Saturday, February 10, 2007

Super Glue Talc Filler

In those often rare cases where our modeling supplies run out before becoming aware of it, some of us still want to continue. What do we do? Improvise. Of course...I was using this for a while before my parents agreed to let me buy some hobby putty. In retrospect, I think they were afraid I was trying to get high on the putty. In any case, the following is a really cheap substitute. You need the following materials:

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Ah yes, any baby powder will work....it doesn't have to be Lavender scent. So anyway, for this tutorial, I'll be using one of the 1/100 HG Gundam Wing kit hands. They're generic, and are ugly with that nasty seam line down the back of the hand. Yeah, and I didn't do a clean cut when getting them out of the parts trees either. Now, you'll notice though how obvious that line is down the middle. You try painting over that and you'll find that the line will be made more visible. So yeah, we need to cover it up. Taking the two parts check out where the seam line would appear when the parts are assembled. Usually, it will be the areas that don't have a hollow portion as seen in the picture on the left. When you glue, make sure you're putting enough so that the glue will ooze out, but not so much that the entire tube empties out. Depending on your glue, it may dry pretty fast so make sure you have the parts already to go for assembly. Otherwise, in your haste to get the parts together you may find yourself getting glue all over your hands and becoming distraught at the amount of skin being torn. Super glue should bond pretty easily, but still push the pieces together just to make sure. You should have something that looks like this. This part is now ready for sanding. What...where's where's the baby powder come in...you're asking. Actually, I'm going to show why just using super glue alone as a filler is a bad idea. And then repair the process. Depending on the super glue you have, it's possible that it won't sand very well. So what if it doesn't sand well? This is how you get misshapen pieces. The sanding you're doing is so the glue line is level with the plastic, thus eliminating the seam. However, if the glue doesn't sand as easily as the plastic, then the plastic will wear down faster and your piece will no longer have its original shape. That is bad! Normally, this is why you mix the powder in with the glue. The powder will alter the properties of the glue making it less brittle, and more easily sandable. However in the event that there's still a hole you can still use some sort of powder/glue mixture. See, after sanding with only super glue it looks right, right? However if you put powder on top and it sticks, then you know there's still some gap of some sort. See? There's still somewhat of a gap on the lower portion of the back hand. Also, the area I messed up on when I cut the part from the tree is still very visible. Where the white powder is right now would show up when I paint the hand. That is bad, and is very very unprofessional looking. So then, this can still be remedied. Now...Dump more powder on the hand and blow at it. If done right the powder in the crevice should remain while the excess flies off. Now apply the glue and mix it in with the powder. All righty...now sand the sucker.

Photobucket - Video and Image HostingPhotobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Excellent. Now when you go about painting, that seam is gone brotha, and you now have a very nice looking hand.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

1/100 HG Wing Gundam In-Progress

So...one of the things I've wanted to do for a long time now is try my hand at extending parts. I tried it out with the Wing's shield and ended up liking it. The first problem was finding out how to cut the plastic off to perform the surgery. Being the stereotyped poor college student, I couldn't afford a pin vise...so...I improvised. Taking a broken mechanical pencil, I glued a sewing needle into the area where the lead would normally be. Voila! Poor whale's cutting utensil and scriber! IPB Image I carefully traced one of the existing panel lines on the shield to get an indentation, and then proceeded to go through the indentation several times. Each pass grounded up a bit of the plastic until I reached the other side. Granted this does take off more plastic than what was originally separated on the panel line, but I didn't have a knife with me when I was doing it.





For the extensions I used the leftover plastic on the parts tree, cut them into several rods of equal length and glued them on the underside of the shield.




After joining the two parts, I put some of this Quikplastik stuff I got at Home Depot to cover the gap. I think it's plumber's epoxy putty.





The picture was a reference for me to see how it turned out. It turns out that I didn't put an equal amount, causing the top to have an extension and depression and the sides to be caved in. I believe I fixed it after these pictures were taken.






I added ball joint to the torso area.































Wednesday, June 07, 2006

And it draws closer

The year draws ever closer to a close. I find it humerous that I barely posted on this bit of space. Perhaps I'll post some more now. I was able to get my yearbook some John Hancocks and Da Vincis. I still need to sign some other people's yearbooks as well. Speaking of which, Grace wrote Chikan all over one of the pages. I love how my parents don't know what that means. I just said it said awesome.

And tomorrow I have my Bio final and a Gov test.

Friday, May 12, 2006

Links Updated

w00t!

After taking ages to filter out dead sites, I've finally compiled a list of existing model galleries and shops.

Feel free to email me if you have any more!

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

I was left behind. lol.

So here's something odd that happened to me. My family had come to Hometown Buffet in separate cars. We decided that I would leave in my dad's car. So, at the end of the meal, Dad had to go use the restroom and mom took that opportunity to leave. She gave me the key to the van so I could recline in the back seat. Of course thinking that my dad would come out immediately, I decided to wait instead. 10 mins passed and I thought, hmmah, damn he's taking a crap. So I waltzed over out of the restaurant to open the car up.

Um shit. The van's gone!!! WHAAAT?! I rush back into Hometown Buffet's bathroom. Crap he's gone!!!! WTF!?!?!?! Umm...shit. Mmmmkay. I'll just call home and leave a message that I've been left behind. lol lol lol. At the same time I was thinking, I think I saw this movie before!

So, I called at 4:39pm and ended up waiting until 5:22pm for my mom to arrive. She was so pissed off since she just arrived home to find out I wasn't around. Apparantly dad had somehow missed me when he left the restroom and drove right off thinking I had decided to go in Mom's car.

lol. I must have acquired enough volatile inhalents from all the passing cars and smokers around the area I was sitting in. Lung cancer, here I come(I hope not)!

On another note, I've discovered an idea for how to do my Deathscythe. I'll see if I can pull it off this weekend.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Site Updates

I fixed the left sidebar, now I just need some time to redo the Modelling Sites page. Yes, it's a mess, I know.

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Tidbits

I'm in the process of revamping the website. Hmmmah, I'm not sure if I will make the Penetrate contest. Oh well.

On another note, since it doesn't really appear that anyone knows me outside of the gundam forums I visit, I'm going to make some sort of effort to get my face out.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

New Semester, New Year

All righty, tomorrow is the start of a new semester. I pray I will not screw it up.

This is my tentative schedule

Calc
Stats
Bio
Japanese
English
Government

Calc should be fairly easy. Stats and Bio I need to do extremely well because I need to get 5's on the AP tests. Japanese and English are easy A's. Gov is history, my forte. Awesome.

Next, I finally got a hold of some QuikPlastik from Home Depot to extend the leg joints on the Deathscythe. Hopefully I'll get off my ass to take some pictures in the future. I have this very elaborate plan for the Deathscythe, which I shall reveal, soon. How soon? Uh...I'll get back to you on that.

Yesterday, on Chinese New Year's eve, my mom and I got into an accident. In the middle of a left turn mom asked me to look at the price of the gas on the side. I didn't know that she was looking too. -_-; So, we're turning and then I see headlights coming our way. O_o. Oh shi-! A loud scraping sound reverberates through the ears of the onlookers on the sidewalk as it grazes the left corner of our car and passes through the intersection. My mom becomes emotionally unstable muttering things about why she had to get hit on New Year's Eve, that it's a bad omen, that she's getting old, etc. etc. Meanwhile, I turn around trying to make out the license plate of the SUV that hit us. Thankfully the guy had stopped and I make out a 7RH before the guy speeds off. Whut? We're at fault here, why the hell did you speed off for? Mmmkay. This is one of those times I wish I had a cell phone with me.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Finals

Let's see

Monday
Math

Tuesday
Stats
Bio

Wednesday
Japanese
English

Thursday
Economics


My B in Stats is fairly weak, not fairly strong. If I do poorly on the final, I may possibly get a C+. That would not bode well, especially if colleges start to have second thoughts about me. To top it off, I have Biology the period afterwards! W00t. It is a good thing the other days will not be so hard.

Sawaya=awesome.
I'm getting a B for doing nothing. Absolutely nothing! And our Final is a mandatory extra credit test. HAAHHAHAHAHAAAA! I laught at everyone out there!

Speaking of which, he did assign us a story, called Madame Bovary. It is a fairly interesting read so far. I am staring at page 50, wondering what time will be optimal to go to sleep.

Let's hope I get an A tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

School Status

As finals week draws near, I have come to the conclusion that I shall receive "B" grades plus the guaranteed "A" for Japanese. Ah, Japanese. Thank god I'm taking that class. It seems ironic that the class I barely do anything in is the one that will get the highest grade. Good grief! Unfortunately for my other classes, it seems to be the case that no matter how hard I study, I cannot get any tangible results. Oh well, hopefully the colleges won't consider it that much. I may smack myself silly if I'm rejected because of a stupid thing like that.

On another note, Providence has been shelved. I can work on it another time, but there are more pressing matters of concern. I've been trying out some arm modifications for the Deathscythe Hell, but errr school is getting in the way. I'm still trying to create a workable torso joint, but it isn't likely to come into fruition any time soon.