ubermodel

How do you shrink model parts that are too big? In building the AMT '62 Bel-Air, I noticed that the dog dish hubcaps are too large in diameter, perhaps 2-3 scale inches. I needed a way to shrink them, and this worked pretty well....provided I had the patience of a saint. All you'll need is some Elmers Glue and resin mold-making compound. Due to its nature this method only works for small parts. First, make a resin mold of your part, in my case it was the Bel-Air hubcap. When that cures, brush a thin layer of Elmers Glue onto the surface layer of the mold, making sure to coat all areas, and to eliminate all bubbles. Place it somewhere warm to speed drying time. Once dry, fill the mold approximately 1/4 full with Elmers Glue, and let that dry fully, then repeat that step until the mold is full. You can't fill it all in one step because too much glue at once will just fill your mold with mush that won't dry. Let it sit for a day or so, then carefully remove from the mold. You should have a duplicate of your part, made completely of dried Elmers Glue. Take your new part, place it in a small container where dust won't get on it, and let it sit somewhere warm and dry for a week. As Elmers Glue "cures" it actually shrinks, so your part is getting smaller while you wait. Now, the part that requires patience: after a week of drying time, your part will be smaller, but to get noticable results, you'll have to repeat the whole process two or three times, using each successive shrunken part as a master to create a new resin mold from. Once the part is the size you require, make a final mold and you're ready to create as many resin copies as you need. Yes, this process is a pain in the ass but it worked. In the photo below, I was able to shrink the original hubcap a little over 1/16", which worked out to almost 2 scale inches, and the final assembly showed a lot more of the steel wheel's detail.

Yeah, I did the artwork way before I heard any news about the Mach 1 retool. I guess whoever wants to will just have two choices, PE parts or plastic. I did set it for just about any 70 'Stang variant (Boss 429 & 302, plain jane with a 351C, or whatever). Thanks, I'll get in touch with Fotocut and see if they can handle the fine detail.

PCE was, in fact, the company I used to etch the set in the pix above. They had done a couple of other sets for me that came out great, but maybe they weren't able to handle the level of detail this time around. Which is surprising, as I had a few Model Car Garage sets that I scanned in, and made sure that my artwork was similar in level of detail. Anybody know which company MCG uses?

I did indeed speak to Bob a few years ago at an NNL. As I recall, he sends his stuff out to be photoetched (like I'm trying to) and didn't tell me the name of the company he uses.

Can anyone recommend a very good photoetching company? I'd like to get more of these done, but I need a better etcher than I've used in the past. It's a PE set for a '70 Mach 1 conversion I was working one.