Photo-etched ornaments

[Frank Burroughs]

Can I hand paint?

 

Once painted:

1) place painted side on sticky side transfer tape

2) glue backside of Photo-etched ornaments

3) place on model, remove tape

 

do I have this right?

[DocRob]

Yes Frank, I think you could hand paint PE-ornaments. It´s best done, when they are still on the fret. Make sure, you degreased the photoetch and use a proper primer before painting. When it comes to golden ornaments, you can use Vallejo Liquid Gold, which is good to brush or spray, covers well and has a great shine. It´s thin enough to flow into all the tiny crevices. The Liquid Gold color was recommended by our Moderator James in the Vanguard manuals of my Duchess of Kingston and it proved to be the best gold color for the job, between all others, I tested on my model.

That´s how it looked on my PE, albeit sprayed with the airbrush

 

Placement was made free hand for the ornaments, but some of the frames had tiny holes, where I could use a pin for guiding and securing. For the other ornaments, I used tiny dots of CA glue on the backside, which I spread with a toothpick, that not glue can be squeezed sideways and spoil the surrounding surfaces. Of course, I test fitted every ornament before glu

ing.
I didn´t use transfer paper, as it possibly lifts color from the PE part, while removing it. I use tweezers to place the PE and with larger ornaments, I glue a starting section, to fix the ornament and then apply the rest step by step.

Well that said, I did this just once with my only wooden ship build so far, but it worked very well and I have lots of experience using PE with plastic models.

 

Cheers Rob
.
 

[Frank Burroughs]

11 minutes ago, DocRob said:

Vallejo Liquid Gold

Yes I like the look.

 

What would you consider a proper primer for Photo-etched ornaments?

 

15 minutes ago, DocRob said:

didn´t use transfer paper, as it possibly lifts color from the PE part

good point

 

 

[DocRob]

2 minutes ago, Frank Burroughs said:

What would you consider a proper primer for Photo-etched ornaments?

In this case, i used Tamiya grey rattle can primer, but as this is not available anymore, where I live, I use Mr. Surfacer primer as my all purpose primer for plastic metal and resin and shoot it with the airbrush. For the PE, every decent metal primer should work.

Cheers Rob

[mtaylor]

Seems that many of us yellow ocre for the "gold" finish as this is more in line with what was done in reality.  But..... modeler's choice on this.