Chief Joseph

Okay I completely cleaned off my desk this afternoon and put all the tools where they belong, all the paint bottles where they belong, and separated the pieces of about 7 different projects into their own dedicated bins. I thought I would be motivated to return to work with a fresh start but instead I'm thinking how nice the desk looks without any stuff on it...

I'm an "Oscar Madison" with a dash of "hoarder" and a pinch of "ADD" thrown in for good measure. I can excavate my work desk like an archeologist.

Plastic scale models and children do not mix. Ever. That's why God gave us locking glass display cases. My 3-yr old grandson barely even knows I have models because I always redirect his attention whenever he's in the room with the display cases! That was a nice truck, BTW

This is the future of modeling, my friends. All of these figures are digitally sculpted in Zbrush and the masters are 3D printed. Then traditional resin castings are made from silicone molds for sale. I have done some work with Michael Fichtenmayer in the past (I printed the decals for this thing) and all that stuff was traditional modeling... this new digital stuff is out of this world!

Yes, the outside perimeter of the parts get smaller because of the sideways etching action, so you have to compensate by increasing the size just slightly. A vector drawing program allows you to easily do this by adding a stroke around the object. Parts get smaller, holes get bigger.

Those parts look really good, Steve! As Justin commented, the thickness of the metal dictates some of the details you are able to achieve. Regarding some of your holes being over-etched, a rule of thumb to remember is "Holes get bigger, parts get smaller." That is, a hole over-etches slightly from the way it was originally drawn and printed, and the overall part over-etches around its perimeter, making it slightly smaller that it was originally drawn. A hole that's placed very close to the edge of the piece will cause both of these properties to come into play, and the result will be a blown-out hole. Now, the amount of over-etching that occurs is directly related to the thickness of the metal. The general "fudge factor" to account for this over-etching is 15% of the metal thickness. Therefore, if you are working with 0.010" thick brass and you want a hole exactly 0.022", you will want to decrease the diameter of the hole by .003" (15% of 0.022") and draw your hole at 0.019". I usually round everything to the nearest .001" for sanity. Keep up the good work, Steve, and I hope you other guys get your stuff from MicroMark soon and join in the fun!

Okay, that's a little weird I'll be making resin copies sometime soon and I can get you one. Congratulations! It's a great feeling when you try something new and it works. I don't know the exact instructions in the MicroMark kit, but here are some tips specific to your observations: After you've exposed the workpiece and developed it, set it in the sun for a few more minutes to further harden the resist. When you were etching your workpiece, did you notice the metal etching faster from the outer edges inward? Try to arrange your artwork so that the more-detailed items are in the center. That way there's less of a chance of over-etching the finer details.

The only dumb question is the one you never ask... Yes, you have to cover both sides of the metal with resist film if you intend to etch from both sides of the metal to make detailed or foldable parts. You can also etch from only one side, and cover the opposite side with lacquer paint to prevent etching on that side. When you etch from both sides, the parts come out cleaner with finer details and the etching process only takes half the time. The downside is you have to get the two film positives aligned near-perfectly so the parts are formed properly. The Vivera inks in my not-so-new HP are good enough to make a good transfer but I have to increase the ink volume in the driver's control panel. Standard ink volume is too transparent to work. Epson printers that use pigment ink are supposed to be the absolute best printers for this type of work. The screen-printing industry uses Epson printers almost exclusively for printing inket positives. For me, a little piece of Scotch tape on the edge of the metal piece works just fine to keep the metal sandwiched between the two transparent positives.

Ignore the "acrylic" part because it's not at all like an acrylic hobby paint. It's an automotive acrylic enamel, which is a totally different beast. Refer to the Scalefinishes application guide here: http://www.scalefinishes.com/use.html Hope this helps

Don't bother getting any extra carrier sheets. I use a piece of folded plain paper instead. The purpose of putting the resist & metal "sandwich" through the laminator is to fuse the resist film to the metal. By putting it inside a folded piece of paper, you prevent any excess resist film from bonding to the laminator's rollers.

If the Arii Radial T/A's are good overall, they can be shrunk to 1/25 scale by taking a mold of one with a high-shrink silicone (Mold Max 30), casting a copy in a high-shrink resin (Alumilite fast) and then making another mold of that casting to make the actual parts to go on the model. That should reduce the size enough to get the tire to look right in 1/25 scale while keeping the detail. The scale difference is about 4%, and each of those steps is worth between 1 to 1.5 percent or so. I like the casting block because it creates a realistic contact patch for the tire when the block is removed. The casting blocks are not permanently attached to these Eagle GT tire masters, so I could make them in a flexible back plastic if needed. If there were enough demand then I could do that, but they would cost more and the white letters would have to be painted. I much prefer the rigid resin because I'd rather paint the tires exactly the way I want them with any type of paint. Monty, I have no estimate of when anything will be available. I quit trying to announce availability of new parts a long time ago; it seemed like whenever I would say something would be available at a certain date, some calamity would derail all my planning. I have some projects that are now years behind their original schedule!

What period are you building, Nick?

Mike, I don't have any kits with the Radial T/A's, so I can't comment. I have a philosophy when it comes to my car modeling: instead of trying to track down kit parts that may or may not suit my needs, I just make what I want. I want some 1/24 scale Radial T/A's for one of the GTO's I am building, so instead of settling for undersized 1/25 tires or some ridiculously wide tires, I am going to make exactly what I want If I can make them available to others to help them out with their models, then it makes me happy to do that. There are a gazillion different directions a modeler can go with cars, and my niche is stock-appearing musclecars that I've either owned or came close to owning. It's a pretty small niche

Already been collecting references for the BFG R T/A. Size will be close to the Eagle GT, i.e. 1/24 for typical musclecars. Will work in 1/25 but will be a bit bigger than true scale. Like the Eagle GT, this would be a scratchbuilt tire, not a recast. Also in the works is a Goodyear redline.

Your General Lee looks great, Randy! So, is this the same old original General Lee kit that's just been molded in glowing styrene or is it a different tooling?

Yes, much more stable. I painted the promo tire with Wicked Colors Smoke Black, which is a good off-black rubber color, then lightly misted a dusty color over the tread. I drybrushed the smoke black back over the tread blocks to give some contrast. When the sidewalls were fully dried I sanded the raised letters to reveal the white resin. If you're so inclined, you can hit the sidewalls with a clear gloss to simulate a coat of Armor All!

Thanks, Casey. I also have an original 1969 Goodyear redline that I am going to reproduce in 1/24. I'm making these tires for my own personal builds, but I figure they could be useful to others as well.

Hello all, I just wanted to let y'all know that I am offering a 1/24 scale Goodyear Eagle GT tires. I have been making scale helicopter model parts for years, but this is my first automobile release. The tires are cast in hard white resin and they have accurate tread pattern and sidewall lettering. One side is outline white letter and the opposite side is black letter. They are made to replace the Goodyear GT Radial tires that are found in many Revell/Monogram kits, most notably the '87 Buick Grand National and the '86 Chevy Monte Carlo SS. The size I patterned is 235/60R-15, which was the common replacement tire for the weak-looking 215/65R-15 that came stock on these cars. My item number is FMD-020 for the set of 4 tires. These are 100% scratchbuilt and not copied from any existing kit tire. Full details at my website, http://www.fireballmodels.info Thanks for looking, Joseph

Your Goat looks great, Sam! I have the MPC '70 somewhere around here in a box and if I knew I could make it as nice as yours I'd give it a shot.

Frank, when you say, "it popped in the pot," do you mean you were curing the rubber under pressure to reduce air bubbles? Pressure-curing works (I did it for a couple of years before I could afford a vacuum pump), but the big drawback is that the pressure has to remain fairly constant during the whole curing cycle. If the rubber is halfway cured, the air bubbles that are crushed by the air pressure will expand in the soft rubber and ruin the mold. Mold Star 30 cures in about 7-8 hours, which is pretty quick. Did your pressure fall off from 35-40lbs during that period? I'm not a huge fan of the Mold Star rubbers, even though I have been pouring molds with them all weekend. A good compromise between price and performance, but I wish they had more of the performance advantages of the old-fashioned Smooth-Sil platinum-cured rubber.

Priming, painting, clearcoating, polishing, and waxing... plastic spoons But man, those spoons look nice.

Oops, this got pushed to the back burner and then forgotten Here's a photo of the frets I made a couple of years ago for one of my big resin conversion sets: I made several dozen of these sets, all in .005" and .008" brass. Here is a pic of some random stuff I've made recently for a couple of sci-fi movie models: The top two are brass and the bottom is nickel silver. I'm having a heck of a time finding nickel silver in .005" thickness; I can get .010" (like this piece) easily, but the thinner stuff is rare in small quantities. I had one metal supplier tell me today he could get .005" for me, but I had to buy 50 pounds!! Nickel silver etches as easily as brass, so it is much easier to work with than stainless steel. Here are some of my phototools that I use to create some of my one-off's and stock items: I finally used up the box of overhead transparency film I got a couple of years ago, so I bought some of the special film that's used in the screenprinting industry. This film's performance is superior to the regular old transparency film that you get from the office supply places. A metal blank with UV-sensitive resist film applied to both sides is inserted between the two transparent halves of the phototool, then each side is exposed to UV light to create the patterns on the resist. Here's a 1/32 scale gunsight for an AH-1J Cobra: There are a bunch of individual photoetched pieces that make up this assembly. Getting the different folded parts to fit together is something of a black art... Here's something a little more on-topic for this particular forum, a 1/24 scale grille for '85-'86 Buick GN: I'll get around to building a model around this one day...

You can check their online store and see if a model is available there; if it is, then there is a good chance you can find it in the store. Also, if you regularly check the online store and compare it to the physical store, you can see when they stop carrying a particular kit. Then you can make sure you snag one at the store before they disappear. They've been running the 40% coupon every week instead of biweekly the past couple of months, too.

Most of the common cars like Mustangs, Novas, Camaros, etc have photoetch sets available that usually include emblems. That's the easiest way to get replacement emblems. I think Keith Marks prints his emblem decals with Alps silver foil, which is very shiny and chrome-like although they have very little thickeness (I am an Alps aftermarket decal producer myself). But they are sharp, clean, and somewhat cheaper than photoetch.

From Wikipedia: A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term—a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock—originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about himself while pretending to be another person.[1] The term now includes other uses of misleading online identities, such as those created to praise, defend or support a third party or organization.[2] A significant difference between the use of a pseudonym[3] and the creation of a sockpuppet is that the sockpuppet poses as an independent third-party unaffiliated with the puppeteer. PM me for more info if you wish.