I have been asking a lot of questions latley and here is another one. [B)]
How can I bend fenders to give them the worn look? I was thinking pliers but that could leaave bad marks in the plastic.
Also, How can I make dents? I think that they are a very important part in detailing a fairly used vehicle.
Thanks for the help
There was an article in FSM a year or two ago about this. I will try to look through the back issues tonight and let you know
April 2002. Has an A-10 on the front with the caption COMBAT JETS
Personally , I use Aber fender kits if I want to replicate dents on war torn vehicles , it almost wears naturally as it is very hard to make the fenders look perfect . Doing the same on plastic is possible but trickier , I have no advice for you there . It is also possible to make fenders out of lead foil or other similar thin metal , this also makes very nice rear storage boxes for a panther , these dented frequently as the crews backed into stuff I would imagine during combat . Good luck !
Well On parts you wont see the back of you can dent them like this. Grind out the “dent” with a motor tool then sand it down with steel wool to make it smoother. Bending plastic isn’t easy. Heat can do it if your careful but its not in plastics nature to bend and stay bent. If you know your gonna bend something look into replaceing it with metal (aluminum or Brass)
For example. On my current Sturmtiger build the heat sheilds are to me mangled. This would be next to impossible to do with plastic of any thickness so I duplicated the part in thin aluminum sheet using the kit part as a pattern. It much easier and looks 10 times better IMHO… The fenders were done the same way. Make a pattern from the kit part and make a metal part to replace it. Hope this helps…
Its not much if more work than dealing with plastic. Hope this helps.
I recently tried my hand at this John, and learnt a few things.
One thing I will do next time is make sure I have a clear idea what I want to dent/scratch/bend. I sort of jumped in and my results are a little inconsistent.
I used a hot soldering iron to do the fenders, holding it just underneath the plastic and then when it got droopy I sort of belted it with an exacto handle. I didn’t use pliers, as they will mark hot plastic. In hindsight, I wouldn’t have bashed in as much, and more ‘up’.
The dents are done with a motor tool and then sanded smooth, much as Kenneth said.
Start out slowly and deliberately, and leave your progress for a while to give yourself a chance to look at it objectively, and try to work from photos of similar vehicles.
Hope this helps.
I’ve had luck with heat as Phroosh has mentioned, only I use my worklight. It’s handy, right there over my head with a 60 watt bulb. I hold the part to bend up close to it (not touching) until it starts to soften, usually when my fingers get really warm. I then push and prod it with a file handle.
I used this technique on the skirts here…
and the Feifels, fender and storage bin here…
This may be more subtle than you want, you could always go heavier.
Thanks guys. I knew that pliers wouldn’t work. By motor tool do you mean, dremel, or will a regualr electic drill work?
I use a Dremel type thing, but I think a drill would work; you just need a rounded bit, to sort of grind out the dents.
I’ve used a dental tool heated by a candle flame to make small dents/gouges. I’ve even used a propane torch to bend 1/8" and thicker material.
aus- it looks like a hell mark on the front of your Tiger. Did you use the same method ?(light bulb?)
I excavated that with a Dremel. Same technique used to create the Armor pitting and weld marks here (for some reason, I don’t have a pic of the shell dent while it’s still in basecoat) but much deeper and nastier.
I like to use a dremel minimite.
Slower than the bigger rotary tools it cuts insted of melts because of slower speeds.
Practice,practice,practice…
Also photoetch and lead foil work well and look cool all bent up.
Good luck.
I have had good results in the past with heat source in close proximity to the “dent” area. I have used all of the above methods and then… I got a totally useless gift for Christmas last year that is working quite well in its new role on my workbench. I received a coffee cup warmer (heats the bottom of the cup to nuclear) yet it leaves the coffee inside the cup ice cold. However, it is great for heating and forming plastic without an open flame.
The other method is replacement of the area with thin lead foil. I scrounge all the free stuff I can from the foil wraps on the wine bottles that come in the house (Ask for permission from your wife/girlfriend first) The foil I have scrounged works great for various applications and best of all it can be dented and dinged, folded and mangled and it still looks great when finished.
FSM had a previous article with a FW-109 with flak damage that shows how to blend in the foil to the surrounding areas. I think it was in the 2004 editions of January or February. If I find it I’ll forward the issue information.
Cheers;
Gregory
I too have had problems creating realistic looks dents and dings, and especially bullet holes, in plastic. Because of the nature of plastic, it has a tendency to simply curl up when subjected to heat if one isn’t very, very careful. That’s why I’m looking forward to my first build with PE. I’m just getting back into armor after an absence of twenty years, and am still learning about all the advances in model building technology in the interim. I’m facinated with PE, since it’s metal in scale and behaves accordingly.
In preparation, I took a bunch of close-up pictures of dings, dents and battle damage on the tanks in several museums during a recent trip to England. Some of the museum staff, not to mention other visitors, probably thought I was a little bit weird, but these pics should be a great help. If anyone is interested, I’ll post them as soon as I replace my old scanner, which finally gave up the ghost.
Thanks for the help guys. Last night I went and tried the soldering iron but wasnt paying atenttion and I pressed the soldering iron into the top of the plastic, the effect came out looking exactly like the tiger in ausf’s sig. So I will retry today. Thank god it was only a practice model.
I also tried holing the piece over a candel for a few seconds that i revoved it and bent it with a knife. That method wors great!
I will also try a dental tool, I just dont know if i want to get it all black.
To make bullet holes i have heated a bobby pin (used for sewing) until the tip was glowing orange. Then I punched in some holes. You can get a few holes at a time before it will cool off and you have to reheat it. It might be out of scale though.
Thanks again for the help guys.
Hey,
I started moldeling again after 25 years (lost everything in a fire) so be easy on me. I agree with the assessment of the coffee warmer for coffee use but exactly how do you use it to bend/mold plastic? Do you place the part directly on the heat surface? Thanks.
Michael
I read a cracking article in a Verlinden publication on Bullet holes. They reckoned the best way was to thin the rear of the part to be holed with a Dremel or similar. Then with an exacto push a hole through. Because you’ve thinned the back end it looks fairly to scale. The model shown was a downed plane and the effect looked great.
It would be a very powerful bullet to penetrate a tanks armour but in stowage or skirts it could look pretty cool. Remember to show a bit of the undercoat around the bullet hole.
…Guy
For bullet/shell holes I just heat a metal object, push through and then paint accordingly, heres how it turs out:
Note: On this shell hole I wasn’t striving for accuracy, I just wanted it to “look cool”
That looks awesome Ian. It could fool anyone into thinking it was real.
…Guy