in the latest issue of military in scale there is an article on the building of a fairy flycatcher. in the article, the auther uses tin foil to get a silver finnish rather than the conventional alclad II. i heard of this technique a few years ago but never realy gave it any thought,until now! there isn't much detail in the article and i thought someone may be able to help.

ta

I have heard of it done that way, new a guy who actually did it, tried it once . It is a slow and painstaking edeavor. First, you must ensure there are no imperfections on the surface of the built model and wash it well. Next, cut the foil into sheets that you will lay onto the model. The guy I knew would only do a few panels at a time, to simulate different metals and the grain on metal (like wood) going in different directions. He used spray photo mount glue on the back of the foil. Carefully lay the foil onto the panel to be metalled, burnish it down with a soft cloth, pressing harder over panel lines and detail that needs to show through the foil. Hard part is, you have to get it right the first time, you can not lift the foil and reposition it, it will tear, then you start over. I tried it once and went nuts. Ended up stripping it all off and painting it.

Good luck.

wow, sounds like big amount of work

Wow... too hard for me... when I need metail, I think you can't beat Bare Metal Foils... they can also be aged to show variety, and the application is much easier than the "kit-kat method", that is for sure!

yeah, thats right, i also use this method!

year it does sound difficult but it could be FUN trying... or not

sounds like a mission in my case i only eat kitkats & never gave them a thought

I've used bare-metal foil and it works very well. It's real metal so it is quite malleable and it's adhesive backing sticks very well to clean surfaces. There's also a slight 'grain' to the foil's surface and if you lay it down in different directions, it will reflect in a desireable manner for panel lines, etc. In the Apollo 11 model in 'my gallery', I used ultra bright bare-metal foil on the command module to simulate the kapton thermal tape, kitchen foil on the ascent stage of the lunar module for the anodized aluminum skin and candy wrapper foil (Caramilk and Aero) for the gold colored mylar on the descent stage. All three techniques in one model! The candy wrapper foil and kitchen foil where applied with cyano glue around the edges.