When i'm building a model and I sand away the mold lines i can't seem to get it smooth, i get sanding marks in the plastic, can anybody help me with that?


David

How high a grit are you using? I will go as high as 1500 grit in order to get a perfectly smooth surface. Are you using testors pack of papers. If so, they do not go high enough for a good finish, but they are good to start with, if you have major sanding to do, then move up to the higher grits. Also, paint has a tendancy to smooth out the little stuff and fill the smaller scratches if it is a little thicker. I hope I helped.

Rob

:-) I usually finish off with 0000 wire wool, but I don't use very coarse emery paper anyway 400 grit is about the most coarse up to 1600 then wire wool. If you only have 1 grit, take 2 pieces and rub them together, you will reduce the grit, take one of those pieces, cut it in half, rub them together and you will reduce the grit again and so on.
One other thing, I only use small pieces of emery paper, so that the area afected is as small as possible.
Mal

Get your wife/girlfriend/mom to go to your local Walmart or other mega-store and purchase you some emory boards or put on a disguise and talk in a deep voice and do it yourself. I'm too chicken so I had my wife do it. She picked me up this Fantastic "Onyx Professional 4-way Buffer". This is an item I can't now live without. It has 4 different sanding surfaces on it, I'd classify them as fine, superfine, buffer, and polisher. She also picked me up just a plain emory board with a coarser grit for bigger sanding jobs.

:-)

I try to 'cut' away the bulk of the objectionable material with a #11 blade first, then glue the pieces together. Once at that point if I need to do more sanding I will use as high a grit as possible right off the bat and sand as little as possible. This keeps the scratching and area down. Then I get progressivly more fine on the sand paper. Usually 600 grit. Sometimes I'll got to steel wool to get it nice a clean.

Is it really necessary to use such fine sanding techniques when you are just going to cover the area with at least one coat of paint (probably two) plpus washes, plus weathering etc etc.?

I would have thought this would have covered quite a substantial scratch in the surface of the plastic.

Roger

There s one advice that i will always remember: Paint does not hide any flaws.

You are right it actually magnifies them.

Yea - you have to have a nice clear base before you paint. The paint does enhance flaws.

i bought the testor's set of papers and made nice scratch marks all over the bloody place. How do i clean up the things? I'm thinking of putty to fill in the scratches

I think the white one is the finest one. Anyway, if the area is basically sanded, just scratched, go to the highest grid # (finest, smoothest) one and sand with that. If you can't get satisfactory results, then go to steel wool and gently buff out anything that is left.
If the scratches are big enough to fill with putty I would do a series of sandings. Start with the big grit, then work your way to the small grit. Then steel wool. I have used the Testors paper and gotten mold and seam lines cleaned up with just the paper (no steel wool).

When completed with the sanding, the area can be preped with Mr. Surfacer 1000- kind of hard to find check your local hobby shop. It's sort of like filler putty thats as thin as paint. There is also Mr. Surfacer 500- slightly thicker- I've read that it can be used to fill narrow joint seams etc. -have not used the 500 yet, but the 1000 works nice- sort of like a primer.

Peter