Wow. Sorry I missed this, guys. I may have been consumed at work, or something.
I read about the process somewhere, but don't remember where. I'd love to give credit where credit is due, but simply don't remember where. It may have been on the Scale Auto site where someone was doing a firewall or dash on a Ferrari, or something. My apologies to the person I originally got this from, it's an awesome technique.
Anyway, here's the process I followed:
1. I used Bare Metal Foil. The only silver-colored foil I had was their chrome stuff, which is what I used. Perhaps something with a less glossy finish might do better, I don't know. I liked the results with the BMF chrome.
2. I figured out how much I needed based on the kit decals, trying to use as little as possible, but leaving a little excess for errors in cutting/laying down.
3. I grabbed a drafting template that had different-sized circles on it. I happened to pick up a Pickett cricuit drawing template. That worked nicely.
4. I located a regular #2 pencil with a decent eraser on it. I lucked out and had in the house a completely unused pencil. These have the red erasers on the 'correcting end', which is slightly abrasive. That's key.
5. Depending on the size of your 'turnings' circles, you may need to trim the sides of the eraser down a bit. I had to for the Spirit. You want it to just barely fit in the hole of your template, but still be able to be turned by hand.
6. I figured out what size circle I needed to use, and after a couple of tests to get spacing and overlap right, figured out how much the template needed to move for each spot. I measured out a grid to follow on some paper that I laid under the BMF page that I could use to keep the circle template lined up on and be able to follow so the spacing of the turnings were uniform.
7. So I laid the paper down and taped it. Laid the BMF down over that in such a manner that I could see the grid on the paper and align the template with that grid. I then laid the template over the foil and went to work with the eraser. You locate your first 'turning' location, press the eraser to the template/foil and give it a couple of turns by hand. I think I did 4-5 turns by hand. It doesn't take much to get decent results.
8. Once you have your first spot done, remove the pencil, carefully relocate the template so you still get some overlap, but can cover the most area at a time, and just keep working. It's tedious work, about like scribing panels or re-marking rivets, but the results are nice. It probably took me a couple of hours to 'engine turn' enough foil to cover the cowl of the Spirit with a little left over.
9. After that, you cut out your pieces, using the supplied decals as templates. If you don't have that, I'd try to duplicate the panels, so any 'panel' overlap you have will look like a natural panel joint.
10. After I applied the foil, I dotted the edges of the panels with flat silver to look like screws, and then gloss clear-coated the foil. That had the added detail of turning the foil a little brown, a feature I kind of like. The clear-coat didn't affect the 'engine turn' look, the shine that seems to move when the light angle changes, just like real engine turned metal.
As Don mentioned, the supplied decals are fine, but this technique really makes the engine turned surface look really engine-turned. As you move the finished model, or as the light angle changes, it does look convincing. It's not something to do every day, you'll quickly grow tired of the process, but it's pretty neat on the rare opportunities where you do.
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas