How to Hold AFVs When Airbrushing?

Paint the undersides first, before any handling. Do this from all four sides: left, right, front, and rear to insure full coverage. Then once that area is covered to your satisfaction put the kit on its tracks/wheels on a sheet of paper large enough to hold your kit and catch most overspray. You can rotate the paper with your kit upon it to spray each side and the top in turn while minimizing any further handling.

Whats an AFV

Bil

wjbwjb29

Whats an AFV

 

Bil

Armored Fighting Vehicle

AFV = Armored fighting vehicles

Get yourself some of those cheap blue rubber or white disposable gloves from an auto parts store. Put one on your "other" hand. (the one not holding the AB).

Spread your fingers inside of the turret race hole, and airbrush without fear of getting paint on your hands. With some careful rotating and shifting-of-fingers, you can get the whole piece painted.

Alternately, make a cheap jig like car modelers use--you can twist a wire clothes hanger into some suitable position and run one end of it through, say, the sprocket attachment hole, or some similar hole.

You can also mount, for instance, a gun carriage or similar piece on a larger piece of sprue, perhaps even an old sprue piece that you cut apart. Use gap-filling super glue to attach the sprue end to an innocuous place on the bottom of the gun carriage or whatever piece you've got. You can always just snap it off later; the attachment point won't be visible. I use this method a lot for small pieces; I have a small box that I keep 3-4" lengths of cut sprue in, and attach parts to them for painting, then recycle them.

These are just some of the methods I use.

I do it basically the same as Doog has described, but I bought a cheap lazy Susan at a dollar store and sit the model on it. That allows me to rotate it without touching it.

Frst thing I do before painting is to wash my hands. This will prevent body oil from my hands getting to the AFV. I do not paint  (if it is a vehicle with turret) with the turret on. I use the opening of the chassis where the turret should go to put in my fingers to hold the chassis.

Spamicus

I do it basically the same as Doog has described, but I bought a cheap lazy Susan at a dollar store and sit the model on it. That allows me to rotate it without touching it.

Exactly how I do it!

Hi Chrisk-k, welcome greetings :)
I am with Constructor on this one in adition I am also using a Lazy Susan (had no clue that was the English name for it) with plastic foam and cheap Chinese chop sticks cut to length as required.

Very Best Regards

Johan 

Yup

A Cheap lazy Suzan/cake decoration stand, err borrowed from my mum, with one of those neoprene/diving suit type mouse pads as a non-slip surface.

Also several wooden clothes pins to act as holders, I also use nitrile gloves.

When working on armor I typically mount mine on a handle. I have a couple that i have used for many years.

One is a spice container filled with fishing weights. I mount the hull on this as early as possible and use it as a construction and paint stand throughout the build. Only a little spritz of paint is needed to cover the bare circle on the bottom once done. This one is generally for out of the box builds where a lot of PE work is not expected.

The other one is an old GPS mount made by RAM industries that I modified so that I can screw one of the base plates to the bottom of the model. All i had to do was take one of the round pivot bases and cut it into a rectangle. This is the base I use when i'm going to be doing a lot of Photo Etch work or scratchbuilding. One twist of the knob and i can tilt the model any direction. It will rotate to the side past 90 degrees as well as front and back of course. It's wonderful to hold the model at odd angles while working on it. I also use it as a paint stand. It is especially useful while muddying and painting the under carriage.

A Lazy Susan plus a GPS mount look exactly like what I need!

I'm with K -Dawg . Also when you paint the turret you can use a piece of plastic pipe . Wrap the pipe with electrical tape until it fits snuggly inside of the opening in the turret and slip the turret over it .

I use a similar method as Carl (shellback) but use cardboard toilet paper or paper towel tubes instead...seems like most 1/35 scale turret rings will fit that diameter for some reason.