Some cool plastic molded part photos:
BrickArms Nunchucks prototype
Image by Dunechaser
Here in use by Bruce Lee.
Full create-up on The Brothers Brick to stick to shortly.
50 shades of gray – 46 of them water primarily based acrylics DSC_0743
Image by wbaiv
Like most airplane / car / space model builders, there always seems to be an additional gray I want to mix or match. I’ve got much more, I just stopped at 50 for this picture, creating certain to have my favourite, Polly Scale, nicely represented. Also Testor’s Model Master Acryl II, (or just Acryl, no one but me remembers the initial version).
Polly Scale and Model Master paints are both created by the RPM company, but the Polly Scale paint expenses far more per bottle, and is a superior brushing paint, in my opinion. Dead flat and capable to be put on in very thin coats, Polly Scale is the water based paint that had the variety and usability to let me give up oil based paints.
Testor’s Model Master Acryl is almost as excellent, a tiny thinner, needing a lot more coats to cover, but displaying brush marks far more as well. Go figure. They smell distinct.
Tamiya make an acrylic with an alcohol and water thinner that’s like no other water based product. Its extremely thick, so seemingly covers in a couple of coats, but it builds up, specially the gloss versions. But the colors are stunning and dense, the pigments extremely fine. Its like a super premium property paint. If you operate diligently, you can develop up two or 3 really thin coats of the gloss and get an really glossy finish with out it being too thick. Its not the most user-friendly but the cap molded in plastic the colour of the paint, and the obsessive beauty of the colors, makes it tough to pass it by. It utilized to be the easiest to uncover, 30 years ago, but Testor’s Acryl is easier in the USA right now.
Gunzie Sangyo is another Japanese solution, with the bottle caps molded in plastic (far more or less) the color of the paint. They too have a special not-just-water solvent program. Not the exact same as Tamiya, and the two never truly mix extremely nicely.
In contrast to oil-based enamels, acrylic paints don’t all play properly together….
Some really excellent modelers swear by Tamiya, some by Model Master Acryl, some by Gunzie Sangyo, some by Polly Scale.
Rarer birds in this collection are bottles of Pactra’s old acrylic line, before RPM purchased them and "rationalized" their line to not total with the flagship Testor’s item. The Pactra bottles are 4th from the correct, back row, and 1st on the left, 2nd from back row. They have black metal caps but a colored sticker that gives the stock quantity, name and FS595 number.
One squeeze bottle of "steel" is from Vallejo, in Spain, and a second bottle, next to it in the back row, is a stainless steel from Blick Art. The rarest bottle in this collection is the beige/khaki grey/tan directly in front of the Tamia spray can. It was a super-niche model paint marketed to Luftwaffe fans, and the colour is RLM 02 gray.
Polly Scale is specialized stuff you have to look for. Hobbies Unlimited in San Lorenzo stocks it in railroad colors, in larger bottles, (1.five oz? 2oz?) Sheldon’s Hobbies in San Jose has all the military colors in the 3/four ounce bottles. Both also have Acryl. Hobbies Unlimited and Berkeley Ace Hardware have Acryl, Tamiya, and others. Berkeley Ace has the newer Humbrol acrylic, and oil paints.
Boeing Aircraft Company’s colour 707 gray (between 706 and 708, not named following the well-liked four engine jet airliner) for 1/144 airliners was a good challenge for me- there were oil primarily based versions obtainable but no water based 1 when I began mixing my own. I ended up with 3 components Testor’s Model Master Acryl II 36495 gray and 8 components Acryl flat white.
Then there are the pure metallic paints, – stainless steel produced making use of powdered stainless steel, Aluminum made with powdered aluminum. And that maid of all work, metallic gray, a mix of black, white and aluminum pigment. Its #56 in Tamiya’s acrylic range and it was #56 in the old Pactra oil-based model paint line as well.
The Model Master rattle can gray is an oil-primarily based paint, and the Tamiya is a synthetic lacquer. One bottle of ‘silver’, third from the back, third from the left edge, is Testor’s famous Chrome Silver enamel. One more bottle of Testor’s oil-based metallic paint is at the back left corner. The Testor’s oil-primarily based enamels are in 1/four oz bottles.
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