peteski

I never heard that "standard" enamels need UV light to cure. Yes the have 2 stages for drying. 1. solvent evaporating leaves the enamel dry but soft. 2.after the solvent evaporates the resin in the paint's binder starts to cure (its chemical properties change). I have heard that oxugen is needed for this process to progress (like Tony states). The curing process can take long time, but heat will accelerate it (heat accelerates lots of reactions). But if there are UV-curable enamels then sure, UV light will be needed for the final cure. However I doubt that any of the hobby enamels are specifically UV-curable. But if some specific information is available to prove otherwise, I'm all eyes.

IIRC, Scalecoat Wash Away Paint Remover is also based on a chemical similar to brake fluid - always be careful using a new type of stripping solution on urethene resin.

Unless you have professional equipment (read: costs thousands of dollars), matching colors on a computer screen or even on a printout is an exercise in futility. In the old days, paint companies sold color charts with color chips painted with the actual paint. Color matching on the computer screen is also useless for metallic colors. As for Tru-Color paints, I do use them and like them very much. They do go on very thin. I use them in my other hobby (model railroading) and haven't yet tried their automotive colors. A word of warning about using generic thinner (like acetone); It might bite you in the butt. While it will work, you might not get the best possible surface finish. Acetone evaporates too fast. Their thinner has other solvents besides acetone, and it evaporates a bit slower (allowing the paint to better level out). For as little as you will use for mixing with the paint, spend the extra money and buy Tru-Color thinner. You can still use cheap acetone for airbrush cleaning and general cleanups.

Not that I have noticed (and some of my setting solutions are around 30 years old)! If the "Sol" smells like vinegar (acetic acid) and "Set:" smells a bit like alcohol, then they are likely good. But there are lots of different decal manufacturers using different formulas of inks and clear film. Even the same kit re-released some years later could have decals made by another company. Some decals are very thin and easily melted by the setting solutions while others are very stubborn and even the Microsol will not affect them much. For those I use Walthers SolvaSet - the strongest setting solution I have encountered. I have at least half a dozen different setting solutions, and sometimes it takes some trial and error to find the one which works the best on certain brand of decals.

While the shine is there on that slick "speed shape", how thick is the paint coat? Like Mike said, if the paint goes on too thick, it will obfuscate small details. If I have some delicate parts, I don't want them to look like they were dipped in pancake syrup.

I can't believe that I just now found this thread - probably because I usually look for stuff like this in the aftermarket section of the forum. I used to own a '77 T-bird and would love to have a model in 1:24/25 scale! Mine was cream/brown. I still have few mementos from it like the hood ornament, and I think I have the Thunderbird script from the trunk lid stashed away too. The only model of it I own is a 1:64 scale diecast. Hopefully this one will be available for sale. As I can tell Paul, your model looks pretty darn good! I hope that you will cast the front directional and the taillights in clear resin (assuming they will remain as separate pieces).. Another model I would love to see is a '79-'85 Caddy Eldorado or a Seville of similar vintage (other than that TKM slush-cast thing). For a bit of history, the body had the same color as this one, but the roof, trim and interior were brown (this one looks almost dark maroon). It has a 351 Windsor engine and it was a very smooth ride. This was the first and last car I owned which rode like a "boat": it floated on the highway. Very comfortable - nothing like today's cars. I bought it from my mom and owned it for few years in the late '80s to early '90s. But the New England weather was not kind to it - rust ate it alive. I remember the rear bumper mounts were rusting off so I had to tie the bumper up with some rope! I drive it to a junk yard and left it there to die. I wish I still had one like it - they are very rare nowadays, even at car shows or cruise nights. My "toy" nowadays is a 1985 Caddy Eldorado Biarritz with just over 43,000 miles. Blue with stainless steel and vinyl top and white leather interior. It is a great ride too, but not quite as smooth as the T-Bird.

I like the effect!

Nice! Hopefully the top half is easily removable to show of that nice interior.

25W is a good wattage for general use. Not sure if you can actually dial up the tip temperature and keep it constant, or if the knob is just like a dimmer switch that simply reduces the power going to the heating element. I rarely set mine over 700 deg. F, and I use 60/40 solder most of the time. These tips have strange coloring. Usually the would be silver color. It is probably just for looks and they are copper under thin layer of brass or gold plating. Unless the literature states that these are iron-clad tips (for long life). Flux is absolutely vital for good solder joints. Even with rosin core flux, it is good to use extra flux. For electrical work I recommend electronic paste flux (non-caustic). My favorite is Radio Shack Rosin Paste Flux . For non-electric soldering (like brass or even steel items) you can use more aggressive acidic fluxes like Tix Flux, or even flux used for soldering copper pipes. Those usually contain Zinc Chloride or even Hydrochloric Acid. Make sure to clean the joints well after soldering to remove all the caustic flux remains. I had been a computer tech for years and had to rework thousands of circuit boards, so soldering is a second nature to me. Not surprisingly I also own a professional rework station. Keeping the tip cleand and tinned is very important, and like I said - if you do it for a while, it shoudl become a reflex action.

That's ok by me. I was replying to Brian's post - should have quoted it. I think for what you want to do, resistance soldering is a good fit.

Did a Google search for 0000-160 screws, and bunch of info showed up. There are links to Amazon listings (I dindn't check them out). But then https://jimorrisco.com/ Have you tried them? no matter where you get them, 0000-160 hardware is quite pricey.

Resistance soldering has its place, but it is not really geared for soldering electronic components. Stick with your wet sponge and standard iron. And you are doing well if you keep your tip tinned. But you also get what you paid for. The iron is probably not temperature controlled and has simple copper tip, and it is running way too hot. You can get a nicer, temperature-controlled soldering station with a pencil irons and a wide selection of iron-clad long lasting tips for less than $80. Keep the temperature under 700 deg. F and the tip will not get gunked-up very much. But you still need to use some sort of tip cleaner (like wet sponge), and keep the tip tinned. It should really become a reflex action you don't even realize that you are doing.

The thread subject line shows 1/6 (1:6) scale - this is the BIG one! Probably over a foot tall.

Remember those 2 keystrokes (I mentioned in my earlier post) that save your typed up text - I use them al the time: Control-A, Control-C, then Control-V to paste it somewhere save locally on your computer. It really is a life saver. Worth using.

Nice!

That is an awesome news, and a very wise decision made by the German owners of Revell. Sounds like they have their act together. Nice to see this in today's world of failed mergers and takeovers.

Brake Fluid (polyglycol-ether-based) can craze, or soften some polystyrene and urethane resins. Be careful! Oven cleaners which are lye-based (Sodium Hydroxide) are also good at stripping paint (and skin from your fingers). But again, careful when using on urethane resins. The Purple stuff also contains Lye (and that is likely the main ingredient in it which strips the model paint). Isopropyl (ISO) alcohol (the strongest solution you can find - preferably 91% or higher) can also strip paint and not affect polystyrene, but might require some elbow-grease (like scrubbing with a stiff brush, or rubbing the surface with a rag) to get the paint off. Again, be careful when using on urethane bodies.

Warning about 5-minute epoxy: in the last 40 years I used at least half a dozen brands, and they all start off nice ans clear (maybe with an extremely slight amber tint), but they all seem to yellow after few years.

No, totally different things. If you have old decals with cracked clear film, the need a fresh layer of clear film to hold all the cracked pieces together (while the decals are still on its dry backing paper). Superfilm (or Microscale Clear Decal Film - which is basically the same product) are alcohol-based clear films which when applied to the old sheet will create a new solid clear film over the cracked decal graphics, so it will not disintegrate when placed in water. Other clear lacquers (like Joe recommended) should also work, but Superfilm is made by a decal manufacturer, specifically for this task. The Micro Sol and Set are decal softening solution for making the decal film conform better to the model's surface, after being applied to the model.

Alps MicroDry printer is capable of printing both metallic inks (satin finish) and metallic Foils (high shine finish).

Yes, all those (although I use BSI brand CA and accelerator). I also use 3 different CA viscosities. And of course 5-minute epoxy is also another adhesive indispensable for my modeling tasks.

Using alcohol as thinner for some brands of water-based acrylic paints will curdle them. I don't remember which brands - I just remember reading about it.

Excellent! I'll be very curious about your findings (and of course happy if and when it gets fixed). Also, this might be a different problem than the 404 error (but it could be related). In my experience, most of today's software is written very sloppily. It is probably compiled from many modules written by different programmers who don't even talk to each other, and they probably use bunch of generic libraries or pre-canned code modules (written just as sloppily). I'm not a programmer, but I know enough to be dangerous.

I just tried again and I got the same error. Did you remember to change "f r o m" to "from"?

Good point. We need to see some actual examples of model size car parts to see how it works on smaller items with fine details.