"When mold lines are removed and drybrushing STILL shows them" Topic

As the title says.

So I've accumulated a fairly decent array of mold line removal tools, including varying grits of sand paper to get them down flush with the surface and eradicate them.

Here's what I'm discovering. In some cases – some not all mind you – I'm noticing that on some plastic models a mold line will STILL show up when dry brush over it, even after it's been sanded down to where you literally can't see any trace of it. Somehow there's still enough of a surface difference that the drybrushing picks it out.

It's fairly maddening but as I said doesn't happen with everything.

I'm working on several units of GW plastic Primaris marines. There is one particular mold line that is an absolute devil to eradicate: the one that runs over the top of the helmets! I swear, I scraped, sanded and the mold lines were no longer even visible, just a smooth plastic surface. And lo and behold, I drybush over the base color and BAM, the line shows up!

So to all you experience modelers out there: am I doing something wrong? Is there some technique that I'm not employing that I need to? Could it be that if you sand too much it can create a negative of a mold line somehow?

It's just bizarre. It seems like because that mold line was originally molded with that plastic component and was an actual part of the component, that the physics of it resist being eradicated.

Now, if I go over those same ghost mold lines with layered paint, they are essentially 100% covered no longer visible. It's the darn drybrushing that shows them. And unfortunately for me, drybrushing over base coats is one my favorite techniques for bringing out a lot of detail on a model like a space marine and bring the detail out quickly.

Thanks in advance!

It's not removed.

You need to sand/file from various angles to get rid of them. In some cases, applying a little modeling putty over them, and then re-sanding to further smooth the surface out may be in order.

I stumbled across some YouTube vids from gundam modellers that cover various methods, maybe try there?

Has anyone had any luck with that "mold line remover" tool that Games Workshop offers? I assume its for their plastic models, and I was going to buy it. But I held off, since my husband does all the "prep work" for my paint work.And he is very much "old school", in that he uses an xacto, sand paper and files.

Thanks for the insights and advice, much appreciated.

@Shirley,

I haven't tried GW's tool, but I recently bought and have tried Tamiya's mold line "scraper" tool, which is similiar. In reality they're just glorified dental tools with a square-bladed head.

I found that the edge of an Xacto blade actually works better than the Tamiya scraper.

Thresher's insights are very helpful as far as needing to attack the mold line from several angles amd even doing some minor putty filling.

I may do that when working on individual military models or a diorama-level display model. But for masses of rank and file soldiers it's just not practical or worth it to me to add that much labor and time to prepping units and armies.

I think what I'll do is when I do a bunch of models, I'll see which ones show lines after drybrushing and take those few models and rework them and then paint back over it.

I will say that the combination of using an Xacto blade and then finishing with a couple different gtits of sandpaper does accomplish a 100% removal in most cases of the plastics that I've worked on. It's only every so often on a particular curve or area of a model that's wonky like GW's plastic Space marine heads.

I did about 35 Primaris marines and I would say only four or five had really stubborn helmet lines that would not go away just using the Xacto/sand paper method. But the lines were faded enough where I could use tiny dabs of paint to break up the shadow of the line which pretty much eliminated it.

But as far as those modeling scrapers and removers, they feel like kind of a waste of money. As I said it seems that an Xacto does the same job and even a better job at getting the line removed.

Mr. Surfacer might work.

A technique that static model aircraft builders have used is to paint a thin line of silver along the seam between two fuselage halves. As long as you can still see silver, you haven't sanded enough.

I just paint over it.

Not sure if it would work on hard plastic, but on 15mm & 10mm metal figs best way is electric hobby drill with 1mm or .8mm drill bit. Use the side of the bit to clear off the mould flash line. Way faster than hand tools.

I have always removed mold lines with the edge of an x-acto blade, but lately have found them wanting. It seems to me they are thinner than previously, and flex as you drag them, causing a chattering, ragged line. So I got the pointed, 3-flute seam scraper from Micro Mark. Quite an improvement, and the point lets you get into tight spots. However, it can be finicky to initially place the blade, resulting in a difficult to remove gouge. So I broke down and picked up the one from GW, and I have to say it works wonderfully, pretty foolproof. (Now to see how long it keeps that edge.) This is the one I go to first, but in any project, I use them all.

Don