Customizing Q&A Thread

[Shepp]

Originally Posted by racerguy76

When spraying(airbrush, or spray can) you should always start spraying away from the object, then pass over it(the object) while spraying and not stop till your past the object. After several passes of 1-2 second bursts, I like to wait about at least a minute before another light coat. After 5 coats the coverage is quite good and there are never any runs. It may be more time consuming that a couple of heavier coats, but I find thick coats tend to rub off and take much longer to dry.

Considering it took an entire can of paint to do a single coat on everything on one side only. I think I'll have to make do with one coat on each side, and a third can in case I missed any spots.

I mean, a dozen Nerf weapons are a lot of surface area to cover, plus all the weird nooks and crannies. But even as plain matte black, they look more awesome and sci-fi than ever.

The paint isn't really as important on these, since its more or less practice for when I'm doing real customs, but thanks for the tip for when I'm painting figures and parts. I'll for sure do multiple coats and actually mask off the motion areas and all that.

I didn't know about the start stop thing, and I'll be sure to do that when I start using some gold, brown, and hammered brass paints on these.

No pics yet, but I am using Krylon paints designed for plastics, except for the gold, which I couldn't find for plastic.

The black I'm using says it doesn't need any primer, but I'm more or less using it as a primer for everywhere I'm covering up. Everywhere else will just remain black.

Oh, its tricky trying to blend the gold and hammered brass to make a sort of worn copper look, but its kinda working.

[Sun Swipe Prime]

My first attempt at painting a transformer. I'm running into some issues and was wondering if anyone could give me some guidence on if I'm doing anything wrong.

I disassembled, washed, and primed all the parts. Now when I'm painting. I'm finding my two lighter colors a Tamiya Red and White aren't sticking compared to my citadel Enchanted blue. Some of my brush strokes pull the paint off the lighter colors.

I dilute the paint with a little alcohol so the coat goes on smoother and, according to google, it kills the gloss which I want. I've done multiple coats. There's lots of molded in details so my brush strokes tend to over lap. After the same number of coats, the blue looks fantastic, but he whites and reds still look very thin in comparison.

I'm wondering is this a problem with my brushng technique or my paints. I found out the hard way that the Citadel paint requires alcohol to clean vs water for the Tamiya. So I'm assuming Tamiya is waterbased vs Citadel being alcohol bases. Yes? Could that be a factor? Would it be a problem if I switched over to Citadels and painted over the Tamiya paints with it?

Any help would be appriciated.

[Nemesis Predaking]

I had the same issue when I thinned my Tamiya paint with alcohol. Try using future floor polish to thin Tamiya paint,
not only does it become "self leveling" in a way (thus minimizing brush strokes) it will also give you a small amount of protection for the paint as it's kind of a "built in" clear coat.

[Sun Swipe Prime]

Thanks I'll give the floor polish thing a try

[bedtime]

has anyone tried taking the pins out of RTS wreck-gars elbows? i just tried and i'm probably just doing it wrong but its not really working. are these notoriously tough ones or do i just need better tools?

[brr-icy]

are you heating the pin with a soldering iron?, it usually helps

[bedtime]

No sir, I haven't tried that as I don't own one. I think I'm going to hunker down and just buy pin punches

[racerguy76]

I find torx bits for the multi screw drivers work really well. I use a vise and push the pin out into a deep 5mm socket. I can take a picture when I get home. It's best to push the pin out the way it was inserted too. Once the cross hatched end it out of the plastic you can use pliers to pull the pin out the rest of the way easily.

[bedtime]

Originally Posted by racerguy76

I find torx bits for the multi screw drivers work really well. I use a vise and push the pin out into a deep 5mm socket. I can take a picture when I get home. It's best to push the pin out the way it was inserted too. Once the cross hatched end it out of the plastic you can use pliers to pull the pin out the rest of the way easily.

The best part of the wreck-gar pins is that they have a big flat end on one side so you clearly know which end to push

[Sun Swipe Prime]

Originally Posted by bedtime

No sir, I haven't tried that as I don't own one. I think I'm going to hunker down and just buy pin punches

I've had lots of success using eyeglass repair screw drivers to punch out regular pins, but never tried it on one like wreck-gars. It might be an option to try before you drop the dough.