Small Parts (a question, not a confession)

She was sarah on "Chuck".I tend to paint the small parts off of the model then attach them when the larger parts are painted.

Yes, philo426, I believe she was. I've never seen the show "Chuck", but I read something about that when I googled her - that sounds so dirty, and I'm okay with that. I discovered this ethereal beauty as the main character's soul-mate on the series "Dexter". I just think she's terrific. She doesn't even have to act or do anything as far as I'm concerned. I could just stare at her and swoon. She's the cat's knees, and the bee's pajamas

I kind of figured that was the deal with small parts. Is extra careful attention given to gluing them on? Or is a little touch-up work to be expected? I'm on my first build, so one of the biggest issues of skill I'm learning is how to properly apply glues. I'm quickly discovering that very little goes a long way

Hello!

It surely depends, and also on the kind of glue you're using. If you use CA glue for example, glueing painted parts is mostly OK. If you're using solvent glue, you want to put it on unpainted surfaces (although parts painted with Gunze paints can be welded with solvent with no problems). But I mostly try to glue as many parts as practical before painting, because it makes the joints stronger, the handling easier, I can take care of any gaps, fit issues and so on. Painting parts on sprues mostly makes no sense to me, because you have to clean up virtually every part - at least at the sprue attachment point - before you can use it. So if a part has to be painted separately I cut it out, clean it up and then I glue or fit it to a holder made out of stretched sprue or wire, or a toothpick and then paint it.

Hope it helps, good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł

Hi ;

    What I always do is this .When attaching small parts that are extremely delicate . I do the " Double Whammy ". First taking Aleen's Tacky craft glue and putting a tiny blob where I can get to it . I pick up the tiny part in my trusty tweezers , and taking a toothpick in the other hand I take a tiny dot of the Aleen's , put it where the part goes and then put the part on .

   I wait till it drys then Take another dot of good old " Super Glue " and fasten it down tighter ! . Now for the clincher . ALL these parts are painted first .The colors they need to be . I weather them in place . Let's face it a shovel or pick on the side of an AFV would not weather in much different shades in the same situation as the vehicle .

     I say that because the smaller the part , it will weather differently . That's as it should be .

I find small parts frequently interfere with sanding and other surface preparations if added before painting.  Thus I usually add these parts after main finish done. I paint the small parts on sprue.  

She's a doll but I still can't watch Dexter.

I assume from the OP question that he's an armor builder. In the case of armor I always try to glue on all of the little details before I paint them. Plastic-to-plastic with solvent makes a really strong bond. The obvious problem with painting small parts and then gluing them on with CA (superglue) is that the bond then is simply how well the paint is adhered to the model.

For armor it all starts out the same color anyways, in general.

For aircraft I tend to paint the small parts on the sprues. In fact I've gone through my stash and pre-painted a lot of the kits. Interior green, rubber black, aluminum and silver. As Pawel notes, that means a second go around of touch up, but it makes for good clean color brakes. And it's not hard to go back and sand off the paint at the attachment points.

For ships, to the extent possible I pre-paint the parts. Again, there are usually very defined color breaks and it can save a lot of masking.

Just my opinions, there probably is no right or wrong.

"Small Parts (a question, not a confession)"

I enjoyed the pun!

Texgunner

"Small Parts (a question, not a confession)"

I enjoyed the pun!

As for me, I tend to leave the smaller parts on the sprue tree, paint them up, attach them to the final build and then do touch-up with a fine tipped brush if needed, mostly to fix where the part was attached to the sprue.

Other techniques I will use, is if it is something that is made up of multiple smaller parts, for example a bang seat in a fighter, I will put the seat together, then attach it to a mixing stick with some tack putty and paint it there before installing into the cockpit.

I pretty much concur on all accounts of the above.

One of the reasons I leave small parts to last, like pitot tubes, antenna masts etc. Is I tend to get ham handed at times and break them off.

Yes they are fragile so extra care is necessary.