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Gap Filling with Mr. Surfacer

KLOTZEN

Member
The whole Sprue University is sort of a dusty place. I have been doing a lot of lurking about and have noted some questions and discussions on Mr. Surfacer in my travels. A number of years ago I had a website and among other things there were a couple of SBS one of which was my use of Mr. Surfacer for gap filling, I thought I would recreate it here should someone find it useful.

Perhaps I have missed this and it is redundant, if so I apologize.


Here is a simple gap filling procedure using Mr. Surfacer. The greatest benefit of this method is that no sanding is necessary which greatly speeds the finish process and on aircraft in particular removes the possibility of lost surface detail and the resulting difficulty in replacing that detail.
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Here are the things you will need. The most important product will be Gunze Mr. Color thinner, it is the ONLY product that will reduce Mr. Surfacer, so if you have been using Mr. surfacer and have a stack of old brushes that have been doomed from using the stuff this will save you there as well. Additionally this Laquor thinner will not attack the plastic. The next thing, of course, is Mr. Surfacer. We will be using 1200 as it is the finest of the product line. A small pointed brush to apply the Mr. Surfacer with a container for a portion of thinner and several Q-tips for removal of the Mr. Surfacer at the gap.
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And lastly, we will need a suitably offensive gap to fill. Here we see the gap in the vertical stabilizer of the Tamiya G4M Betty Bomber.
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Step 1. After mixing the Mr. Surfacer apply it generously to the gap using the pointed brush. Let it dry for a moment and the repeat as necessary to get even coverage and depth.
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Step 2. After the Mr. Surfacer has set up for awhile, just a few minutes or completely cured, wipe of the excess using the Q-Tip dipped in Mr. Color thinner while using the dry side to clean up as you go. several passes may be required the thicker the application of Mr. Surfacer. Here, after the first application you can see our largely reduced gap but additional fills will be necessary as the process will inevitably remove unwanted Mr. Surfacer. As the Excess Mr. Surfacer is being worked with the Q-Tip some of the material can be worked back into the gap.
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In this last photo we see that the gap is gone after three application of Mr. Surfacer and that the external spar along the stabilizer is unaffected by the process where as if any type of putty had been used some damage would have been the result.
 
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If someone has the same technique but does it a slightly different way, or even the same way, it is welcomed! After all redundancy is needed (at least in flight controls).
 
Yeah there's a lot of dust down here in the Sprue U. Being at the bottom of the list it doesn't pop up for folks unless they are browsing the various forums. We have been around in one format or another for about 15 years now and actually never lost data in all that time.

First time I read about Mr Surfacer was on Matt Swans old site, Swanny's Models. Along with a great article about Future floor wax. Swanny's is long defunct now.

Thank you for sharing this with us. :Drinks:
 
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