Today's Quick Tip is about fixing little problems on models you've already started painting or already painted. This week I had a small pit appear in the robe of a model I was working on. It must have been a bubble in the primer because it wasn't there when I inspected the metal. As I was laying down a base coat, it just appeared.
Normally if I find a pit before painting I'd break out the green stuff to fill, smooth and sand the pit away. But since I was well into painting this model I needed something less mechanical and less potentially damaging to the paint I already laid down.
After trying to cover it up with successive coats of paint I decided to place a drop of super glue into the pit. It worked like a charm. Before drying I smoothed the glue with my finger so there'd be no excess. Once dried, I smoothed the glue with a pencil eraser. The pencil eraser has just enough roughness to smooth paint without leaving sand marks or taking too much paint off. If you have a lump or mound of super glue, you might need a fine sandpaper to smooth it down.
A normal pencil eraser is also great for smoothing any drips or rough paint spots on your model when breaking out even the finest sand paper would be too rough.
Once everything was smooth and dry put down a quick thin layer of basecoat and that unsightly pit was gone for good.
The pencil eraser is a great tool for paint sanding. What other tools do you use to correct your "oops" moments?
After trying to cover it up with successive coats of paint I decided to place a drop of super glue into the pit. It worked like a charm. Before drying I smoothed the glue with my finger so there'd be no excess. Once dried, I smoothed the glue with a pencil eraser. The pencil eraser has just enough roughness to smooth paint without leaving sand marks or taking too much paint off. If you have a lump or mound of super glue, you might need a fine sandpaper to smooth it down.
A normal pencil eraser is also great for smoothing any drips or rough paint spots on your model when breaking out even the finest sand paper would be too rough.
Once everything was smooth and dry put down a quick thin layer of basecoat and that unsightly pit was gone for good.
The pencil eraser is a great tool for paint sanding. What other tools do you use to correct your "oops" moments?
Nice tip. Might you have one for concealing missed mould lines?
ReplyDeleteI'd have never thought regular super glue could be used as a filler. I'll have to give it a try next time. Thanks.
ReplyDelete@oni Unfortunately I don't have a good one for that. If you can, paint the whole area black or a darker color. That will help conceal the shadow from the mould line. It isn't the line you usually see, but the shadow of it.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely don't drybursh around a missed mould line. If you do, go back and hit it with a darker base coat.
What I'm going to start doing from now on is prime my important models white. I've found the white color is great for detecting mould lines and at just the primer stage it is a lot easier to fix.
Thanks for the tip. Pencil eraser added to my painting kit! :)
ReplyDeleteSweet tip, do you reckon one of those rubber moulding shapers would do the same?
ReplyDeleteThank you for the tip - I have never heared of using an esaser as a sanding tool.
ReplyDeleteI can offer a similar piece of advice - you can buy pencil sharpeners that are made from milled aluminium, I have used the two hole sharpener as a small T-Square, ideal for working with plastic card and needing to mount it at a 90' angle.
Another tool from the pencil case.
Tony
http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/
There are a lot of fine scale modelers that use superglue as a filler for small holes, and gaps and such. It is often used together with an accelerator (like Zip Kicker) to quickly harden and then it can be sanded/filed down. Of course you would want to do this when there is no paint on the mini. Primer would probably be ok though.
ReplyDelete@Corbane - I think the shaper tip would be too smooth. I have a silicone tipped shaper and it isn't abrasive.
ReplyDelete