Today I painted the chrome pistons on my PG Zaku. Here's what I discovered:
- Painting directly on the chrome doesn't work.
- Painting primer over the chrome (suggested by a fellow modeller) doesn't work... at least not for me.
Well, I masked the part of the chrome I didn't want removed and then applied some hobby thinner to some tissue paper and rubbed the chrome off. I got most of it off this way - what little was left was removed by scraping with my hobby blade. Note: You can also use industrial thinner but I'd recommend that you test the thinner on a spare sprue first because some are too strong and will melt the plastic. Stick to hobby thinner to be safe.
To paint, I tested some primer but it didn't adhere really well to the surface which was surprising to me. I found that my Gunze Sangyo Steel colored paint (Mr. Color no.28) went on pretty well. Since I was spraying the parts copper, the metallic steel base worked fine. The result is a nicely painted part. Check out the pics. :)
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| painted pistons |
The tip above is good when you need to remove a portion of the chrome from a part but not all of it. If you want to remove all the chrome, try this simpler method. This little add-on tip was contributed by David Bauer, I edited it a little.
"I noticed you said you used thinner to remove the chrome plating from the parts. I had a similar problem with the 1/100 scale Wing Gundam kit. About 15 parts are chromed in a gold color. The chest vents have a very fine mesh detail in the plastic. I would never be able to get the chrome out of there! Besides, the thinner might clog the part and make it look worse!
The best way to get rid of chrome plating is bleach..... Yep good old laundry bleach. Just drop the parts in a cup of bleach and let it sit over night. In the morning there will be a chrome film floating at the top of the cup and all the chrome will be off the parts! It even gets it out of the tiny cracks and details and desolves it. The best part is that there is no work involved. You may want to test it on a piece of the chromed sprue first. some brands of bleach are stronger that others. I use Clorox."
credit : http://gundam_base.tripod.com/
