First attempts at scribing

I started building the Hasegawa Egg Plane F-16 that I referenced in this post.

I’m not an aircraft or military buff, but I’m a big fan of the F-16 design-wise; I might even want to build a 1/72 or a 1/48 scale one of these days just because it’s so cool-looking. I even played through 95% of Ace Combat 6 with it just because I didn’t want to fly an uglier, superior plane (I’m looking at you, F-22 Raptor).

I’m also a big fan of Galaga and cute things. Why did I tell you this last part, you may ask? Because my plan is to mildly mod this egg plane into a cutesy version of the ship from Galaga.

Anyway, major assembly and seam-fixing is done. One little thing about the egg planes: not a lot of surface detail. It’s a beautiful kit, especially for the price (fits together great), but it lacks panel lines. And I loves me some panel lines. It’s platonic.

After reading a bunch of posts on the subject, I decided to try and add panel lines to the model.

^{See that? Yeah. I made it.}

It’s actually not as hard as I was expecting, though my technique needs a lot of work. I have limited supplies and no templates, so I just basically attacked the thing with an X-acto knife and some modeling tape, and you can too.

At the time I decided to document this, I’d already completed the nose cone (more of a “rescribe” after seam-filling), a large bay on one side, and one access panel. I’m going to cover what I did to add the second access panel, but you can apply the same technique to any shape, including long straight lines.

First, I cut out a panel shape from my Tamiya masking tape and placed it on the body of the kit (this was the second of two identical pieces I cut before I began the first panel)

^{The tape in place. You can see another, larger panel I’d already scribed on this side. Not pictured: my shame at not having a brand-name X-acto knife.}

Once the tape was in place, I ran the back of the X-acto lightly across the edge of the tape. You have to do this with practically zero additional pressure, or your knife will skip, stray, or push your tape into an unrecognizable mess. I ran it across each side somewhere between 10-20 times. Again, apply no additional pressure: you’ll feel nothing for the first 4-5 strokes of the knife, then suddenly you’ll feel it “catch”. At that point it’s pretty easy to keep the knife from straying from the groove. Repeat the same method on each side of the tape, and then peel the tape off. You should see a faint etching of the shape on the model.

If I was really clever, I would’ve taken a photo of that step. Instead, you get this:

^{Above: Authenticity}

With the tape out of the way, I continued to scribe the lines with the back of my off-brand X-acto knife. Probably another 20 strokes per line or so. This inadvertently raises the edges of the cut, giving the surface of the plastic an uneven texture. With the panel lines being fairly deep at this point, it was safe to sand off the relief. This will also eliminate small scratches and deviations*. I used a 400-grit sanding stick at this stage, then went over it again with 600 or 800-grit to eliminate the larger scratches.

^{Small particles of plastic dust will fill your painstakingly etched lines. This is normal. The feelings of despair are also normal.}

That done, I used a modeling-dedicated toothbrush and some gentle scraping with the X-acto to remove the plastic dust from the newly scribed lines, and voila!

^{Above: What voila looks like}

I actually went back at it with the sandpaper to remove more scratches, but when I was done, I had two symmetrical(ish) access panels on the nose of my Egg Plane:

^{Factory-esque results. Depending on the crappiness of your factory.}

I did the same thing to deal with the raised lines on the wings, just sans-tape. The raised ridge in the original mold was enough to guide the knife.

Lack of failure by this time emboldened me enough to do the flaps as well.

^{Pictured: A surprising lack of sucking}

And that’s about it. I’m debating adding more actual panel lines as opposed to the hatches. I can already see how this can go terribly awry if you let yourself go crazy with the scribing, though, so I may quit while I’m ahead.

If you do try this out — particularly if you’re like me and have only a knife and some tape to guide you — go slow and press lightly. Hell, don’t press at all. I got fewer scratches and better results when I took a gentler approach. The instructions I read encouraged a light touch, too, but seriously, this cannot be overemphasized.

These posts and blogs were indispensable in giving me the courage to try this, so check them out for more detailed explanations and actual instructions:

http://nelman.blogspot.com/2008/09/poor-mans-gunpla-scribing-panel-lines.html
http://www.swannysmodels.com/Scribing.html
http://www.clubhyper.com/reference/rescribingda_1.htm

_{*To be clear, I mean deviations from your intended panel line. Your fetish for large-butted Asian librarians will remain intact. Mine did, anyway.}