Tamiya 1:72 Mustang - Adventures in Alcladland

Hello again,

Almost completed Tamiya little jewel of a kit. I used Alclad II chrome, aluminium, dark aluminium and finally burnt iron lightly sprayed along the panel lines to provide some contrasts. As recommended by Alclad's instructions, I used a gloss enamel black as a primer, polished with Micromesh to a "glass-like" finish, and sprayed the entire model with Chrome. The result is shiny, very shiny, in fact WAY too shiny for an operational machine. But in the end I decided I actually liked it and could live with it. And it reminded me of that quote in "My name is Nobody": "You shine like the door of a whorehouse. A blind man could spot you ten miles off"


Here's the pictures:

One final word of advice: On their website, the good folks at Alclad's recommend you wrap the bottle in a rag or something before shaking it. In case the tiny metallic ball tries something funny, like escaping its surroundings. I can only say one thing: DO IT! You don't want to end up owning curtains that look like they have been customized by Jackson Pollock....

Happy Modelling!

Treflon

Airfix's new 1:72 C47 Skytrain

Hello there,

No particular technique involved here, just a model and a few figures. This is Airfix 's 1:72 offering, a neat (not so little by the way, never realized a C47 had the same wingspan as a B17...) model.

I had in mind depicting the plane that carried Lt. Dick Winters on D-Day, so I purchased some clear and white decal sheet to print my own decals. I learned a few lessons:

1) Making your own decals takes a lot of planning, be prepared to ruin several decal sheets

2) Printing yellow is virtually impossible, so I finally used some leftover serial numbers from an Italeri kit. Granted, the model is not accurate, but who really checks the serial numbers anyway?

3) The font for US WW2 serial numbers is called "AmarilloUSAF" and finding it for free online is a bit like looking for the Holy Grail. I wish I could tell you how I got hold of it, but the sad truth is that I simply cannot remember. What I do remember is visiting an insane number of very suspicious websites selling it for stupidly high prices. (Said websites would also offer penis extenders and tiny blue pills. Not much modelling use there....).

So here are the pictures. The figures are a mix of Italeri 1:72 US paras (soft plastic), hard plastic Italeri's (There is a figure in the Horsa and Waco gliders models) and good old Airfix USAAF personnel. The jeep is the new Airfix model.

Happy Modelling!

Treflon

The Klear (or Klir) vs Future debate....

Hello,

If you're reading this, there is a strong chance you're into scale modelling and heard about the magical fluid called "Future Floor Shine", a.k.a. "Pledge with Future Shine". I won't go into details, many have covered the subject before me, suffice to say that this miracle product is essentially an acrylic gloss varnish, with a distinct artificial apple scent, that has many applications in the hobby: gloss coat, restore the shine on clear parts, glue small photoeteched elements, and so forth....

Now if you've tried to find a bottle of the miracle stuff, you will have realized that it's been discontinued for a while, and that many modellers claim that the manufacturer just rebranded the stuff and gave it a slightly different formula. The new name is Johnson "Klear" (or "Klir" in French speaking countries) and it (allegedly) works the exact same wonders.

Now is that true? Let's find out.

I conducted a small experiment, testing 4 different products, namely:

- "Pledge with future shine", which is exactly the same as the former "Future Floor Polish". (I used to have a bottle of the "original" Future, which I bought back in 1995 - yes, I'm that old- and got the "pledge" one shortly before my "future" supply ran out. There was not the slightest difference between the 2)
- "Johnson Klir", claimed to perform exactly the same by many french-speaking modellers
- "Johnson Sols Plus", which some claim is a rebranding of Johnson Klir.
- "Pial", which is some sort of floor polish sold in Switzerland. Forget about this one, it has absolutely no modelling use.

As you can see, all products have a milky aspect, except "Pledge". Both "Klir" and "Sols plus" look and smell virtually the same, while "Pledge" retains that "artificial apple" scent that whoever used Future once will recall. As for "Pial", well, forget about it, and just use it as a floor polish.

First test conducted was to scratch pièces of clear styrene with 2000 grade sandpaper....

... and give them a dip:

So here it goes: as far as the "dipping" treatment is concerned, "Pledge with future shine" is vastly superior to the other 2. So is Klir/sols plus the "same"? No Sir....

Second test was to airbrush each product on prepainted parts. I sprayed Tamiya XF68 Brown, Tamiya XF 60 Dark Yellow and Italeri 4766AP Flat Non Specular Blue Gray on dark olive plastic parts.

Dark yellow turned dead flat, while the other 2 had already a slight sheen.

Next I sprayed each section with the corresponding product, and sprayed a 4th section with "normal" gloss acrylic varnish thinned with 50% rubbing alcohol.

On the dark yellow, here is what I got:

BEFORE

AFTER

Here again, "Pledge/Future" gives better results. Oddly enough, "Klir" and "Sols Plus" seem to behave differently, even though they really look like the same product straight from the bottle. Here "Sols Plus" gave a surprisingly good result, even slightly better than the "normal" gloss varnish. But for the latter, the use of rubbing alcohol as a thinner might have impaired its performances.

On a glossier initial coat (XF 68 dark Brown), here is what I got:

BEFORE

AFTER

Once again, the results are pretty much the same...

Finally with the Sea Blue-Gray

BEFORE

AFTER

Now it's hard to see any differences, except perhaps that "Klir" hasn't affected the original finish much, and that "Sols Plus" still behaves better.

Now I should mention the fact that "Sols Plus" is extremely thin and tends to "run" when sprayed, even at moderate pressures. I did not have this problem with "Future" and "normal" varnish.

Conclusion: "Klir" is DEFINITELY not the same as "Future" and "Sols Plus" might have some similar properties (but it's really a pain in the sphincter to spray properly). I wouldn' t recommend using any of these products besides their original use. I might even write a post about their cleaning properties in the future if I don't have anything better to do....

Happy Modelling

Treflon