Adding Texture

Since they are already installed, I think your options may be limited. My only suggestion is rather labor intensive, but it MIGHT work. A trip through Home Deplorable or other hardware store will acquaint the prototype of the tool you would need to make in order to do this. Decorative pattern paint rollers.....in miniature. Now before you tell me to stop sniffing glue, hear me out... I've made these before and they work. I needed to produce lots and lots of cracks on the mountains of a bias-relief topographic model of the North Cascades Wilderness Area that I was building for the US Forest Service. I made a small roller by casting silicone rubber in a cylindrical mold that was textured with small cracks. (A piece of leather). The wheel I produced had a series of small ridges across it's surface. When placed in a forked handle, rolled in some paint and rolled onto the surface, it produces a fine web of cracks...Exactly what I wanted. You could do the same by casting the roller on some coarse cloth, reproducing the cloth texture on the roller. I didn't say this would be easy, but it works.

Scott,

I was thinking that you could cut strips of masking tape the same width as those PE belts and then airbrush them the same color and put them over the smooth PE surface. It may be a lot of work with all of those but masking tape looks fairly real when painted.

Mike

Peridexion I'm not gonna tell you to stop sniffing glue, that's not a bad idea. I've seen the rollers you are talking about so I understand your idea. I've got some left-over fret from the parts so I may try something tomorrow just to see what happens. At this point I probably won't go to the effort of casting a roller, but what I might try is putting some paint out and letting it thicken a bit (that should take about 2 seconds with acrylics!) and then using a Q-Tip as a roller and sort of roll it down the fret just to see what happens.

Mike, if that doesn't work I think your idea will. The straps are a little bit on the thin side now anyway and that will thicken them and add some texture.

One thing is for sure though, those straps will never come off. PE never sticks for me when I want it to, but just let me need to get it back off and it's stuck for life!

Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it.

HEY,
You might also try adding a bit of talcum power to the paint beforehand, not much, but some, just for texture. Then just paint it on. I dont know if this is the type of texture you want, but it could work. I think the masking tape would work better though.

Randy

Good idea, Randy. I'm going to try some things tomorrow and will add that to the list of things to try. Thanks!

HEY,
No prob, ive just heard of using that technique for doing realistic carpets and stuff in cars, so i thought it might ork for what you want to do.

Randy