"Repairing badly pitted resin castings" Topic

I have quite a few castings in a light resin. The surfaces are badly pitted.
How do people repair these?

You can smooth water putty in to the pitted areas. That is one fix. If you use Durhams it won't shrink and you can spray it and be on your way. It depends what it is though.

If it is an area that should be dirt, like a terrain piece, that is tough as even painting it repeatedly might not get the paint to flow into the holes.

OK, what is "water putty"?
He asked ignorantly…

Depends on the size of the defect. Testors makes a clear glue that will form a window in a small area. A couple applications should do ya.

White or Green Putty is another way to go. Trouble is -- sanding resin is a health hazard.

Finally you might want to try filling with fine sand, Zap a Gap and cover with tissue paper. You can knock off the excess tissue after it all dries up.

mjc

Lordy, and Scott even spelled it out for you, John!

link

Allen

You can wear a filter mask, when sanding resin.

Wet sanding is even safer, and helps to significantly reduce, if not completely eliminate the dust issue.

My all time favorite fix-it is artist's modeling paste, which you can get at Michaels or Utrecht or most artists supply stores (Dick Blick etc). Modeling paste is an acrylic binder plus marble dust. It can be mixed with water and or any acrylic paint of your choice, and additional texturizing elements like my fav, sand.

I use either green putty, or Milliput, two-part putty. It's easy to work with and dries very hard.

You've got to be careful to not use something that will wind up significantly harder or softer than the resin. When you sand it they will sand at different rates and it can be noticeable.

I got a ZandrisIV dreadnought with some pits in it and the owner was good enough to send me a replacement and suggested mixing super glue with talc powder to fill in the holes of the one I had. Works very well. You can sand or file in 15min and stays put.

Paint the holes as bullet/shell hits?

Well, these are VERY cheap tanks, sold "as is".
The pits are ubiquitous, numerous and all in difficult places to file or sand.
I was hopping for something miraculous, like Warglue.

I've used Elmer's wood filler with some success.

After about 20+/- minutes, when semi-set,you can rub it down with a wet/damp sponge. Imperative you not walk away and forget about it, as the longer it sits the harder it becomes.

I've used it over primed surfaces as well, with no adhesion problems.

Milliput is very water-soluble while you're working it. Thin some with a *lot* of water, than paint it on with an old brush. Smooth out with the brush; works nicely to give a smooth surface.

Try Aves Apoxie Sculpt, it runs about $12 USD or so, and comes in a part A and part B container. You mix the two parts together with your fingers. It dries in about 24 hours, but has decent working life. Much more plyable than greenstuff or the colored stuff ilk. Not that great for sclupting though.

The nifty thing about the product is that you can smooth it over the surface and then take a wet paintbrush, and work over the surface until it's almost perfectly smooth. I've used it on a lot of forge world models, to fill the gap between a fusulage and a wing section. You can also sand it when it's dry, so that you do actually have a smooth surface.

Put baking soda in the area(s) to be repaired, then use Zap- -A-Gap to seal. Sand area with very very fine automotive wet/dry paper. Fast and easy!

I'm a bit late on this thread, but I'm a fan of Squadron green putty, which is also "sandable".

Steve
Cavalcade Wargames
cavalcadewargames.com
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