Whats Lying on your Workbench MK IV

[Thom]

2 hours ago, Urashiman said:

Oh man ...

My super cheap mini compressor died today. RIP, my dear super cheap chinese device...

 

It worked for 2 years maybe?

The fun part is, it didn't die because the compressor itself broke. It broke because the single action airbrush that came with it failed. The air seal failed and the airbrush color oozed from the color container into the compressor, breaking the whole thing. I tried to take it apart, because hey, maybe I can fix it by cleaning it, but everything in there is just glued onto each other. So no luck with that. It'll do one last trip now ... to the trash can.

I'll see if I can salvage anything useful from the single action air brush. If not, it will have the same fate.

Good I still have my professional airbrush compressor, but this small thingy here was really convenient. Maybe I'll get a new one.

I remember it's arrival.  Glad it served well.

[Cheese3]

Base coat!

gotta clean 

[SteveTheFish]

3 minutes ago, Cheese3 said:

Base coat!

gotta clean 

How are you priming your models? It looks like you're perhaps using a spray can of Tamiya primer, but you aren't warming it up with warm water and shaking it for a minute properly. I see a lot of splatter that's giving your unwanted texture. If you prep it properly, it shouldn't come out fuzzy like that. Either that or you're airbrushing it and it's not thinned enough.

[Papa Rat]

1 hour ago, Cheese3 said:

Base coat!

gotta clean 

I am digging the wild camo colors. 

[Papa Rat]

Been dog sitting for some friends the past week+ so I brought this kit with me to help pass some time. 
Was able to stop by my home today and do a rough and ready paint job on the “pickle”

I need to go back in and do some hand painting including some touch ups. Got some glue seepage unfortunately and I also want to get a matte finish on there. 

The Surfacer 500 took care of most the rivets I wanted to hide which was a half success.
All said and done, this was a fun one.  
Might have to get the rest of the fleet  🤔

[Cheese3]

2 hours ago, SteveTheFish said:

How are you priming your models? It looks like you're perhaps using a spray can of Tamiya primer, but you aren't warming it up with warm water and shaking it for a minute properly. I see a lot of splatter that's giving your unwanted texture. If you prep it properly, it shouldn't come out fuzzy like that. Either that or you're airbrushing it and it's not thinned enough.

Story time! Haha! I ran outta tamiya primer, and Mr.surfacer. My second favorite. In the middle of these two models. I love tamiya primer. Had to use Vallejo primer. I need to go back and clean up some line, this is more of a base to block in colors. Thanks for the input! 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Papa Rat said:

Been dog sitting for some friends the past week+ so I brought this kit with me to help pass some time. 
Was able to stop by my home today and do a rough and ready paint job on the “pickle”

I need to go back in and do some hand painting including some touch ups. Got some glue seepage unfortunately and I also want to get a matte finish on there. 

The Surfacer 500 took care of most the rivets I wanted to hide which was a half success.
All said and done, this was a fun one.  
Might have to get the rest of the fleet  🤔

Looks a lot more organic now. Very cool

[Goodman Models]

On 3/6/2025 at 9:23 PM, SteveTheFish said:

This week I bought myself a birthday present and pre-ordered the upcoming Hasegawa Glaug kit on Hobby Search. I imagine it'll ship around the 1st of April. 

So does anyone have any recommendations on how to strip decals off a model while leaving the lacquer paint job underneath intact? I had some decals on a Star Trek Enteprise model break apart and I did buy replacements, however I'd already applied the Micro Sol to melt the bad ones onto the pylons. I often use Zippo lighter fluid to remove price tags from cardboard and plastic without ruining the surface. Do you think that would work? It's either that or lightly sanding the decals away with 3000 grit sanding sponges or something. It's been eight years since I gave up on that model, but it would be nice to get back to it. and finally finish it.

Try Scotch tape first; works fairly well in most cases. Sometimes it takes a few passes and also may need a light buffing afterward ( microbes 2400 grit).

[Goodman Models]

I prepped this ARM-D for painting 

[Papa Rat]

Had to stay home from work with my sick kiddo. Sucks having a kid that hacking and sneezing, but I selfishly get to do some painting. Finished this up today. It was so much fun for such a simple build. I suck at hand painting but that didn’t stop me. Hahaha. I love my little SDF-1. Made a tiny bridge out of some 1mm pla. I think it came out great for the scale. 

[MechTech]

@pengbuzz That Fett figure came out AWESOME! You made it BETTER than new!

@Cheese3 You are DEFINITELY going for the 80's urban camo scheme with those colors! Either that, or an original Van's tennis shoe design, also from the 80's!

@Papa Rat You made the space pickle look great right out of the box! I forgot about all those ugly engravings in it. If I even build my Zen fleet kits, it will take A LOT of epoxy putty to get that one to decent proportions! But you did it justice outa the box!

@Urashiman We give you credit for trying to breath life back into your airbrush! Sorry man!🥲

I haven't been slacking off, honestly! Just not online much. Now on to the backpack...

The main backpack (below) is roughly 3" x 4". The backpack cannon is HUGE at 11" long - but thankfully hollow and fairly light weight. Since I'm motorizing the rotary cannon, I thought the backpack should be motorized too. The mechanism to rotate the cannon over the shoulder, and back upright is what you see here. This is the "servo" motor and the friction clutch which will protect it form forced movement. A spring maintains friction, but prevents direct coupling to the motor gear-head. This motor is more powerful and quiet than an actual servo, so that's why I'm going this route. It's also hard to bust up steel gears.

And here's everything put together so far...

You can see how the friction clutched arm connects to the cannon's main shaft (which sits on bearings). Carefully positioned micro switches will cut off the motor - even though the clutch also slips when it can't go any further. Lot's of brass work and soldering.

That's it for now. Thanks for checking in! - MT

 

[Big s]

2 hours ago, Papa Rat said:

Had to stay home from work with my sick kiddo. Sucks having a kid that hacking and sneezing, but I selfishly get to do some painting. Finished this up today. It was so much fun for such a simple build. I suck at hand painting but that didn’t stop me. Hahaha. I love my little SDF-1. Made a tiny bridge out of some 1mm pla. I think it came out great for the scale. 

Looks like a fun little build there, turned out nice.
Hope the kid gets better, there’s some nasty stuff goin around, me and the lady both caught a nasty virus last week and are still getting over things here.

[Thom]

@Papa Rat It is looking good despite the kit itself!

[Chas]

Couple of interesting Tested episodes with Adam Savage.

Star Trek miniatures

(Apparently our  @pengbuzz is in good company when it comes to using tape as an integral material in model building!)

And ED 209

 

[Papa Rat]

@MechTech @Thom

Thanks! It’s been super fun. 
@Big s

Thanks.

Yeah there is some nasty stuff going around and honestly the elementary school is like a petri dish. 🤮 

[Big s]

37 minutes ago, Chas said:

Couple of interesting Tested episodes with Adam Savage.

Star Trek miniatures

(Apparently our  @pengbuzz is in good company when it comes to using tape as an integral material in model building!)

And ED 209

 

I love this channel. Was just watching the one with the different judge Dredd costumes 

[Urashiman]

@Thom & @MechTech

I got the same thing again! Hahaha

16€ this time.