Okay, I had been working on an F-14B, but realized that the airbrushing that I needed to do on it is way outside my skills at the moment so I put it away for a little bit. I took this up while I waited for all the components for an M1114 to start. I plan this to probably be a USMC M1A1.

Since Tamiya's kit doesn't come an anti-skid coating on the surface, I decided to try and make my own. I am using 400 grit sandpaper and a bit of imagination. I am mostly done with the turret "coating" but am not done with the coating on the hull.










The Abrams in the background is my Italeri M1A2 for scale.



Jeff

Never seen the nonskid done that way. but it might be cool when painted! You might want one of the USMC bustle rack extensions I make/sell. Cheapest prices on the net

Thanks. I hadn't and figured I might as well try it out. I pretty much am just using tracing paper to make a template and then I cut the template into the sandpaper and am using a combination of Elmer's and CA.

As for your selling attempt I'll think about it. I am about to put $70 into an M1114 so...

Jeff

Jeff, your Abrams looks great, don´t know if the anti skid pattern it´s right or not, but it´s definitly eye catching

Great job, keep it up!

Cheers

First off It looks good for right now, but it needs some improvment to make it look like the real thing. The Anti Skid gose on all over the Abrams an I would sujest using Tarra Kotte I think thats right you can pick it up from any Hardware store and it look like the real thing, and sand paper over time could have some problems over years I would think. I belive if you click on my pics I still have some templates of the anti Skid or the abrams. I got it from Gino on the forms.

First time im seeing the use of sand paper for the anti skid surface as well. Id be keen to see your progress shots when completed to see how it turns out as i might want to try it myself.

Keep us posted!

What type of glue did you use to hold the sandpaper in place? I have never had much luck gluing paper to plastic, eventually it seems to 'bunch up'" or "ripple". Particularly if the finished model is exposed to long term sun light or changes in humidity.
I found using white glue a on the non-slip areas and sprinkling fine sand evenly across the surface creates a relatively easy, credible non-slip surface in 1:35.
Cheers,
Charles

I've used the Testors sanding films to do non-skid in my early years of modeling. I used the black colored film (each color, red, tan, gray, black was a different grit). I bought many packets back then and always had plenty of the finer grits left over.

The black film was the coarsest. The film is Mylar. I had to use CA to attach the Mylar film to the plastic.

First off, Cam, thanks for the template. I was using my Italeri M1A2 as reference (though I have about a hundred pics of the Abrams...) If anything, this is really just a concept project. I've never seen sandpaper used and I wanted to try it myself. I thought about using a surfacer, but decided that I didn't want to spend the money just yet.

As for gluing paper to plastic, Iideally I use CA, but I don't like CA...because more of it sticks to me than the model.
So I'm initially using Elmer's and press it down, taking out the excess that seeps out. The problem was that the longer edges would peel up a small amount, but enough that it was noticable. I then use a small amount of CA to stick them down. I don't know what long-term effects this will have, so we'll see. If it doesn't work, its majorily stuck by elmer's so it'll - hopefully - come off more easily with less damage than if I'd used just CA.

Jeff

First off-its looking very nice indeed. Altough im looking forward to seeing the M1114 .

Your sandpaper technique is a nice idea but im worried it wont look correct once painted. I found out a rather simple way of creating anti slip without worrying about any cast-a-coat or Mr Surfacer. Simply prime your model, water down some wood glue (you need to prime the model otherwise the woodglue will not stick to the model) paint the wood glue onto the relevant panels and then pour some normal table pepper onto your model. The pepper will stick to the wood glue perfectly. Blow the waste off and you will be left with a very neat, cool looking non slip texture. I did this on some IDF models and it looked ace. You may want to experiment with mediums and try maybe some finer materials to pepper as that is a bit too coarse. Never the less im sure if you give it a go you will be very happy and it will avoid the raised edges that sandpaper would give.

Just an idea!

I get a 3m spray adheisive at Staples that will hold anything to anything. Spray the backside of the paper

Okay, here is the update. I finished the anti-skid pattern, which was fun, but not easy. Despite it, this has to easily be the quickest model I've put together. I'm pretty much ready to paint, which will be my first time with an airbrush, so that'll be interesting too.











Jeff

I was afarid but also forgot to tell ya, when you paint it, the paper well be rised up so that you can tell that their is something their and it could turn out looking not so good as I see in your pics, but its a good idea and its your project so I'll be about it sinces I hae experinces the same thing with something totally differant.

Thanks, Cam. I kind of figured that about half-way through, but since I was that far along, and it really didn't look that bad overall, I just kept going. It definitely helped my scratchbuilding skills and I tested various forms of Elmer's to see how it would work on paper to plastic. The only bad areas are those that didn't fully stick down. Like I said this is more of a test model and I'm not expecting to take it to some show and win first place. This just allows me to test new ideas and to implement them on future projects. Plus, I'd never seen sandpaper used as a construction material on a model before.

Jeff

While i was in the LHS over the weekend, they had spray cans of Mr Surfacer 1000. I had seen your post Jeff, and was going to try your method, being to scared to spray it through my airbrush. Now though i am going to give the spray can a go.......good luck with the rest of the build!

Regards from the Swamp

Hawkeye

Looking nice Jeff! Cant wait to see it finished. If this is going to be for OIF, I probably would add GaryJ36's bustle rack extension. Ive seen his work first hand. It is nice, and very inexpensive. Keep us posted, and good luck with the airbrush! (dont worry, its easy!).

Gary