I have been reading past postings, together with Swanny’s excellent article, on filling seams. It is mentioned that nail polish remover, the one WITH acetone can be used to thin the putty and a cotton bud dipped in the nail polish remover can then be used to smooth it down.
Now either I am having, what is called over here, a senior moment, or my chemistry is seriously flawed. I am certain that acetone and many plastics do not play nicely together, in fact they downright hate each other, yet it is suggested that a product containing acetone be used on a plastic kit.
Could someone please explain to me the rationale of using an acetone based product on plastic?
You may be right about acetone and many plastics not playing well together. However, styrene is not one of them. Matt (Swanny) would not steer you wrong.
Yes, you can use acetone. Nail polish remover, in particular, contains a relatively small amount of acetone, usually mixed with things that reduce its defatting effect on skin and hair (nails are essentially a form of hair). This makes it less aggressive to styrene.
However, you can use other solvents such as “lacquer thinner.” If you use Acryl Blue or Acryl Red body spot putties, you can thin those with 90% isopropyl alcohol.
The 20mm guns on the Hasegawa Vb kit are ugly thin. I married a couple Quickbood P47 barrels with reasonable results. Now to reshape the conical shape reasonably, Ive tried several coats of Tamiya’s surface primer, it works pretty good but I think I’ll be layering till the cows come home. So, I thought about thinning squadron putty to expedite this situation, but then I read it contains toluene. So, does Aceton work with Toluene? I’m also concerned with the evaporation rate, ie will this dry while I’m trying to apply it? I’m going for a cocktail…
Acetone is possibly compatible with a toluene solvent system. However, mix a test batch first and see how it behaves. Acetone does evaporate very rapidly, which will cause the surface to cure more rapidly than the interior, possibly creating other problems.
Here’s another technique:
Wrap single layer tissue paper (not toilet paper) into the approximate shape you want. If this is difficult when the paper is dry, wet it and form it that way.
Allow the paper to dry completely.
Saturate the paper with fast cure CA (not the thickened or gel types). If it seems to need acceleration, use accelerator very sparingly.
Now you have the basic shape. Coat that with putty. Sand to shape.
Heck yeah…excellent idea! Guess I had “brain freeze” cause I’ve used tissue before to achieve "texture on plastic. Many thanks & I’ll let ya know the results.
Ok, I tried the tissue application, I cut a rough large triangle, laid the material on the 20mm barrels & wet the tissue slowly working it to shape & triming as best as possible with a sharp scissors. When the tissue dried, I did apply “fast dry CR,” no kicker & let this rest over night. This AM I applied 2 coats of Tamiya surface primer. The 20mm gun barrels are really taking shape. I’m going to let this dry today & go into sanding mode tomorrow.