Chain improvements on the cheap!

[Fazer1006]

As a follow on to my first thread, guys, & looking at the great details sets you get now, I thought there must be a way to smarten up the chains supplied in our kits
here's how I have improved my chains without breaking the bank on photo-etch!

First, spray your chain in a different colour primer to the plastic. In this case, the plastic chain was black so primed in grey!



Using a cheap rotary tool (£10 from ald1) & a dental burr which is square ended & small enough to go into the chain links. (I got my dental burrs from a pack supplied from Proop brothers in england!). I very gently burr between the chain links & because of the different colour of the plastic, you can see where you are grinding.



It should look a bit like this! A bit ragged & rough, but we will fix that in the next stage


Using Tamiya thin glue or MEK, you brush the chain with it & this will melt the ragged bits.


Spray with your primer again & you can see the bits you have ground out.


Spray again with your favourite metallic (I use tamiya acrylics thinned with tamiya laquer thinners, it works great)

A coat of thinned black acrylic or your own mix & watch the detail appear

To enhance the detail more, paint in each individual link with matt black paint (here I use Andrea black) & then wipe across the links to clean them.

Hit with a dry brush of gun metallic.

then a very dry brush of silver highlight

Here's a close up of the detail

Please practice with the dental burr first as it is easy to cock it uo (believe me I know!)
Well guys, my second posting, let me know what you think & I will leave you with a tantallising next posting on making Exhaust springs on the cheap. (check out the second photo on the mounting thread!
Keep the shiney side up guys!

[ALEX GAROLI]

Hey great tip!, looks very real...I would like you to post how to paint exaust pipes and tubes and brake calipers.

[alsieboy]

What a fantastic tutorial, Plus I bet we all got enough of these lying around to practice on..!

[jezz]

Those are great tips keep them coming mate cant wait for more

[joelwideqvist]

Splendid tip Mark! That took the supplied chain to a new level! Your weathering technique is great as well.
/Joel

[Fazer1006]

More to come

[MPWR]

Motorcycle builds belong in the Work In Progress- Motorcycle section. All other topics, be they motorcycle detailing tips, reference discussions, kit reviews, etc belong in the general Car Modeling area.

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[MidnightWangan]

Great tip tks for sharing & steady hands to pull it off.