish stuff as the first roll I bought.

[PanzerWomble]

 

Been such fun day today . In the home straight now , should finish this weekend , then I can make something else 😁

 

[GazzaS]

1 hour ago, PanzerWomble said:

 

Been such fun day today . In the home straight now , should finish this weekend , then I can make something else 😁

 

I’m guessing that’s not stretchy line?

[PanzerWomble]

9 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

I’m guessing that’s not stretchy line?

Yes it's thin and stretchy ( will go 30% maybe)  . Has a habit of sticking to anything slightly sticky , apart from what you are trying to glue it to . For one off aeriels on monoplanes it's great , not so much fun full rigged biplane. I was tempted to use 0.3mm wire instead but stuck with this . Took an afternoon , evening to complete. 

Biggest benefit is that once it is on , if you accidentally knock it , it just twangs back 

[GazzaS]

On 1/13/2023 at 10:15 AM, PanzerWomble said:

Yes it's thin and stretchy ( will go 30% maybe)  . Has a habit of sticking to anything slightly sticky , apart from what you are trying to glue it to . For one off aeriels on monoplanes it's great , not so much fun full rigged biplane. I was tempted to use 0.3mm wire instead but stuck with this . Took an afternoon , evening to complete. 

Biggest benefit is that once it is on , if you accidentally knock it , it just twangs back 

I've used both EZY line and monofilament...   And been quasi-successful with both.  I have Uschi-type line by MIG which also works, but is not entirely uniform in thickness and shape.  Which turnbuckles did you go with?

[PanzerWomble]

Whats a turnbuckle .....lifes too short .🤣 I looked through my brass tube collection , but decided against trying to thread this through .

 

I has some of the MIG stuff which was good , but got incredibly tangled and binned .

[GazzaS]

9 hours ago, PanzerWomble said:

Whats a turnbuckle .....lifes too short .🤣 I looked through my brass tube collection , but decided against trying to thread this through .

 

I has some of the MIG stuff which was good , but got incredibly tangled and binned .

Stretchy line is pretty difficult to thread thru...   limp.  That's one place where monofilament shines.  But monofilament has to be heat shrunk.

[mark31]

AT-AT fun

 

Mark

[GusMac]

Looks great Mark. Just love the innovation of the Lego designers. I can remember getting some of the first Technic kits back in the early 80s and what they are coming out with now is just amazing.

[belugawhaleman]

A couple of pictures of what I'm working on.....a Tamiya T55a....nice kit, good fit

and lots of options. Shown here in primer ...MR. Surfacer 1200 thinned with Leveling

Thinner ( A product from Heaven). The only tedious part of the kit is the 15 little grab

handles....or, whatever they are, that need to be glued to the rear of the turret...A china

marker, or grease pencil, made this, seemingly impossible task,....almost a pleasant affair. You can pick up small parts by simply touching the part with the pencil, it sticks,

you can then place it with accuracy in the required place with surprising ease...well, not

quite ease...but it works. If it were not for this..I can't see how I could have done it.

Anyway, it's a really nice kit. 'Got to paint the wheels... Well prime them first....then make

a bunch of masks.... using the Dspiae circle cutter thing...(another God send). Honestly,

this kit languished for a week.. before I got to those little handles, but I'm well on the way

to completing this beast.

 

[AlanG]

Starting to add wiring and air pipes to the back of my Me262 IP. Made some t-joints out of 1mm cable flex. Hopefully they'll look ok under a coat of paint

 

[PanzerWomble]

 

Just came in the post , I will be popping my MRP cherry when I get going with the Phantom . Hopefully as great as everyone seems to rave .

 

[Bomber_County]

54 minutes ago, PanzerWomble said:

 

Just came in the post , I will be popping my MRP cherry when I get going with the Phantom . Hopefully as great as everyone seems to rave .

 

Shiny new cutting mat as well?……….big respect………..

[PanzerWomble]

1 hour ago, Bomber_County said:

Shiny new cutting mat as well?……….big respect………..

I tend to swap them out couple of times a year ....the anal engineer in me hates worn out stuff 🤣

[Peterpools]

19 hours ago, PanzerWomble said:

 

Just came in the post , I will be popping my MRP cherry when I get going with the Phantom . Hopefully as great as everyone seems to rave .

 

You are going to love MRP Paints. For the most part I shoot them straight from the bottle and use MRP Primers as well. 

 

[ScottsGT]

Love my lacquer paints!  Mr. Color offers more bang for the buck and you can use them for brush painting on small areas.  MRP’s advantage is just shooting straight from the bottle.   I have a well stocked stash of both.   When I started switching over I actually looked at my stash and bought accordingly or put on my wish list for when they came back in stock. 

[Peterpools]

Scott

Nice way of stocking up on paints so when needed, they are in the paint stash. I've been starting to do that as of late as well, since buying paints when starting a project these days always leads to a lot of 'Out of Stock' notes and a lot of time trying to find what I need.

 

[ScottsGT]

Yea, I went through Sprue Brothers stock and saw that all the SEA paint kits, Israeli color kits and the JASD blues for my Wolfpack Panther conversion and the Have Glass colors was out of stock.  Put them on my email notify list and ordered as soon as they came in. 
Kind of gives me inspiration to start these kits sooner than later. 

[Peterpools]

Scott

Terrific plan. I have a few notices of the out of stock paints I need and as soon as Sb receives their restock, I'm placing a nice size paint order.