Sanding before a natural metal finish

I have found with natural metal finishes almost anything under the metalizer needs to be polished. Metalizer will show-up even the smallest of scratches. Priming with future is a good idea as this will give the same consistency of "base" for the metalizer. What I mean here is, if you fill seems with putty you may be able to get them perfectly smooth and not be able to notice a difference between the plastic and the putty but then once you throw some metalizer on it, it showes up like a sore thumb. Even with putting future down first, it should probably still be polished. Bare Metal makes a good polish and so does Novus. Another important thing to remember, and this is not just for natural metal finishes, paint (or Future) is not a filler. Paint can be used as one by spraying and sanding and spraying and sanding until ytou get the seam or scratch filled.

hope this helps

Regardless of final color, I usually brush paint seams with silver paint. It almost
magnifys any fault making for an easy cleanup of any imperfections.

I fill and sand the seams, then use Model Master Flat Gull Gray, FS 36440 as a primer. This usually brings out the spots I missed. I fill the spots I missed and wet sand again using 600 grit paper, re-prime the spots and then wet sand again lightly with 1000 grit paper. If I'm satisfied I got all the scratches out, I wash it, let it dry and then paint on the metal finish, (Model Master non-buffing aluminum plate is my favorite metal finish). My standard filler is an automotive spot putty called nitro-stan. Its in the same category as Squadron green putty and other lacquer based fillers. When the spirit moves me, I sometimes use superglue as a filler. The key is to get a smooth, uniform surface before applying the metal finish. I'd stay away from the Future as a base until you've got the surface filled, sanded and primed. If you do this right, you don't need future.

Good luck,
Tom

I sent this in to FSM as a tip a few years ago. After you think the seam is perfect, take some SNJ powder and rub it on the surface of the seam. Polish it until it shines. If there is an imperfection, it will stand out like a sore thumb. Remove the SNJ powder with alcohol and a swab and add filler or sand the spot. Try again. -Actually, I don't remove the SNJ powder as I add filler or sand, but it does get your sand sticks messy. After I have created a perfect surface, and it does take time and patience. I spray paint the model with a base aluminum color. For any or all panels which captured a piece of dust or did not come out perfect, I use Post it notes to isolate or frame the bad panels. Then I sand or remove the dust or blobs or whatever the imperfection is. Then I take a different shade of aluminum and spray it on only those panels. This gives a random shading effect and also perfect painting. If you want to see my results email me at gregtarris@hotmail.com BTW, I actually enjoy doing metal finish aircraft now that I have perfected this technique.