Hey guys!

Does anyone have experience with milliput? I use Milliput Standard Yellow-Grey. I see it used all the time for amazing detail work, yet whenever I use it, it's crumbly and nearly impossible to work in anything but general shapes. I mix the same amounts of yellow and grey and condition it for 5 minutes before working with it. The milliput is new. I have done everything on their website but nothing has helped.

Am I doing something wrong? What am I missing?

Please help!

I use a little water in mine to keep it pliable, from sticking to my fingers and tools. I have used it many time to form zimmerit on German tanks, and it works great.

The trick with any epoxies is to first rough shape, then start refining details as it sets, or after it has set. Use wet tools: toothpicks, probes, spatulas etc to form better shapes while it's still pliable. Then if needed, you can go back and sand or file when it has fully cured. There's 3 distinct stages to milliput: spongy/rubbery initially, firm as it cures and hard when cured. A little experimentation will determine how much time you have to wait for the the kind of tool to be used.

I made a barrel the following way:

Roughed the taper of the barrel with different tube segments.



Let the milliput set for a few minutes, then rolled out a thin sheet with the help of talc, wrapped the barrel, trimmed off excess and rolled the barrel in the talc to feather it out some. The talc dries out the milliput a bit, this makes trimming excess off pretty easy. As it set, I'd go back and roll/trim a little more so I'd have less sanding to do later.



After it had cured, wet sanded and checked for gaps.



More primer and final sanding.



If your milliput is absolutely crumbly even when mixed in the right ratios, then it's a bad batch. Water might save it, it might not. It should be very soft and sticky at first. A bonus tip: use water to make a slurry and you can then brush that into gaps or build layers. There is very little shrinkage and it cures rock hard as well.

Kimmo

I'd also say you probably got a pack from a bad patch. I've gone through a couple of packs myself and never come across anyting like you described.

When Milliput get old - at least those packs I've had, the grey part develops a hard brown crust that doesn't mix in and has to be cut off before mixing with the yellow stuff.





This is probably my only complaint about it - the regular package size of 113 grams (4 oz) is too big, with my rate of use the grey part always develops that crust. I'd be perfectly happy with packs half that size.

Magic Sculpt is a much better alternative- softer, finer and more workable. If you want something more firm then Green Stuff (Kneadatite Green/Yellow) putty is good.

Wow Emeritus! You just solved all my problems! My grey had brown crust but I never thought to cut it away. Just tried it and the milliput acts just the way it is supposed to. How do you store yours? Directions say someplace dry and cool. I live in Florida so that is a relative term lol

Thx Thadius for the tutorial. I have seen tankers say they just buy barrels because they can never get the gun uniform. They always over/ under sand somewhere. Do you have this problem?

Your method will help me greatly. I plan on building a lot of mech/ tanks from scratch so I need a cheap way to make the artillery piece and the barrels

Thx Karl and Kevin. Will keep your suggestions in mind. I am always trying different clays since each has its own properties and ways of acting.

Mark, I just use a stiff foam sanding pad and fairly fine wet/dry. There's a knack to twirling and sanding at the same time, but you get the hang of it fairly quickly. A motor tool can speed things along, or they can quickly help things go south. I think the key is using fine grades of paper and boatloads of patience. You'll build up quite a bit of sludge so rinse or wipe the barrel often and rinse your paper as well.

Kimmo

+1! Milliput is so 1980's. Newer epoxy putties like Magic Sculp/Sculpt and Apoxie Sculpt behave so much better. To be fair though, they don't sand as well as Milliput for some reason, but then they can be smoothed out so well I usually don't need to sand them much. Also like Tamiya's epoxy putties, very similar to Kneadatite.

Jim

I have a box of milliput that's been sitting for a while , like a couple of years , just as described . Cut of the dried stuff it still works like new . Maybe if you have a vacuum pack machine you could store it air tight . Wonder if that would work ?