Seam lines

[handbanana]

Hi all. I have only been building aircraft models for a few years and was wondering if anyone could give me some tips on removing seam lines, especially down the center of my aircraft. I use some putty and carefully sand, but always seem to remove details and panel lines in the plastic. Do I just need to etch these details back into the plastic or is there a better way?

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

For aircraft halves, what I find helpful is, once your fuselage halves are glued together, run a strip of tape down either side if the seam...maybe just a few millimeters from the seam. Once you have the tape down, then fill your seam with whatever filler you like...once dry, sand as usual. The tape will help so that you don't sand as much detail away, and then if there are any panel lines you have to re-scribe, you just have very short ones to do.

For simple scribing like that, I just use the back of an old #11 blade.

 

[Chris S]

I always use Tippex (correction fuild ) to deal with the fuselage and wing joins on aircraft .Sand it down wet using 800 or 1000 grade wet & dry , it sands so easy you wont lose details meaning the only scribing you need to do is were the halves join . Only use the Tippex for very light filling dont try to fill gaps or build up sink marks etc ,it will shrink .But for getting rid of seams its perfect, If you check out my 'Pappy's Bird ' thread you'll see I used it on that one

Chris.

 

[JohnSimmons]

Chris I'd have never thought of that, great tip

 

[Chris S]

No worries John Like I say tho' dont try any heavy filling with it ,just seams

Chris.

 

[Neo]

For aircraft halves, what I find helpful is, once your fuselage halves are glued together, run a strip of tape down either side if the seam...maybe just a few millimeters from the seam. Once you have the tape down, then fill your seam with whatever filler you like...once dry, sand as usual. The tape will help so that you don't sand as much detail away, and then if there are any panel lines you have to re-scribe, you just have very short ones to do.

For simple scribing like that, I just use the back of an old #11 blade.

i do a sligh variant of this

remove tape, take Q-tips and nail polish remover(dip the Q-tips but dont soak it) and rub from side to side, this will smooth out the putty makes no mess and you wont loose any lines.(you might have to take a toothpick to remove some putty from certain lines)