3D Printed Metal Finish Experiments (Rey's Blaster and Jurassic Park)

[skahtul]

I have been building and painting models for some time now and I feel that I have a pretty good grasp on how I like to weather them, at least that's true for my star wars models.

I recently purchased a 3D printer and me and my kids have really enjoyed the ability to print and finish props from our favorite movies.

Disclaimer, I don't claim that the pics below are accurate in any way, they are just items I enjoy building and adding to my collection. They may not be 100% accurate, or even close but there is still a lot of joy in building these and holding these 'props'.

This is a two-part post, first I will show a few of the items we have painted and how we painted them, second will be a four-part experiment with different paints and processes. Most of the props we make will get weathered so I am not aiming for a 100% authentic shiny metal surface, just something that will have a passable metal finish from a distance.

Here is the first prop I have ever made, it's Rey's blaster, and below is the basic process I used to get the final finish. I did have some kind of issue on the top where the paint just came right off. I am not 100% sure that the Alclad Gloss Klear Kote is all that durable. I did let it dry for about 2 weeks but the thinner I used for the oil paint ate right threw in a few spots, but others it was fine so I may have also just not coated it very well.

Raw 3D Print after cleaning and assembly:

Next, I coated it in Epoxy Resin to fill in all the gaps:

Then I used Alclad micro filler primer to prep it for paint.

I don't have any in-between pictures but the rest of the process after the primer was:
Basecoat of Alclad Gloss Black Base
Alclad Klear Kote
Alclad Polished Aluminum
More Klear Kote
Finally, weathered it with some oil paints.

I was actually pretty happy with the end result, right before I weathered. I did not expect the thinned oil paint to eat through right down to the primer as it did, but that is what my next step is all about experimentation.

I am going to attempt to re-paint the top to see if I can get it to blend. The nice thing about these Alcald Lacquer's is that they go on amazing! They are a bit of a pain to airbrush from a cleaning perspective (as I think is true with all lacquers) but the finish is pretty amazing.

 

[skahtul]

My son's favorite movie is Jurassic Park so I knew we had to build the embryo transport cryo-canister next. This paint was much simpler. I did not epoxy coat this one and just used the following process:
Tamiya Surface Primer
Tamiya Chrome Silver (this also went on really nice with the airbrush)
Tamiya TS-13 Clear.

The finish is pretty nice, it's just to sit on his shelf in his bedroom so I was not looking for something that would look all that authentic, and this project is not done as we have to label and fill up the containers but he loves it and at the end of the day it's what really matters in this case

It's pretty clear right away that the resin coating helps fill in the gaps a ton. I am not 100% sure I will use that process for every build but so far it seems to help a lot.

 

[skahtul]

Now, on to the experiment!

I scaled down the front of an M41A pulse rifle from Alien and these are going to be my test subjects.

For each of these different prints, I will try 4 different processes to finish them. While I understand every project is different and the paint approach will also differ, I am just trying to get a general overall feel for the initial finishing processes for these types of props and how the resins, prints, primers, etc. all work together.

Here are my thought processes so far for each of the finishes, if this changes I will update what I did for the final product:

Experiment 1:
Resin coat
Tamiya Surface Primer
1/2 with Alclad Lacquer
1/2 with Tamiya Metallic Grey

Experiment 2:
Resin coat
Alclad Base Coat (no primer)
1/2 with Alclad Lacquer
1/2 with Tamiya Metallic Grey

Experiment 3:
No resin
Alcald Black Primer and Microfiller
1/2 with Alclad Lacquer
1/2 with Tamiya Metallic Grey

Experiment 4:
No resin
Straight Rub'n Buff.

And since I had issues with the weathering, I will attempt to weather all of them with my typical thinned oil paints to see how they work.

If you have any suggestions on what you do for metal finishes please share!!

 

[dmaldo]

Love the embryo transport cryo-canister. Great job

 

[skahtul]

Thanks, hopefully, we can finish it this weekend and I will post the final product.

 

[Dann]

Why not weather with thinned acrylics?

 

[skahtul]

Why not weather with thinned acrylics?

Yes, I have used thinned acrylics a lot in some of my models before switching to oil.

"Normally" when I use oils to weather my models I like that I have a lot of time, sometimes even days to mess with them as the oil paint takes a week or more to actually dry. Typically when I use oil I put it on and then let it sit for about an hour and then start to take some of it off. I only let this sit for 30 minutes and it started really sticking... I am not sure why but I have never weathered anything with an Alclad lacquer base coat before and I have never weathered 3D printed material so there might be some differences there.

Also, I really like the oil paints (for weathering) as I personally feel they have a more 'organic' look to them when comparing them to acrylics but it depends on what I am weathering.

 

[skahtul]

But, that Jurassic cryo-can has a super hard finish. Not sure if it’s the Tamiya paint along with the Tamiya top coat (or the fact it was not resin coated) but it’s very durable. That is really the question I hope to answer for some of my future projects.

 

[skahtul]

Finished this one, had a lot of fun making this.

 

[Mr Mold Maker]

Alclad’s Aquagloss clear coat seems to have a little more resistance to oil paints than their Klear Kote. That said, some solvents will still take it off, especially if left to sit on the model for an extended period of time.

These days I usually just seal whatever I’m working on with 2K clear so I don’t have to worry, but when I was using Aquagloss, I found that the best way to thin the oils was with Naptha. It flashes off very quickly and never seemed to eat through the Aquagloss.

 

[skahtul]

I looked, that 2k clear looks pretty serious and uses an activator, from what I can see anyway. Do you ever have issues with it attacking the paint you are using it on?

Thanks for the Alclad info, I will save time by not trying aquagloss as that was my next step and just test some others. I will look more into 2K. I have had good luck with Tamiya also, but I have not used it over Alclad lacquers yet.

Thanks for the advice!

 

[Mr Mold Maker]

Yep, 2K clear is catalyzed. It allows you to lay down a glass smooth “wet” coat which is a necessity with chrome paints. I have been using the 2K as a base for chrome as well as to seal various projects and I haven’t found it to attack anything so far. You do need to be extremely careful when using it though.


Sorry if I wasn’t clear, when I say Aquagloss has better resistance to the oil paint, I mean that in a good way. It does not get eaten or taken off by the oils. Aquagloss is better than Klear Kote, at least in my experience. I would recommend you test with it as you may like it.

 

[skahtul]

Sweet, I will give it a try, thanks again for all the info.

 

[skahtul]

I ended up finishing my blaster and used Tamiya Clear, it seemed to hold up really well against the weathering. I also finshed my tests and will post those pics soon.

Gun looks a little odd on top, I think the camera is picking up something from the LED lighting in my cabinet.