Realistic Bullet Holes

Submited By Ben Schear

If you are doing a diarama with a crashed or beat-up plane or just a regular plane model, an easy way to add the realistic bullet hole look is to take a leather puncher (the smaller the better) on a prepainted body piece of your plane and turn it to side with paint and push the leather puncherher through. This gives an effect that a bullet has passed through the side of the plane. You can see that the paint has chipped which gives it an even more realistic look!
Airbrushing Part I

Submitted by Steven Kaye

When airbrushing, you are going to want to thin the paint dramatically to achieve a clean finish, when you do this I advise strongly to use the thinners sold by the same manufacturer as the paint. If you use a water based thinner. Always use distilled water (if not the acrylic-based thinner the paint brand sells), never tap. Tap water has a lot of unwanted chemicals and minerals in it and will tend to discolor or damage the paint. You may not have noticed yet, but you will see a difference if you try it. If you have a problem with humidity due to where you live, thin water based paints with a 60-70 % distilled water with 40-30 % rubbing alcohol. Try to keep away from Isopropyl Alcohol. This will allow you to thin the paint nicely and it will spray better from your airbrush. If you are using cans of paint, try this trick. Before using and after shaking VERY WELL, lay the can in the sink full of hot water (not boiling). This will raise the pressure in the can and cause it to spray a finer mist allowing you to get a much better spray. Only leave the can in the water for about 5-8 minutes or so. Don't forget to spray the cap with the paint, after this warm water bath the label may fall off!

Airbrushing Part II

Submitted by Steven Kaye

Ever get an orange peel paint job? Yeah me too, no more though! The orange peel is due to humidity in the air. It happens when it takes too long for the paint to dry, allowing the humidity to get into it before it has dried a protective coating. To solve this and a ton of other paint problems, go to your local home store, like a Wal-Mart or K-Mart or whatever, and get a food de-hydrator. It is one of those things where you slice up bananas and apples and can make dried fruit or beef jerky in. They usually have a number of trays in them that are stackable. Cut out the inside of those trays leaving only the outside ring and tape them all together. This will give you a fitting cover with room enough to place model parts in. After painting the model, gently put the model inside, cover it and turn it on. This produces super heated air that will dry your paint in a tenth of the time. In all cases paint will usually take about 1 week to dry in perfect conditions. When I mean dry I mean dry so you could sand it. In this gizmo you can sand after about 6 hours. Watch the model ,and only allow the machine to run for about an hour at a time. Let it cool and turn it on again. This will keep you model from meting or warping. This works awesome with a little practice. Got questions? E-mail me at stevenkaye@hotmail.com

Keep those ideas coming!

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