Anyone have any tips or tools they like for cleaning up round parts? I’m thinking like landing gear legs, suspension for road wheels, etc.
I find a lot of kits have large sprue gates that give me a headache. My current headache is the gunner/commander seat on a panzer II that has a tubular steel frame.
My current workflow is to remove the part with nippers leaving a little nub, remove the nub as best I can with a hobby knife, and then sand the rest smooth.
The issue I have is that I either leave a flat spot, or as I am recently encountering, the sprue gate seem to be a harder plastic (possibly from compressing it during nipping). This harder plastic is tough to sand leaving a little raised bump where the gate used to be.
First of all I would use needle files instead of sanding “paper”.
File along the round object, filing across increases the risk of making “waves”.
“Files” can be made by glueing sandpaper to a stiff stick (hardwood,
ice cream sticks).
Sandpaper is too flexible and will cause those “waves” …
Once the nub is gone I might use sandpaper with a light touch to round
off the cross-section.
There are ready-made sanding sticks in various grades - essentially nail-filing foam sticks re-badged (and priced) for the hobby market. These come in a number of sizes to get into tight spaces and do a good job. Be sure to keep the stick moving/twisting to avoid just sanding a flat spot!
I also find that doing the process quite slowly really helps. Files and sandpaper can be working just as you want until suddenly a chunk comes off the piece you’re working on or a ‘wave’ appears. Then you either sand the whole thing down to look even which generally turns it into an undersized stick, or have to use filler. Going slowly often helps negate that issue.
Another thing to consider is to look at the piece and consider whether it needs to be replaced even if it can be sanded smooth and round. For example, the tubular commander’s seat you mentioned could have the plastic ‘tube’ parts swapped out with suitable gauges of wire which I find often gives a more natural look. That also depends on the complexity of the pieces though.
I like flexi file the c shaped apparatus helps you to be able to sand on a curve also the ceramic scraper I picked up help take off flash and light nubs without digging into the plastic itself.
Yes, it is. Save on shipping. I think I’ve seen it at Hobby Lobby.
Bear in mind if you’re not careful you can still sand flat spots into things like gun barrels. I often just wrap a piece of 240 grit wet/dry paper around the barrel and swipe it up and down while rotating the barrel, Thet knocks off the small remnants of CA I use for filler. Then I use a finer grit. You’re very unlikely to sand flat spots into a barrel if you keep it moving. The Flex-i-File is great for smaller items like landing gear, pistons, or that gunner seat you mentioned.
You can do it yourself in 5-10 minutes with a wire hanger cut to size and bent. Cut stripes of sand paper and wrap the edges around each tip. Or glue a loop. Not so fancy but will work the same.
Yes, I didn’t mention it before because it is more for seams than for removing rests of gates (which was the original question), but this is a great tool I constantly use.
Big fan and user of these Flex-I-Files. I mainly only use the brown tape, but have all of them. The brown one is a medium grade that works very well, and leaves very few “sanding marks”. Work slow and rotate the piece, or file, around while working it. I use these for nose cones on aircraft as well and they work great there.
