Hello, I am new to photo etching 1/48 scale instrument panels. Any tips or tricks would be helpful like what glues used and order of finishing the panel. I have about 8 of the Eduard photoetch sets for my aircraft kits mainly for the instrument panel and seat belts.
Thanks in advance, George
Hi George!
Listen, I don’t do aircraft that often. When I do I use those P.E. instrument and side console parts. They enhance the office way more than just paint or decals. Now as far as guages. If the P.E. just has holes for them, I use the decals under. You can find hole punches the sizes you need, you just have to look. I use mostly a set of punches I found for plastic. They work and as long as you keep them clean they are a jewel to work with. T.B. P.S. For any auto I just use specialty brushes and hand paint the instruments!
l It usually goes pretty well. Glue choice is not critical. I have used white glue and CA. Thing I like about whie glue is the longer setting time, allowing carefull positioning. After drying i put gloss lacguer in the opening with a toothpick (Testors used to come in bottles as well as spray cans but any clear gloss lacquer will do.This makes a glass-like sheen. Be very careful aterward- too much movement may cause blurring of decal printing.
Hi George,
My adhesive of choice for aftermarket instrument panels and seatbelts depends on what I’m attaching and how. A lot of the Eduard panels are done in layers, and I generally use a thin coat of 2 part Epoxy to attach the base layer. For the subsequent layers, I use Future (or other clear acrylic floor coating) because its transparency is superior to any of the white glues, and won’t leave visible globs like CA does if you mess up just a little bit and get it in the wrong spot. Clear acrylic is very forgiving of errors. Anything that is going to be edge-mounted on the panel, like a handle, not many good ways to do that other than CA. If that edge-mounted part can be held steady for a few seconds, UV curing glues like Bondic work amazingly well, and again it won’t form the nasty, cloudy little blob that CA forms.
Aside from that advice on adhesives, you should also check out some of the manufacturers out there that make 3D-printed decals for instrument panels and seatbelts. Those have much more depth to them than photoetch and look much more realistic, especially the seatbelts. I use a lot of 3D-printed decals from Quinta Studio, which are the best available right now, but there are other manufacturers getting into it. Eduard has even started to, but they’re not quite up to the level of quality that Quinta has at the moment.
With a little careful chiseling on your kit parts, you can even combine the best of those flat, Eduard photo etch panels and some of the 3D features of the kit part to really make things pop. Did that on this F-15 cockpit.
So like my P-51 eduard kit has a little white paper with dials/gauges printed on it that lines up with the metal face photoetch pc. How would you attach the paper to photoetch to the plastic instrument panel that has been prepared for the photo etch pc?
Photo etch panel + paper dials gauges + plastic instrument panel of the model kit.
Thanks for your help.
George P
I use Testors clear canopy glue to attach the paper to the PE part. I then use CA glue to attach to plastic panel.
Figure out whether that white paper is a decal or just printed paper . In either case I usually glue it to the rear of the PE with white glue, being care in registoring the dials as well as you can to keep instruments centered with the openings in the PE panel.