# What's Your Best Modeling Tip?



## MEGA1 (Jul 18, 2000)

Hey everyone, we're looking to collect some great modeling tips to share with our customers. We'd love to hear from you! Let us know some modeling tips that have helped you create some of your best projects, and include pictures if you have. We'll post them on our social media pages over the upcoming months!

Thanks guys!


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## Joe Brown (Nov 16, 1999)

Build. That's it, just build. There is no getting better without practice, so, build!


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## Proper2 (Dec 8, 2010)

My high-school Algebra teacher used to constantly harp on: "...FACTOR, FACTOR, FACTOR!" 

My modeling mantra would be: "SCALE, SCALE, SCALE!" It's amazing just how delicate and thin parts get when reduced by a shrinking machine! Get this scale right on those elements of your model and the rest is secondary. This probably means that a lot of parts would have to be either after market or scratch-built.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

"Finished is better than perfect."


Aslo, if you drop your X-Acto knife, don't try to catch it by clamping your legs together.


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## djnick66 (May 2, 2008)

Spend a little more to get a good quality kit, especially if you are a beginner. That cheap Revell P-51 might be tempting for $18, but the extra $10 you spend to get the Tamiya or Hasegawa kit will pay off with better instructions, better fit, and an overall easier build. I've see a lot of beginners buy cheap kits and say they want to get the hang of them before getting a good kit, but then they give up because the cheap kits are poor.


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

Read the instructions - twice - before beginning your build. :thumbsup:


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## krlee (Oct 23, 2016)

If your finished model makes you happy then it IS perfect. Build to suit yourself, not someone's opinion of what it should be.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

We don't need no steeenking instructions!!


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## Y3a (Jan 18, 2001)

When using CA type glues for the first few times, keep some DEBONDER close.


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## Dr. Brad (Oct 5, 1999)

A light misting of your base coat with an airbrush can help to tone down decals (like those Round 2 Aztec decals). Just go easy....


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## SteveR (Aug 7, 2005)

When fitting parts by removing material: *go slow* and *test fit* again and again. 
When you get close to a good fit, *slow down*, and when you get it right, *stop*.


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## RogueJ (Oct 29, 2000)

Finish one before buy or starting another.


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## RogueJ (Oct 29, 2000)

John P said:


> "Finished is better than perfect."
> 
> 
> Aslo, if you drop your X-Acto knife, don't try to catch it by clamping your legs together.


ALSO, what he said.... oooh that smarts.


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## rhinooctopus (May 22, 2011)

Don't fill your closets, spare bedroom(s), storage shed and garage with every model kit you ever wanted. Think about how long you might live and how much of a hassle it will be for your surviving family members to get rid of the EXCESS stash you have collected...like most of us modelers. LOL


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## Proper2 (Dec 8, 2010)

rhinooctopus said:


> Don't fill your closets, spare bedroom(s), storage shed and garage with every model kit you ever wanted. Think about how long you might live and how much of a hassle it will be for your surviving family members to get rid of the EXCESS stash you have collected...like most of us modelers. LOL


Morbid and depressing, but very true. I don't have a lot of models, but even the few that I do have I realize that I won't be able to pack to take with me—built or still in box (I'm 58). At least the ones still in the box are easier to sell or give away. Built models are a bear to transport or relocate and will eventually end up in a broken heap... like each of us... :crying: Sorry, didn't mean to get so somber...


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## Dr. Brad (Oct 5, 1999)

Proper2 said:


> Morbid and depressing, but very true. I don't have a lot of models, but even the few that I do have I realize that I won't be able to pack to take with me—built or still in box (I'm 58). At least the ones still in the box are easier to sell or give away. Built models are a bear to transport or relocate and will eventually end up in a broken heap... like each of us... :crying: Sorry, didn't mean to get so somber...


I think about that often - but then, so what? We enjoy them, and on a dollar/hour of happiness (or sometimes frustration) they're a pretty good deal. Better than golfing! And hey, they can be recycled. My daughters will keep a few of the really good ones, and the rest can be tossed....


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## irishtrek (Sep 17, 2005)

After you've puttied and sanded test paint with a brush to look for any spots which need to be reputtied. Also always, always, ALWAYS test fit before you apply glue, don't know how many times I've failed to do so and had to take pieces apart for a better fit of or to make it easier for another piece to be glued in place.


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## Dr. Brad (Oct 5, 1999)

Irishtrek's point is a good one! It can be a real hassle to pry things apart!


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

RogueJ said:


> Finish one before buy or starting another.


That's hilarious. Oh wait, you're serious?


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Don't drop your expensive Moebius resin Batgirl model just as you're about to put the first coat of purple paint on, and have to reattach her broken leg, get rid of the seam, reprime, wait for the primer to dry again...


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## Milton Fox Racing (May 27, 2014)

Proper2 said:


> .... I realize that I won't be able to pack to take with me—built or still in box....


 Wait...WHAT!... Who sayz!?!


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

X2 posts #4 and #7.

About 40 years ago I began my stint in auto parts stores. My store manager was 3-4 years younger than me and we both found out we liked building models but I was way ahead of him in skills. He built I'm thinking a P-40 Flying Tiger of some sort and was all giddy about showing his work off. I looked at it and then responded with something like 'why didn't you do this or that' and added 'I would have XXX'. The look I got back said it all, he was crestfallen, I had crushed him and his effort. 

Brad, wherever you may be today, I am so sorry I was such an ass and an idiot that day. 

It is not about the quality of the work at all, it's about the imagination and a human brain, and we have NO IDEA of where that can go later. I myself started with crap Aurora kits and then went later to any kits with 'working features' and I didn't care squat about the accuracy that was lost getting those. I now credit those days with forming my insatiable desire to understand all things mechanical and electrical, it drives me nuts now in obsessive/compulsive but I have benefited so vastly from it. 

ANY completed model is a GOOD one. Complete being whatever the original creator and his skill level chooses to call it. Nobody else matters.


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

^When we were 8 or 10 years old, a friend built the Revell PT-109. He stuck the boat number decal on the bow at about a 30° angle off true. My only reaction to his proudly showing me the model was "Why is the number so crooked?" He looked at it and said "Whaddaya mean?" He couldn't tell? Ummm... "Let's go play outside." :freak:


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## John P (Sep 1, 1999)

Come to think of it, I got hit with that myself, and it's the reason I'll never enter another model contest. I busted my butt scratch-building the most detailed Bf-109 cockpit interior I'd ever done (this was before there were resin replacements everywhere). Then I did up the model as a Croatian 109G-14 (this was the Revell 1/48 kit) based on a photo. Granted, my dullcoat coat blotched a little on me, but I was damn proud of it. I entered it in our club contest. The judge ignored the totally scratch-built cockpit, hacked me for the dullcoat, noticed a seam, and told me "John, the best cockpit in the world is no excuse for poor modeling skills."


Poor modeling skills??? Okay, pal. 


So I guess from all the above, the takeaway modeling tip for the thread would be, "Don't be a dick." :lol:


ETA: Here' that very model!
http://www.inpayne.com/models/planes/me109g10croat.html


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

Exactly. Life is way too short for that. I as well have always noted how they will pick all around your finest work to niggle you over the often most stupid of details like they are of paramount importance. I'm thinking of most bosses who were ever over me but then I also know I could have taken their jobs in about 60 seconds if I wanted them and did it more than once if I ever decided to flip all the switches on. Past a point though you just want peace and then seeing that behavior can be exasperating. Even more when you know YOU'VE done it. However, them doing what they always will does not mean you have to. Mom taught me to revel in that and I do.

We just gotta be much more understanding if we ever hope to bring around more young modeling crowd, to that, exact detailing and close attention to the actual physical object take kind of a back seat to the peace of spirit and tranquility modeling can bring. Let that mind roam unleashed and unfettered I say. Some person some day is going to do everything utterly backwards from the norm to then realize how to cure cancer the same way. To him and him only it will be easy as eating cake. 

I bet God at first liked doing his modeling. Of course, later the 'operating features' CAN be a problem..........


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## jimkelsey (May 7, 2013)

Exercise patience and don't get in a rush, especially with paint. Let gloss paint cure a few days before handling it - unless you want fingerprints on your model!


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

Don't get in a miff, it's just not worth it. You can often fix some pretty bad mistakes.

And BE CAREFUL with those hobby knives like said above!, I carried one in a well-used small cardboard box that got floppy from use and then one day picked up the box to have the knife blade effortlessly slide right through the cardboard to cut my hand to the bone. I now use nothing but the screw clamp type handles, and the blade gets turned backwards to not cut hardly at all the second I'm done with it. I use them a LOT on car work. You want that blade clamped tight, the one thing you don't want falling out on the floor or ground. ALWAYS double masking tape a used blade up before throwing it in the trash, a simple mashing down of trash in a garbage can by hand can make a big injury there.


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

At this point I'd like to ask a question with direct bearing on the thread subject here................................just what do you guys use for trimming the vast majority of the flash that you get so much of now with reissues and older molds still in service??? How about possible hole opening up work on something that is say a screen or complex part with many holes or ports in it that flash has filled in?

I myself embrace the knife for 99% of that work............but it makes for more seam work when the newly clean angle drops off the edge of parts. In extreme cases I fit two parts together and trim both at once to complement each other but I don't do it as much as I should likely. That sets the trim angles to remove much less material desired to stay on the part.


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## rhinooctopus (May 22, 2011)

... the reason I'll never enter another model contest...
I stopped entering contests way back. I don't need no stinking trophy! Just look at my built-ups and enjoy looking at them. They're the things I don't mind dusting.

Phil


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## Zombie_61 (Apr 21, 2004)

finaprint said:


> At this point I'd like to ask a question with direct bearing on the thread subject here...just what do you guys use for trimming the vast majority of the flash that you get so much of now with reissues and older molds still in service??? How about possible hole opening up work on something that is say a screen or complex part with many holes or ports in it that flash has filled in?
> 
> I myself embrace the knife for 99% of that work...


I use an X-Acto knife with a new blade, and work slowly and cautiously. It's time consuming, but sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and get it done. The last time I built the old Aurora "Forgotten Prisoner of Castel-Maré" kit it had so much flash and soft detail in the recessed areas that by the time I finished "cleaning" the parts I felt like I had carved the kit myself from raw styrene. :lol:


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## finaprint (Jan 29, 2006)

I know well the feeling.....................now looking at a Revell Bomarc missile reissue and wondering how the part alignment pins are off the mark or missing so much. Like some are not in the correct places, how can that happen with an existing mold with points in space hard locked in? And some of the panel lines don't line up body half to half at all. I guess it was one of Revell's lesser quality molds........some out of the '50s are 'real gems'. You can take that either way.


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## Trekkriffic (Mar 20, 2007)

Be patient and careful with the glue. Use just enough to get the job done.


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