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sundancer 4 years, 1 month ago.
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You know the pledge to not start anything new…. it doesn’t count if I’m *amending* (ok, adding to) an ongoing project does it? Because I cut some styrofoam but was disappointed with the way it painted up. From watching Youtube vids and a response on another thread, it sounds like tearing while drawing on cut styrofoam is just something we have to deal with.
Well…. not if you’ve a workshop full of electronics junk! So I made a “hot wire pen”
It’s little more than a couple of wires and a quick-release wire terminal hot-glued onto an old higlighter pen, into which I can shove some different grades of vape-coil wire. I adapted my hot wire cutter, so it now has a switch on the back and a socket to plug in my “hot pen” (or anything else I might come up with in the future). So I can toggle the controllable power between the hot wire or the “output socket”.
I found that the pen needs only about 8% power (I cut on the wire at about 60% from a 9v power source). At 15% the tip glows bright orange! Using different power settings gives me different width lines.
At 6% I can get a really quite thin wood grain effect. I actually prefer the slightly wider cuts, similar to the pencil lines, after painting – the wider cuts allow the quickshade ink to flow more easily and create a slightly more “cartoon-y” look (which I can’t pretend I *like* but it’s an aesthetic I’m happiest with, when I put my minis on it).
All were primed with Coat D’Arms paints (just because I had they lying around) – primed with grey “smelly primer” then base painted with their “snakebite leather”, washed (across the grain) with Quickshade Strong Tone (water-based version) and drybrushed with Coat D’Arms “putrid brown”.
I really like the effect of the pencil on “virgin styrofoam” but a very good second-best is using a slightly hotter setting (about 12% power) with the “hot pen” on styrofoam that’s been cut by the hot wire. On the lowest setting, I can create a very tight/close grain effect, but it’s a bit “realistic” for my tastes 😉
So I blew my pledge.
But made a cool pen for styrofoam modelling. So – you know – you win some, you lose some…..
My first attempt at a “hobby build” video:
The finished tank:
I went for a mid-war (Summer ’43) generalized scheme. Primed in black. Base coat with airbrush, shooting yellow-gold acrylic. Then added Vallejo dark green and dark brown ver-r-r-ry carefully for the rest of the camo scheme, touch-up with brush / wet blending. Acrylic medium gray on tracks, followed by Vallejo black wash. Vallejo wash black / dark umber mix for pin-washing the rest of the tank.
Commander in acrylic “pavement” black (very very dark grey), with red-piped shoulder boards (panzerwaffe was technically a dark pink, but close enough), white cuffbands, officer insignia on cap, hint of Knight’s Cross at neck.
15mm transfers from PSC. Made sure the number ended in “1” so this would be a platoon leader. Number 121 = 1st Kompanie, 2nd platoon leader).
Added radio antenna (dust broom bristle). Mounted just behind turret on the right hand side (per blueprints).
Achtung! Tiger! All my Soviet and British and American tank minis suddenly feel less comfortable.
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