Archer Fine Transfers

What's your secret punching concentric circles as seen on the top left of that part? That's a skill that has always escaped me.

If you are painting raised details on instruments, you will invariably get some white on the instrument face but you can use a tiny amount of color of the instrument face as a wash to "cut" a sharp demarcation between the raised detail and the face. Since most instrument faces are black the wash will usually cover in one application.

Anyone who's ever done "pasteup" or graphics before computers knows how amazing this stuff is for cleaning plastics. Do yourself a favor:

I recently got all the advice I needed to cut masks on my Cameo so I want to share here. The trick is in the settings and the trickiest setting is awkwardly named Line Segment Overcut. What this setting does is lifts the blade at the end of each cut and prevents the swiveling blade from pulling up the mask, especially very small things. Hope someone finds this helpful.

Not sure what UMM charges but you can get fly fishing wire used to make lures from here. 1/2 ounce spool for like $5 in diameters from .015" to .030" CLICK HERE Or if you prefer real lead HERE'S an assortment of diameters from .015 to .030 for about $25.

Yea, you need to start all over again. But I'll take that one off your hands if you're just going to toss it.

Reading through all the responses here, or any other discussion regarding paint, points out one common thing that always comes up - everyone has their own ideas and techniques and they all seem to work for each individual. Find a paint brand that likes you, master it, and don't be distracted by others telling you what they use is better. It all works, if you work at it.

Just got the ST-A couple days ago. Whole new ballgame. The only thing I found kind of strange is that they provide an allen tool to adjust the blade gap but no tool to hold the nut which, considering how high end everything else is, is a minor but annoying oversight. Oh, and throwing the box away isn't easy either.

Another good thing about lacquer is that it can be "re-wet", so any orange peel or dry overspray can be flowed out by spraying a wet coat of leveling thinner over it.

Well, after checking out the DSPIAE ST-A I decided to pull the trigger and get one.

Thanks guys, that should get me started!

Something to keep in mind - The major difference between lacquer and water based acrylics is that lacquer forms a molecular bond to plastic, water based paints do not. Don't be confused by the term "acrylic" - it has nothing to do with water, it's the polymer or what's known as the "binder" in paint. There is acrylic and nitrocellulose polymers which fell out of favor years ago because nitrocellulose yellows over time.

Decanted Future is an excellent adhesive. Pour some in a jar and wait for it to decant down to half of what it started out to be. Excellent for large pieces of PE and you can clean off any dry excess with airbrush cleaner.

I've used Xuron forever for rough cuts and THESE for fine cuts. Don't confuse these with the cheap Revlon cutters, these are much higher quality and the handles are made in such a way that the blades don't smash into each other. Not sure how the price compares to Godhands but these are like $35 including shipping.