Hi Ya'll;
I was taking a Coffee and Tobacco break and was musing about the state of Modeling in the world in general. Then I remembered something I do, as a normal thing when building my plastic models. It doesn't matter what it is either! even my Train stuff!
When you open that Plane, Ship, Car, Tank, or whatever, no matter how well it's been molded, you have stuff that the company saw fit to mold in place. If they didn't, then the parts count would be higher because of the " Fiddly Bits". I won't go into a lot of detail here. Suffice it to say, everyone that has built a plastic model has run into this.
The molded on parts will be sharp on say a Trumpeter, Hasegawa or Tamiya kit. The problem is still there. Even on a Meng kit it is there. What? Well, if you could cut a cross section of an area, say where a Set of tools is molded on a Tank deck.
In that cross section you would see, even though there seems to be a sharp delineation between the part and the deck, don't be fooled. To accomodate the molding process and allow a clean " Pop-Out" of the part when the mold release pins push on the plastic so it will come out cleanly. There is an almost, ( On the better models anyway) Infinitesimal radius! Yes, a radius!
Don't be cutting something apart to prove me wrong, Either. In the following scales it can be a problem 1/192 and below all the way down to 1/1250! So how do you handle this common ailment? Years ago, when I did my Second box scale REVELL ship I tried this. I took the number 11 blade and very carefully shaved the radius away from the connection between the detail and the deck.
Then I took the same blade and Carefully now, cut a thin line between the part and the deck. Just the weight of the knife was enough. It didn't leave a noticeable edge! Then when I painted like say, the Deck on the "Hawaiian Pilot" Freighter, the deck paint didn't crawl up the side of the detail. And the same held true when I painted the detail!
Then where the detail was Unpainted surfaces I just let the blade glide in that groove to get offending blurbs of paint off for a nice straight line. I imagine many of you have thought of this. It seems to be something I am sure many thought of, but how many still do it! Search your Memories, It's amazing how many old tricks we learned are still great tools for making a better model today. Have a nice day !