Ade H

Sorry to butt into your thread, Lostpanther, but... John, if you mean Model Color, I can only surmise that you used too fine a nozzle or tried it when the weather out there was just too warm. I routinely spray thinned MC (with retarder and either purified water or Airbrush Thinner) and they spray well through an Iwata .35mm. Not quite as smoothly as Model Air or Premium, but I would not expect so. They need a bit more pressure. I'm hardly an old hand at airbrushing, so if I can do it, it must be doable.

Some of the more bouncy ones are one reason why I have GIF animation disabled in Firefox. They sit still then.

Tidy, Shaun. Regarding Micromesh, are you using its set of colour-coded square pads or something else? I was thinking of getting some. Incidentally, is the white bodyshell in the background for a Sauber?

I had an idea of creating a coral beach as a crash site. I wanted to resurrect an old F4F-4 which had its undercarriage broken and so was only fit for showing in a belly landing scene. My initial Googling showed up fine white aquarium silica as a possible material. I know nothing about aquaria and I haven't visited a shop to have a look at the stuff, but it might be suitable. The main problem, as I see it, is balancing an in-scale appearance with some texture to make the coral perceptible. Probably, just paint would be in-scale, but would it look convincing? Probably not.

Wow. Overly sensitive this morning? It was not a blanket statement or personally directed at you, so relax. Nor did it refer specifically to this forum. But I speak as I find and when I was researching airbrushes, much of the advice which I found in web searches was not substantiated and many contributors, even in one thread, contradicted each other. That amounts to unconstructive.

Or next door if they're in a zoo. That must be a shock on your first day in a zoo... What have I started?

Graham, while Sabrejet's answer to you is correct, I can also appreciate your point that people think of "parlous" as being at risk of collapse. But several of the British magazines deserve to fail. For one thing, I can't believe that the market is not over saturated. Then there are the duplicated builds which publishers show in more than one of their titles. And one only needs to read any one publisher's output for long enough to begin to suffer flashbacks with the repitition. They severely lack imagination and development, which is ironic for a creative hobby. By no means do all modelling magazines suffer from any of these failings — I like and read at least one British (and one U.S.) title regularly — but I think that they are genuine problems.

I wonder how you can confidently claim that? Some of us may have written for a living during our careers. Just not for modelling magazines.

One who's just won the Antarctic Lottery. Top prize is a lifetime supply of herring.

I'm quite curious about the penguin emoji in the editing box! The meaning of it, if any, is lost on me!

Are you sure? I'm reticent to comment on RFI because most people seem only to give compliments. If I was submitting a build, I would expect people to be more analytical and be almost as critical as I am towards myself. I'll just give you a few tips about what I would have done (and, indeed, did — I've built the KV-1 Ehkranami version of this kit and really enjoyed it). It seems that KV track guards didn't last long before damage, so I took a segment out of mine and replaced it with some brass, then damaged it. I can't make up my mind whether your modulation may be a little too subtle under the weathering — a problem which I have suffered several times so far — but that is a matter of taste. And I think that the big turret KVs cry out for a hand-painted slogan. If you have no decals, try an artist's fine-tipped white paint marker, which is what I used in lieu of the kit decals. For your shiny figures, I'm sure than a brushable matte varnish such as AK Ultra Matte would flatten them, but I don't know how it happened either.

If that's the Meng-sponsored magazine, I must disagree about the quality. The builds tend towards the high end, but the writing is usually atrocious and unedited. I cannot believe that it has an editor, yet someone is thus credited. For another example of this publisher's poor quality and absence of oversight, read either of Adam Wilder's books. Though not to everyone's taste, he is a skilled and distinctive modeller of the artistic style, but his books are undermined by writing which is simplistic and littered with glaring errors which no-one had the good sense to edit. I could have authored that first post myself because it reflects how I feel about most British modelling magazines and, indeed, most British journalistic writing. Anyway: rant over.

I think that it's just a jet engine from a model.

Yep, them's the ones. If you opt for them, have a look at Youtube reviews for an idea of the colours. Vallejo's PDF brochure swatches are mostly inaccurate to varying extents and it makes it very hard to judge what to buy without seeing them tested. I bought the gold the other day and it's kind of green.

That's a good bit of research. My -5's heading for the "paint shop" very shortly, but if it's ever joined by, say, a -5n, it'll have green belts. Thanks very much for your help, Corsair.

Ooh, no interest in British Army wheeled vehicles of WWII? [Shuffles off] A warm welcome from a fellow BM newcomer anyway, Barry!

If you ever do want an airbrush again, speak to someone at a specialist, e.g. Air Craft. Martin, who I believe runs it, was patient with my query and helped me to make a what I think was a wise choice. Internet advice tended to be contradictory and speculative.

It's a good (and tricky) question, Wizball. I have the best part of a complete Vallejo Metal Colour range and I do brush details with it quite often. But it's thin even as airbrush-ready paints go — thinner than Model Air — so it's difficult to work. It's sensitive to having the right brush (e.g. Escoda Versatil works well) and it sometimes takes a somewhat counter-intuitive brushing style. It is also prone to separation of colour and metal in the palette, and it finishes noticeably darker than when sprayed. It sprays very well, but it should do at that price. But despite these caveats, I do still recommend it for brushing, primarily because of the lack of alternatives. Model Colour metallic shades (not to be confused with Vallejo's alcohol-based metallics) are nowhere near as convincing as Metal Colour (probably not meant to be, I suppose) and they do not brush as well as other Model Colours. In fact, they don't adhere well at all. Metal Colour can, with care, produce a much nicer result. Hoping that this helps you. Incidentally, I don't include Tamiya as an acrylic option. It's not, strictly, an acrylic resin anyway, but I find that the alcohol base is not very pleasant. I certainly know when I've used Tamiyas because they hang around.

You're coming across as slightly defensive, but your point is fair enough if that's what works for you. I'm not selling anything. I just assumed that polystyrene would begin to break up after a lot of sticks being poked into it. I find that it sheds bits easily in computer and monitor boxes.

Airfix model magazine has just done one of its occasional special issues and this one is all cars (plus one bike). There's a really nice build of a 962 in Jaegermeister colours and a photo reference for it. It's worth the price for this alone. There's also an Ebbro MP4/30, which is nicely done.

As it inevitably wears out, would that not leave little specs of polystyrene around your spray area?

No, I don't tend to buy aircraft books. Hardly enough bookshelf room left to expand my habit to another genre!

Thanks for replying, Corsair. I don't think that anyone else knows of a date for their introduction, so maybe it's just one of those historical unknowns. I've used the buff belts to be safe.

I thought that I'd share how I made some very cheap drying stands into which you can place cocktail sticks while your small parts are drying (after airbrushing them, I mean. No sniggering at the back!) It's a cheapskate's alternative to those rectangular cardboard "paint stations" from that well-known politely-titled Japanese paint company. You'll just need a corrugated card box, some glue or double-sided tape, and a decent knife (which I'm sure you have lying around!). Cut the card into strips about 3/4 to 1 inch wide at right-angles to the corrugation; glue 'em all together back to back, or wind in a circle around something like a wine bottle cork (which makes a handy handle); cover the base with a piece of card cut to fit (this stops your cocktail sticks from dropping through if you pick it up, and shooting your newly sprayed parts onto the floor...) and you're done. If I get some hosting sorted, I'll post a photo, but you get the idea anyway.

I can't answer your question, Sam, but it's timely because I may want to make the same switch. I'm having problems with MicroSol on a couple of completely different surfaces, e.g. Tamiya gloss without a clear coat (that may be well known to Tamiya users, but was a nasty surprise to me) and Vallejo Premium varnish (just testing it so far). I thought that MicroSol was supposed to be one of the milder types; opposite end of the scale to SolvaSet, for instance. What problems have you had?