May 24, 2024
**** scribing. Yeah, I know it's something that takes practice and technique but I had no I idea it was going to take such a toll on me.
Let me back up. I knew this part was going to be challenging. I've never done anything like this before. I only had Raphael's parts map and reference photos.
I started by gluing on the parts that would be my reference points with white glue so that I could just pop them off when I was ready to scribe. With the parts in place I drew the scribe marks with a pencil.
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I popped off the parts and that's the last time things went smoothly.
Scribing is one of those skills that really on comes by doing. It's about technique (how you hold the tool), feel (the amount of pressure you apply) and the tools themselves. None of this is new to me. I've heard it before by some of you out there who are reading this and others on Facebook. For whatever reason I did not possess the ability to retain that information and apply it.
Theses are the tools I used:
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Things I did wrong:
1. Tried doing it in a single pass rather than multiple light passes.
2. Pushed too hard.
3. Rushed.
4. Used dull tools.
To add insult to injury when I put the part back in place to check my work, I panel lines didn't align with the parts. Some where along the way when I put my straight edge and Dymo tape down as guides I managed to be off enough to compound everything which resulted in everything being off. With only only set of body tubes my only course of action was to start filling in my mistakes and start over.
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The arduous task began with a generous slathering of Bondo spot filler.
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After it dried it was the fun game of sand, still see the line, reapply, repeat. this went on for a couple of days and about four applications. I gave the tubes a hit with Duplicolor Primer Filler and that revealed that I was close.
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A final pass of Bondo got me to an acceptable camera grade level of quality that I go for. Plus I knew that between the addition of additional adjacent parts, new panel lines and another hit with the Duplicolor my crimes would be pretty well hidden. (I'll cover how I did the Harrier seat rails on my next update.)
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I'm grateful for all the talent people out there who have given me pointers and sent me videos of their techniques not to mention everyone on the the Facebook groups and here that have given me encouragement. I know this is just a matter of my skills catching up with my talent.
I've ordered a new scriber on the recommendation of someone I really respect and will be practicing when it arrives. Once I feel like I'm comfortable with my technique THEN I'll move on to the finished piece.