first time with photoetch...now what

Well I'm no expert, but you want to clean it off, I use alcohol, and cut it with a sharp pair of hobby scissors or a sharp knife. One must be careful when cutting, for pieces will and can fly about. I used CA my first time out, but you can use slower curring glues.

Photoetched is the next step to making a kit more accurate. Cut the pieces from the fret with an Xacto blade. Make sure you have something holding the piece down while you vcut it or it will catapult across the room. I use a flat tipped pliers and a sanding stick to sand off the remaining brass from the cut. You can use either CA glue or 5 minute epoxy to glue the brass to the kit. I wash the brass prior to painting to remove any residue from handling and from the etching process. I would recommend an Etch Mate, Hold and Fold or a flat tipped plier to make bends. Good Luck.

Cheers

Mo

Some people like to heat the PE with a lighter before bending it to make it more malleable. I have not really noticed a difference, but it is worth trying to see if you notice a difference. I have also noticed that people like to wash their PE with various substances, but in fact the last step in the PE process was probably an acetone bath, so I doubt washing it would make a difference and I have not noticed a difference myself. One thing that I do to prepare the PE is sand all the pieces on the sheet while they are still attached. I use very fine grit sand paper and don’t press very hard so as not to remove any of the detail. I do it just enough to give it a bit of a rough surface for the paint to adhere.

The key working with PE is patients. Take things slowly and you should not have problems. Always press the piece you are cutting of the sheet down with a finger so that it does not fly off. I use pliars to hold the PE while I sand off the remnants of the spur with a small file. Try to put the PE on the model as late as possible so that you don’t have to handle the model once the PE is on. PE can be very fragile, and you want to handle it as little as possible. I would not suggest investing in something like an etch mate until you decide that you are going to use PE on a regular basis. In fact I rarely use my etch mate. Instead I use various flat head and round head pliers. I bought mine individually, but I think you can pick up a set for like $20. And I am not sure if you know this or not, but you are not going to be able to use your plastic cement for attaching the pieces. You will need to use CA (superglue) or epoxy.

This is all I can think of for now, but I might be back later to add more, good luck!!

Oh, and did I mention that you will need patients? LOL!

my experience w/ PE is limited, but i do not have any of the tools like Hold and Fold or Etch Mate. i do my bending & folding on a piece of glass using 2 single edge razors.
use one to pin down the piece w/ the edge on the fold line.
slide the second one under the piece until it meets (almost) the first
and then tip the second one up from the rear to bend the piece.

this will not work for long pieces, but it was adequate to do all the folds for Eduard's 1/32 Komet set.

and if you are accident prone, don't use two razors! [:0]
and eye protection might be a good idea.
and a drop cloth of some kind to keep the tiny bits out of the carpet.
i have seen a "jeweler's apron" that goes from edge of bench/table to person
(at the waist?) to keep stuff from going o the floor.

PE is the inspiration for such words as "tweezer-pult" and #$%^&!

good luck.

did anyone mention patience ?

Yeah, PE is sending me to Hell for all the swearing it makes me do. Mo is the man on this subject from what I have learned from him. (Blue Painter's tape for example, WOW what a life saver that is.)

But Patience as ed said, is the key. Lots and lots and lots and lots of patience.

Ted

Oh, and I found this cool fingernail file at Wally World, it has 4 different grits, the finest grit works very well for removing the extra brass from cuting. Just my

Ted

My "limited" experience with PE has been both one of frustration and reward. The most important thing to decide up front is what PE you actually want to use to improve the model. The emphasis is on improve. Just because it's PE doesn't necessarily mean it's better. Most figure out where the line is for them and use only part of the fret as opposed to using the whole thing. That tolerance level varies depending.

For the really small pieces I'd suggest a locking pair of tweezers in addition to the above mentioned suggestions. Low tack painter's tape will save a lot of heartache on lost/moving pieces.

For removal from the fret, I use my sprue nippers if I can fit them in as PE usually has very fragile attachment points to the sheet. If I can't, then I use a sharp hobby knife with the usual precaution against pieces taking flight unexpectedly. For sanding, I use tweezers/pliers and my rotary Mighty Mite dremel tool to remove the burrs.

Some additional tips. As stated in other posts, you'll use CA glue to attach the pieces to the plastic. I find that generally speaking, medium viscosity (it comes in a green bottle) is best. I usually don't apply the glue to the part. Rather I'll place a drop of glue on the model where I want the part to be located, and then place the part on the model. Or I'll hold the part on the model, and apply a drop of glue where it touches the model allowing the super glue to wick between the part and the model. A drop of Zip-Kicker will instantly harden the glue.

As for tools, I have never had good luck using toothpicks to apply the glue. Either the glue climbs up the toopick, away from the extreme tip or I have to use a really big blob of glue. I make my own applicators out of fine wire (a single strand from a piece of picture hanging wire) gluing a short segment of wire to a toothpick. I find that with the wire, I can get a fairly small drop of glue right on the end of it. I keep a lot of these handy and scrape them off with the back side of an exacto blade after use.

The zip kicker comes in a spray bottle, which is totally useless. I filled a old cleaned paint bottle with it and apply it with a modified glue applicator. Basically, I formed a really small loop in the end of the wire, so after dipping it into my zip kicer bottle, it holds just a drop. I can them touch this the the model right next to the super glue drop that I want to harden.

Do you have some sort of magnifying apparatus? I have one of those lights that has a large magnifying lens surrounded by a circular fluorescent tube. The light and magnification make a really big difference. I think there are magnifying goggles that can give the same effect. If you make something that looks good under a magnifier, it will look great in normal life.

Although, mentioned before, I would re-iterate the need for patience. My first attempts were very frustrating. My wife just kinf got used to the cussing that ensued when I was building the model. I mis-glued many pieces that had to be pulled up, scraped, and re-glued. Don't be afraid of pulling up a piece that is not right and re-trying. Usually you can simply scrape off the old glue. Beware of the "carpet monster". I dropped many a piece onto the carpet where they still reside to this day. When you do get frustrated, relax, take a break, and come back to it later. Handling the photo-etch and the CA glue will get a lot easier with practice. I hardly cuss while applying photo-etch these days, and by the end of your Panther project, you'll be a pro.

Good luck.

i forgot to mention,
to remove PE from the fret, i use a #10 Xacto blade.
it is somewhat heavy & curved.
i cut the piece off by putting the tip in front of the join and then "rocking" the blade
back over the join.

and put a spare fingertip on the piece to be freed before cutting if you want to see it again!