Simulating canvas

Personally, I'd use tissue along the lines of what was once used to cover balsa R/C kits or a similar weight from the gift wrapping dept. But TP apparently can be used if you layer it - look about midway down the page:

WmB

To reply, get the HECK out of there snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net

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Thanks for the info - I may avoid the cake-tin and glue method, can't see the wife taking too kindly to that; she's already a touch uptight about the greater and greater amount of space that my model-making is taking up... :-\

My wife does a lot of sewing, so as a result there is often some pattern paper left over. This stuff is excellent for replicating canvas. Paint it with acrylics, soak it in some thinned PVA glue, and then drape in place. It also works great as mantlet canvas, seat covers, and flags. I often tape a piece to some regular paper and print a flag on my inkjet. The paper is porus enough that the ink goes through and the flag is printed on both sides. If your wife doesn't sew, you can usually pick up a cheap pattern at Wal*Mart or similar stores for a couple of bucks, and have enough material for a lifetime.

Regards... Michael

Hi Graham,

I'm sure I've seen somewhere, someone used the translucent white plastic found in supermarket carrier bags from Tesco etc. it was surprisingly effective and took a coat of paint well, another option might be the hard tissue paper used in shirt/shoe packaging.

I've got one of the Revell reissues of the Matchbox Corvette put away for my retirement (only 25 years to go !!!) and have managed to get a couple of

20mm Oerlikons from the Airfix RAF rescue launch to replace the less good Matchbox offerings.

Have you tried any of the Sirmar upgrades ?

I can appreciate the effort you have put into your kit so far, thank you for sharing it with us.

Happy modelling Ant

Hi Ant

I had a look at some of the Sirmar parts, and although better than the Matchbox/Revell lumps of molten plastic (!) they're still not a patch on David Parkins' (GLS) PE and cast parts - these are expensive but WELL worth it, they look superb (even look quite good when thrown together by me...)

Cheers! Graham 'Rip' Townsend

1/72 Corvette in progress:

Use gift wrapping tissue instead. Soak in water with a tiny bit of PVA added, apply, let dry, use a microbrush and apply the thinnest CA you can find. Works for me.

Very, VERY nice!!!

I like to use is toilet paper and wet coat(s) of paint - model airplane tissue doesn't drape as well, and also doesn't have much of a "grain" or "weave" to it - it's pretty smooth and doesn't really look like canvas. The drawback is that it's sort of hard to cut to shape.

It may take several applications of paint, and painting it with a brush seems to work better than spraying. The tissue will certainly absorb a lot of paint, but painting and allowing to dry sort of allows you to drape it and let it dry in place like decoupage. It gets stiffer and stronger with each coat.

I start with flat paint, and then give it a final shot of flat or gloss clear depending on what's required.

Just had another idea with this method - use aluminum foil as a form to drape the tissue over - then apply the paint as I describe. Then remove the "canvas" from the form once dry and fix it in place without the foil.

Read this and the responses so far. For military models 1/32, I use facial tissue (Kleenex, etc) as opposed to TP which I think disintegrates too easily. It's designed to do that when wet.

I soak it in diluted white glue, drape it where required, let dry and paint to taste (carefully).

I've used this for adding uniform bits, vehicle tarp details and making blanket rolls, etc. Haven't tried it in 1/72.

As suggested by others, heavier tissue such as gift wrap would also be better than TP.

Cheers

Thank you all for the tips, I'll post a pic of the results later. Will have to test out some of the various options before I take the plunge and actually make a decision :0

Rufus - thanks for your kind comments

Graham 'Rip' Townsend

1/72 Corvette in progress: