Single part putty

[mangozac]

[Warhound]

Hey dude,

on this one I have to say that I draw a blank- I have never experienced a single part putty....

however, the one that I know the studio use quite often is called 'wood putty' - used for filling chips and cracks in furniture... stinks to high hell and is toxic, sticky and generally nasty, but great for using in a variety of ways.. it chips, sands and carves well.

Otherwise, I would be very interested to hear what other people use?

cheers
WARHOUND

[dark_gear]

The only single putty i've ever used was the tamiya grey "squeeze out" putty.

Maybe it's a worthwhile product on resin kits (and I've never on one yet) but on plastic kits it's IMHO horrible. It melts plastic, is very grainy, dries very fast and just reeks. Even after sanding the texture and porosity of the material had a tell-tale look on a model. Quite frankly I have yet to find a supposed application of this product where it isn't trumped by either GS or Tamiya Extra Thin Cement putty (created by melting filing with cement). But I guess even that latest trick is a two part "paste".

As I said though, maybe the putty works better on resin. Could be worth a try.

Cheers,
Marc

[mangozac]

Hmm okay that sounds like the stuff I'm talking about.

I do like the idea of fast drying - being able to apply a tiny bit to a scratch or seam and then be able to continue working. Using a two part putty for such work means that you've got to wait several hours for it to cure before you can resume work. It's all about speeding up.

I have heard that Tamya have changed their grey putty recently and the new one people seem to be relatively happy with.

BTW, this is for use on styrene and master model parts, not so much resin.

[Vaaish]

I've been using testors contour putty which is a foul smelling tan putty that dries smooth and hard. It does shrink a little but it's worked alright for me.

[paulson games]

I've likewise used the testors putty, which is some nasty stuff but gets the job done. I do find it has a fairly limited shelf life and tends to seperate over time if it's not used right away and once it starts to seperate you may as well toss it out as it's impossible to work with.

Bondo I've used, dries fast and virtually no srinkage the down side to it is that it can be flex and shock senstive. It's meant to hold in very thin layers on auto body surfaces and it holds rock solid when it's thin. When you start piling it up thick it'll crack and crumble off if the part sees significant movement. Would be a good cheap way of bulking out bodies on large or vehicle models but only if they are going to be a display piece or a master model. Using it on a game piece that being handled reguarly might cause it to start cracking.

Bondo is auto body filler so there's probably simular products outside the US with other names. It is quite nasty smelling and needs a lot of air but dries quick and you can sand it and get an ultra smooth glass like finish on it.

There's also a huge array of fiberglass resins and epoxies used for auto and boat repair but most of these are overkill for modelling and are too strong and won't provide a workable finish as they are designed more for bonding than being a workable medium.

Wood putty will dry like a rock and is meant for repairing woodwork so it's sandable and once cured it's strong enough that it can be screwed and drilled into without breaking. For the amount of material it's fairly exspensive and as already mentioned it's toxic and puts out some really strong fumes. It doesn't hold shapes very well and works best when it's globbed onto a surface and then leveled smooth with a knife/scraper. Good for repairing pitted surfaces but won't have a consistancy to sculpt with.

There's also Fimo which is a single part epoxy clay that cures by baking one of our local sculptors uses it and gets a high degree of detail with it but it's some pretty challenging stuff to work with. A couple of his GD models were scratch built with Fimo, so it can hold a lot of detail although I personally find it near impossible to work with. It can be sanded once baked. The difficulty is that you can't sculpt it over plastic or styrene as they will melt so any armatures need to be made out of wire.