In the NMRA Magazine for March 2015, Denny Krausman has a nice article about modeling one of the many old 3-bay hopper cars that the Santa Fe modified with an old boxcar roof (with hatches) to handle grain during the grain rushes of the 1940s. There is in fact a neat photo of just such a roof being lowered on an ATSF hopper car in Jeff Wilson’s excellent new book on Grain, a book I highly recommend.
Denny used parts of hopper models from Stewart, Athearn and Bowser to build an accurate Santa Fe Ga-24, and then used a roof/hatch casting from Sunshine Models.
To blend the various cut-and-fit parts, Denny uses Mr. Surfacer 1000, which I gather paints on like thick paint and is then smoothed down and sanded as if it was a putty to fill gaps. I have never seen (or, of course, used) this material. A bit of Google searching shows that other plastic modelers have used it for several years, but even some of the online tutorials are ambiguous – is it a paint? a putty? Some use it just to smooth out pitted plastic; others use it to fill and smooth out joints like Denny did. Just exactly how one goes about using it remains unclear and I’d appreciate learning the experiences of anyone on this Forum who has experience with the stuff.
Dave Nelson
Dave
I’ve never heard of this product either but it sounds similar to an automotive style primer-surfacer. This is essentially a heavy bodied primer that is thick enough to fill small imperfections in the project surface. Careful block sanding of the promer-surfacer will provide a smooth, even surface over which the final primer sealer and color coats are sprayed.
It’s actually a hobby product, not a repurposed other product. At first I was like, are you sure that was the March and not the APRIL issue, but then I found some info on it:
http://www.swannysmodels.com/Surfacer.html
Looks like it could be very useful. There are actually 3 grades of it. The open hopper to covered hopper kitbashes I am doing use the wood roof stock from Mirco Mark to make the roofs from, and I had a heck of a time locating the sanding sealer I used to use 30+ years ago for model rocket fins. Finally fond it and it smell sjust as vile as I always remembered, but with repeat coats and sanding with increasingly fine grit sandpaper, it makes wood parts that feel like plastic. This stuff might be a reasonable substitute. It almost looks like it IS the same stuff.
–Randy
I have a bottle of it in the garage. I know it can be thinned and sprayed, or you can brush-paint it. As I remember, it’s acrylic, but I could be wrong because it’s been a long time. Gunze-Sangyo makes it. Not sure how common it is in US hobby shops, though. Besides Swanny’s website, you can probably get more info on the FineScale Modeller forums.
I’d think it would be easier to cut and dress the components properly to obtain a good fit, rather than using any kind of filler and then having to perform all that tedious sanding. [swg]
Wayne
It is also at Amazon, for those who care to try.
http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Hobby-SF284-Surfacer-Bottle/dp/B002CW0J7I
(Google/Bing is my friend)
Ah but Doctor Wayne few of us mere mortals have your skills at kitbashing and improving plastic rolling stock. We tend to leave gaps that need filling - no matter how hard we try. And this guy seamlessly blended parts from Steward, Bowser and Athearn, presumably of different thicknesses and perhaps even different types of styrene.
Dave Nelson
I find the Mr Hobby products work very well, just not always easily available. I personally prefer the base white 1000, and all that I have used thin with lacquer thinner.
Tamiya also produce a good white primer that thins with lacquer thinner.
Matthew
Aircraft and Armor modelers commonly use this product. Produced by Gunze Sangyo who make all the Mr . products. It’s an acrylic lacquer of sorts because it “dries” by evaporation of the thinner. Gunze produces a Mr Surfacer 500, 1000, 1200. The 500 is a better filler and a common technique is to apply an amount to a gap and then after it has dried for a period, remove the excess with a Q-tip moistened in 90 Isopropyl alcohol. You can thin it with lacquer thinner or their Mr Leveling Thinner. The 1000 and 1200 are more for just priming the surface rather than doing a lot of filling. You have to be careful to thin it adequately when airbrushing or you will get the dreaded spider webs. I’m not a huge fan of “hobby” primers because of adherence. They don’t bite the surface like the original Floquil or an automotive lacquer. That may not be a big factor if you’re not handling the model, but I sort of like something pretty substantial for rolling stock.
Paul