They'll be least noticeable if you make small holes in the darkest parts of the stripes, just below the nose cone, and paint the inside of the area black.
BTW that is where the nose cone shoulder is. I need to move not only below the shoulder but below the twist lock as well, so I'll be close to the middle of the decal, where it's much lighter and the holes will be more visible. I need to decide whether to go through the design on the decal, or in the areas between the design. Probably doesn't make much difference.They'll be least noticeable if you make small holes in the darkest parts of the stripes, just below the nose cone, and paint the inside of the area black.
This particular bit of leakage is proving difficult to remove so far, being in a crevice like that. What's the right technique here?
A piece of blue tape lifted not the white paint... but the paint plus the glassine layer.
Ah, but is it your finger print, or is someone sabotaging your paint job?It seems to be fingerprint-shaped...
What's the right technique here?
Well, there's your answer, at least for most of it. I must respectfully disagree with Marten. I'd us the sharp edge of a blade to scrape, carefully, and then only have a little finishing up with sandpaper. For that, make a sanding stick on the pointed and of a pencil or a dowel pointed in a pencil sharpener.I was able to scrape of most of it with a knife...
Yeah, I knew that. Drill through the shoulder too. It means having to assure the holes are aligned, but you've got decals for alignment marks that you want lined up anyway. What I hadn't considered is the twist lock; I don't know how that might complicate matters.BTW that is where the nose cone shoulder is.
I am having remarkably little luck with that so far. I'll probably just brush-paint over it at this point.Well, there's your answer, at least for most of it. I must respectfully disagree with Marten. I'd us the sharp edge of a blade to scrape, carefully, and then only have a little finishing up with sandpaper.
Well, given that I want these to be vents into the payload area, drilling into the shoulder doesn't do me much good unless I then create another hole or channel from there to the payload compartment. That is not worth the effort. I will live with the three visible holes, once I decide where they go.Yeah, I knew that. Drill through the shoulder too. It means having to assure the holes are aligned, but you've got decals for alignment marks that you want lined up anyway. What I hadn't considered is the twist lock; I don't know how that might complicate matters.
So, as far as I can tell, my sequence for the remaining finishing will have to be:
1) Do white touch-ups.
2) Polish or whatever the crinkle zone.
3) Additional Vallejo touch-ups wherever white is showing through.
4) Apply Future
5) Apply decals
6) Apply Future
I don’t feel like I have a choice, unfortunately. What could I eliminate?
I am the engineer.There is a saying that in every project there is a time to shoot the engineer and start production.
For rockets it's time to shoot the painter and launch the bird!
And as always, once the rocket is finished I will completely forget about all the imperfections and move on.
...other than that I really want to do the rest of the decals, and see the finished product.
The Future-d black parts look pretty very black and shiny now, ready for decals.
From post 251 I just did more polishing, using Turtle Wax liquid polishing compound (interestingly, I can't find the product on the web right now, maybe discontinued, but it's nothing special).Oh wow, that totally worked. What a big difference from post #251. Maybe I missed it, but what polish did you use? Did you do any more 2000/3000/ or 5000 wet sanding?
Ah. You do so much with rings, central tubes, and card stock that somehow I imagined the base of the nose cone was open. I don't know why I thought that, and I obviously wrong.Well, given that I want these to be vents into the payload area, drilling into the shoulder doesn't do me much good unless I then create another hole or channel from there to the payload compartment.
Did it least get a little better each time? Less white that the time before, less visible crinkling after the next black?Fair. This actually my second go-round. The first time, I went to try to wet-sand it down a bit (using 2000) and it sanded the Vallejo right off, leaving me with white spots again.
Some of the feces to be given. But That does not appear to be your way. (See next comment.)I don’t feel like I have a choice, unfortunately. What could I eliminate?
Trouble is, that's a very fuzzy line. One person's improvement is another person's fix.I try to distinguish between things that need to be "fixed" vs. "improved".
Ah, the future of Future. Very meta.I may do whole rockets like this in the future.
Unclear. I quickly got to the point of good enough, because I was afraid to keep hacking at it. I have two coats of Future on it now, and it seems to be OK, although still clearly bumpy. Most of the bumpy area will be covered by decal, so I expect it to be less visible when all is said and done.Did it least get a little better each time? Less white that the time before, less visible crinkling after the next black?
Fortunately, for my builds, my determination is the only one that matters.Trouble is, that's a very fuzzy line. One person's improvement is another person's fix.
Although it would in theory look nice, there are two practical reasons not to do it:That white edge of the body tube looks so much improved that I think you'd do well to give the edge of the motor mount tube the same treatment.
Those aren’t defects, those are plasma burns. They turn up after about every 250 kiloparsecs with regular use. Usually means you need to clean the injectors with Kuflonium.PLASMA DECALS, PART 1
I decided that there was nothing stopping me from starting on the plasma decals. I knew these would be difficult, so I only planned to do one per session.
First, I printed out a version on plain paper to test size. I nailed it almost exactly.
View attachment 436214
Next, my mise en place:
View attachment 436216
As previously discussed, I'm now soaking my decals with some border around the decal, to protect as much as possible against ink running at the edges. Unfortunately, I made this decision after I had printed out these decals, so these were printed with very little space between them, leaving very little border. We'll see how that works out. I also realized I didn't print any extras like I usually do. Hope it doesn't come back to bite me.
I don't have a large enough soaking vessel for the full 10+ inches of decal, so I dipped half at a time, alternating halves every few seconds. During this process I made my first mistake: testing decal readiness as I usually do, by holding the decal between my fingers and pushing with my thumb to see if it would slide. The decal took quite a long time to loosen up, and the process of pushing with my thumb seems to have damaged the clear coat, and I could see ink damage where my thumbs had been. This made me quite unhappy, but it wasn't bad enough for me to abandon the decal. I did decide, though, that I would not be able to slide the giant decal off the backing. Instead, I peeled the whole decal off, and then attempted to place it.
You may well imagine that this is not an easy thing to do, and you would be correct. It took several tries to get it close enough to the correct position to where I could move it slightly into final position.
While doing this, it seemed that the whole thing was too long, despite my previous size test. So I trimmed one end... poorly.
Here's the result:
View attachment 436217
Looks OK from a distance, but definitely not from close up:
View attachment 436218
From left to right:
1) clear coat damage from my thumb.
2) Ink did run on the edges. Fortunately it's small enough that it's not too noticable.
3) Apparently, the reason it looked to long is that I was putting it in the wrong spot. You can see I missed the seam with the transition by a few millimeters. This really annoys me, but by the time I noticed I couldn't do anything about it without chucking the whole thing.
I applied my ritual coat of Micro-sol and put it aside to dry.
<cue Phil Collins>
Those aren’t defects, those are plasma burns. They turn up after about every 250 kiloparsecs with regular use. Usually means you need to clean the injectors with Kuflonium.
By the way, nice to see that in the midst of Covid your Future is looking bright!
Those aren’t defects, those are plasma burns. They turn up after about every 250 kiloparsecs with regular use. Usually means you need to clean the injectors with Kuflonium.
By the way, nice to see that in the midst of Covid your Future is looking bright!
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