How Much Do You Clean Up Kitbash Parts?

[Boxcar Bret]

I'm new to studio scale and curious to how much you clean up kit bashed parts before gluing them on?

I know it may seem like a silly question but with my background in armor building each part and subassembly was practically treated like it's own build. I can't imagine the guys at ILM spending a huge amount of time removing every seam/mold line or filling every ejection pin mark.

What say you? How crazy do you get?

 

[swgeek]

I only do what I can see the ILM guys did. Which is usually not much more than a quick seem sand. Sometimes they would trim the part in a weird way. I haven't seen much evidence of ejector pin filling.

 

[Treadwell]

I tend to over clean when it comes to accuracy. They did very little of that. Flash, yes, but not seams.

 

[jcoffman99]

I tend to over clean when it comes to accuracy. They did very little of that. Flash, yes, but not seams.

Enough paint will cover the seams right?

 

[BolianAdmiral]

Depends on how close the model will be seen. If in the background or far away, not much prep. Just look at the DS9 kitbashes… they look very sloppily painted and you can tell they were assembled quickly.

 

[joberg]

I tend to clean mine as much as possible (kit bashing) as for found greeblies (real pieces of stuff found on/in everyday objects), depending on how you want to use them, you'll have to cut or sand well before placing them on your model. Seams don't go away no matter the coats of paint you'll apply on them (lesson learned), especially if you're using an airbrush. Spray paint can mask some of the problem areas...

 

[Clerval]

If you're trying to match originals, you don't. There are sprue nubs and pin marks all over these builds. Anyone wasting that kind of time by cleaning them up would be fired before lunch, for good reason.

 

[BolianAdmiral]

Deleted for wrong thread.