having some trouble with a clear plastic canopy part. i was trying to tint it with tamiya acrylic in future but those two didn’t want to mix so tried it without the floor wax. mixed up water, acrylic and some mr color thinner for good measure. unfortunately, aside from not looking that great, looks like the enamel thinner attacked the plastic and left some nasty smears and cloud marks. future helps but not absolutely. questions:
-
any ways to get rid of “etched” marks on clear plastic parts? anything simpler than wet sanding and buffing?
-
how DO you tint clear plastic? i heard about acrylic and future but they don’t seem to want to mix.
sorry for the newbie questions, i mostly build armor. not too many canopies on those. [:)]
My guess is that that canopy is junk. About the only way I know of to get the cloudiness out is to sand it out and then polish the canopy. Depending on the model, Squadron carries some vacuum-formed canopies and they also carry some clear plastic for forming your own (seems like it’s called Thermaform) using the old canopy as a form.
The two ways I know of for tinting a canopy are:
-
Tamiya makes a range of clear acrylics. Clear Green, red, blue, yellow, and “Smoke” (there may be a few more).
-
You can mix food coloring in Future. NOT acrylic paint, food coloring.
dont know how u “tant” them but if u want to paint them use a toothpick.
( works much better than a brush )
blackcat
A procedure RC modelers use is to mix up some black or yellow or gray RIT dye, the stuff intended to dye cloth and soak the canopy in that stuff. Use WARM water, NOT hot or you will distort the canopy. You have to watch the process and check how it is progressing fairly frequently. The longer you leave it in the solution, the darker it will get.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]