Glues, fillers, and eliminating Part 2

Fillers, including the teacher's pet

You may be asking, "what is a filler and why do I need it?" First, why? To built models, where someone commit¬ted half a tube of glue to the premise that more is better. "That part won't stay on . . . use more glue!" Little did this fellow realize that glue isn't stickum. He's reinforced chronically broken parts and bridged gaps between poorly fitting parts with tube glue. Ex¬cess glue will only melt and distort the plastic, ruining the model. Tube glue should never be used as a filler — we'll discuss what you should use later in this lesson.

Epoxy is a two-part adhesive which can bond almost anything and works best for mating dissimilar materials such as metal to wood, plastic to metal, and so forth. Equal amounts of the two parts are mixed, starting a chemical remold plastic kits, manufacturers must divide the model into parts. When we build the model, we reverse the pro¬cess, but the seams between the parts are often visible. Sometimes that's okay, but in most cases, the seams are ugly — they should be eliminated to produce a realistic replica.

The best way to eliminate seams is to improve poor-fitting joints. When that fails, the gaps can be hidden with filler. A filler is a soft, pliable substance that can be poured or pushed into gaps and surface imperfections. After the filler sets, excess material is sanded away, leveling the surface and concealing the gaps and sinkholes (depressions caused by insufficient plastic in moldings).

Many different fillers are available, including auto body fillers, epoxy putty, and even spackling paste. But my fa¬vorite is gap-filling super glue used with accelerator, Fig. 3.
As with any filler, there is good news and bad news about super glue. The bad news is that (if improperly used) it bonds skin together instantly. Also, some people experience eye, nose, and throat irritation from the fumes. I've never had problems, but I know model¬ers who refuse to use super glue be¬cause of this.

There's no arguing about the useful¬ness of super glues, though. I use them with a spray accelerator. Apply a little super glue to a seam or sinkhole, spray on accelerator, and the glue sets in sec¬onds. More applications of glue and ac¬celerator fill the imperfections, and you're ready to sand.

Super glue bonds to the surface of just about any material. Cured super glue is slightly harder than styrene but can be sanded easily, and, best of all, you only have to wait about a minute before sanding. Large amounts of super glue will shrink slightly when setting, but you'll be able to determine the degree of shrinkage right away and add more to correct it. Unlike other fillers, you can fill, sand, prime, inspect, fill, and sand again all in one modeling ses¬sion — no more waiting a few days for filler to dry.

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Glues, fillers, and eliminating Part 1

What separates a poor model from a good one? Anyone? Right. Blobs of glue, gaping seams, streaky paint, up¬side-down markings, and broken and missing parts are telltale signs of a dis¬appointing model. Yes, we've all made models that look like that, so how do we improve? Discovering new skills isn't enough; you have to practice them. The more you practice, the more natural these skills will seem, and the more comfortable you become building models, the more you'll enjoy the hobby.

Glues. Since most of the models we build are plastic, we'll discuss plastic solvent cements first. The two types are liquid and "tube" cements, Both work on the same principle; they dissolve the plastic at the mating sur¬face, and when set, create a bond by welding the pieces together. Liquids are usually applied while holding the pieces together. A small quantity applied to the seam between the parts runs along the seam by capillary action. Holding the parts together while the solvent action takes place ensures a good bond.
Tube glue is liquid solvent cement with a polymer added to give it body and make it easier to apply. Tube glue takes longer to set and is applied to the mating surface of one of the parts, then the parts are joined. Let's go back to one of those badly action that cures the glue in as little as five minutes.

Super glues (cyanoacrylates) also are good at bonding dissimilar materials, and they set up instantly. Slow-setting, gap-filling, and gel super glues work well as fillers (more on that later).
White glue (polyvinyl acetate) such as Elmer's Glue-All is good for bonding porous materials such as wood and pa¬per. We'll also use white glue to attach small parts where bond strength isn't important. Since white glue dries clear, it is best for attaching clear plastic parts such as headlights, canopies, and windshields.

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How to remove the paint on the kit?

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There are many ways to remove the paint on the kit, with the detergent can be, thiner and carbolic and many other ways. Acrylic paint is easier to disappear because acrylic is water soluble, enamel, while difficult because of the oil soluble

Here are tips how to remove the paint with carbolic

1. Buy any brand carbolic
2. Make a 1:1 mixture with water
3. Enter the kit into the vessel containing the mixture
4. Wait overnight
5. Scrub with a toothbrush kit
6. Brush Kit with warm plain water
7. Wash the kit with soap and rinse
8. Dried the kit and ready to be painted again

Happy modeling,

Windy Soemara

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Aviation in World War II : Part 4

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For the next three years, Allied forces pushed the enemy back across the Pacific. Japan entered the war with the world's finest torpedo bomber (Nakajima B5N2 Type 97) and long-range fighter aircraft (Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0, known as the Zero). In 1942 the arrival of Grumman F6F Hellcats and Chance Vought F4U Corsairs began to tip the technological balance in favor of United States naval aviators. The mediocre Curtiss P-40 and Bell P-39 aircraft, flown by the U.S. Army during the early months of the war, were replaced by superior P-38, P-47, and P-51 fighters. B-17 and B-24 bombers attacked Japanese island bases, while B-25 bombers sunk Japanese merchant ships.

Aircraft such as the American-built Douglas C-47, Douglas C-54, and Curtiss C-46 were the aerial workhorses of the war effort, ferrying personnel and supplies to the far corners of the globe. Many of the 12,000-plus C-47s built during the war helped found the postwar airline industry, and a few of them were still being used in 2002. Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boats patrolled the waters of the Atlantic Ocean to attack German U-boats and rescue downed Allied pilots. Specially modified Spitfires, P-38s, and other airplanes roamed over hostile territory, collecting vital photographic intelligence.

In the final phase of the air war in the Pacific, the USAAF’s new, large, and high-flying Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers launched attacks on targets in Japan from bases in China during 1944. The capture of the islands of Saipan and Tinian enabled the B-29s to range even farther over the Japanese islands. When high altitude precision bombing techniques yielded disappointing results, Army Air Force planners sent the B-29s in low and at night to conduct area fire raids of the sort pioneered by the RAF. The results were devastating—more than 83,000 residents of Tokyo lost their lives during a single raid on the night of March 10, 1945. The dropping of two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was quickly followed by the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945

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Aviation in World War II : Part 3

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Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovikh

An artist’s sketch depicts the Soviet Union’s Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovikh ground-attack airplane. This aircraft proved to be especially effective as an antitank weapon and was used extensively against German forces on the Eastern Front.

Tactical air power played a major role in the invasion of Europe. Allied fighters controlled the skies over the Normandy (Normandie) beaches before the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944. Air superiority was never in doubt, and fighters armed with guns and rockets proved to be effective, fast-responding anti-tank weapons, similar to the performance of the Russian Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovikh ground-attack airplane on the Eastern Front.

Aircraft carriers were the decisive weapon in the vast Pacific theater. Japan opened the Pacific war with bold and successful air attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and other United States and British bases in the Pacific on December 7 and 8, 1941. The real turning point of the Pacific war came on June 4, 1942, when American carrier-based aircraft sank four Japanese carriers and a heavy cruiser in the waters northwest of Midway Island. The Japanese Navy never recovered from the loss of hundreds of its most experienced pilots. Read More......