Carson Dyle
Sr Member
I’m trying to devise a battle plan for the construction of my Anigrand ISD, and one issue I keep going back and forth on is the question of whether or not to pre-paint the exterior hull sections prior to affixing the fiber-optic strands.
I know some builders prefer to install the strands before the exterior has been painted, allowing the uncut ends to extend cactus-like from the model throughout the painting and finished process, remaining uncut until the very end. There are obvious advantages to this approach, one being that it allows more latitude when it comes to seam-filling, painting, weathering, etc.
On the other hand, some builders seem to prefer painting and finishing the individual hull sections first, thereby enabling them to “heat lens” the end of each filament strand before pulling it taught against the pre-painted hull. The advantage here is that it eliminates the need to go back and trim each strand after painting, a process that can get very tricky if the “window” in question is nestled in a tight, confined, hard-to-reach area (e.g. the side trenches of an Anigrand ISD).
Given the sorts of seam and gap-filling chores I tend to encounter, I generally hold off on painting a model for as long as possible (I hate seams). That said, I’d love to hear from those of you who have been down this particular road to find out what did or didn’t work for you.
Thanks in advance for any tips you may be able to throw my way. This is the first time I’ve tacked such a fiber-optically challenging subject, and I really want to get it right.
I know some builders prefer to install the strands before the exterior has been painted, allowing the uncut ends to extend cactus-like from the model throughout the painting and finished process, remaining uncut until the very end. There are obvious advantages to this approach, one being that it allows more latitude when it comes to seam-filling, painting, weathering, etc.
On the other hand, some builders seem to prefer painting and finishing the individual hull sections first, thereby enabling them to “heat lens” the end of each filament strand before pulling it taught against the pre-painted hull. The advantage here is that it eliminates the need to go back and trim each strand after painting, a process that can get very tricky if the “window” in question is nestled in a tight, confined, hard-to-reach area (e.g. the side trenches of an Anigrand ISD).
Given the sorts of seam and gap-filling chores I tend to encounter, I generally hold off on painting a model for as long as possible (I hate seams). That said, I’d love to hear from those of you who have been down this particular road to find out what did or didn’t work for you.
Thanks in advance for any tips you may be able to throw my way. This is the first time I’ve tacked such a fiber-optically challenging subject, and I really want to get it right.
