Your best quick tip/technique/diy

Junkie

Active Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2009
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8,830
Hi,
Looking to put together a list of quick tips, technique and DIY items. Short and sweet ideas.

I'll start with a few easy ones:

- Save old toothbrushes to use for cleaning and scrubbing parts when washing them up before a build.
- When spraying Vallejo paint, keep a damp, soft rag handy to gently clean the airbrush tip.
- When using Tamiya thin glue, less is often more. Too much will cause longer dry/bond time.
- Toothpicks are often better than paintbrushes to painting small detail, like in a jet's cockpit

You got some?
 
If you or someone you know wears contact lenses, the foil cover are a great source for belts and straps and the well the lenses sit in make great disposable paint palettes...
 
old messed up paint brush makes for great grass to mix with mud.
 
Jeeves said:
If you or someone you know wears contact lenses, the foil cover are a great source for belts and straps and the well the lenses sit in make great disposable paint palettes...

Thank you, Jeeves. I'm a contact lens wearer. Being the 1st day of the new month, I'm opening a new pair tonight. This time, I'll not throw anything away! ;)

You can also use the contact lens solution bottle for storing liquids. They're great for dispensing in small, 1 drop amounts.
 
painting a engine flat black, then dry brushing silver over it gives it a great weathered look, and brings out the details, most especually if its a air cooled engine like my Hellcats R-2800-10

DSCF2281.jpg

Aves is good for adding features too your figures

DSCF2288.jpg
aves parachute...
 
Wooden spoons and ice cream picks make the perfect tools to dispose Tamiya Putty even in small areas. Same way than with Toothpicks only with a larger surface to apply...

Demineralised water with a drop of soap dish make the perfect liquid to use acrylic paint (it gains in fluidity and the brushes marks are almost invisible).

Save the Citadel normal glue recipient. You can remove the apllicator easily, remove the dry glue in it and replace it with, in my case, alcohol 90°. An easy way to count drops in your paint for example.

You have a broken or unable to use airbrush pin... Use it with an old criterium (don't know the englisgh name of it) instead of using big "mines" it's even better if you have the old aluminium ones. It makes the perfect engraver tool !

Save the old dry paint. Acrylic or Enamel, you can use it for your dioramas, once you break it in small pieces.

I've got a lot of other tips, but it's difficult to explain it in english :D
 
If you eat at KFC, those little containers you get your Mac & Cheese and coleslaw are great for paint palettes, as a decal soaking container or as a container for cleaning your paint brushes after you're done painting.

kfcii.jpg


kfc.jpg
 
After sanding down the joint seam on tire treads, I use the nylon brush wheel in the dremel to clean out the tread grooves.

The siphon pot lid for Badger airbrushes thread onto Tamiya acrylic paint jars.
 
Cut AWAY from your body with no part of your body in the path of the blade.

You can cut a slit in the end of a toothpick that will help it hold more paint or glue/cement.
 
SoarinSukhoi said:
Cut AWAY from your body with no part of your body in the path of the blade.

I think this needs to be shared over in the model related injuries thread....
 
A tip I just learned recently and never thought of.
Always store your good paint brushes tip down after cleaning, it keeps solvents and such from settling in the ferrule and loosening the adhesive/hairs
install the protective tubes to support the bristles when storing this way.
 
If you don't have protective tubes, use Straws :D
 
have you ever knocked over your pot of glue, I have twice, get somthing to widen the base next time you knock up agesnt it it wont fall over so easy
IMG_0785.jpg
 
Grendels said:
SoarinSukhoi said:
Cut AWAY from your body with no part of your body in the path of the blade.

I think this needs to be shared over in the model related injuries thread....

They have probably already heard it, but choose to do otherwise and end up bleeding on their workbench.
 
Ever run in somewhere to grab a quick coffee and get these little milk cartons with it ?

DSCF4581.jpg

Well ,dont throw them out ,they are great for mixing small amounts of paint for the AB ,also as wells for washes ,put a bit of cling film over the top to keep the paint ;)

Oh yeah ...keep the wooden coffee stirrers too :)

Chris.
 
I take my new paints and remove the cap, flip it upside down on top of the paint bottle, then hold firmly and shake once or twice. This way the color paint in the bottle is the color paint on the cap and you can quickly see where that color you looking for is.

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I use little disposable shooter cups to mix colours and thinner for the airbrush. One is a bottom feeder with the siphon jar. So, I was just about to pour from shooter cup to siphon jar when the lightbulb went on.

DSC02858.jpg

With a gentle twist, the siphon cap will friction fit securley into the shooter cup. 30 cups for a buck at the dollar store.
 
Rattlecan caps can be used as bases to hold a bottle of paint, to keep it from tipping over accidentally.

I also have some of the caps from old jugs of laundry detergent. They make good holders for things like toothpicks, cotton swabs, coffee stirrers, and odds and ends of things. They have a low height compared to their width, so they don't tip very easily.

A couple of years ago, all of the Chinese takeout places around here switched from aluminum trays to plastic containers. The containers make great stackable storage boxes,

Clear plastic jars, like peanut butter jars, also make good storage containers. They won't break if you drop 'em, and you can see what you stored.
 

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