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I'm just wondering if there's a simple method for attaching rhinestones en masse onto painted model surfaces?
The heat gun for applying them to fabric is doubtless a no-no, and that leaves doing it by hand, I'm just wondering if it's simpler to apply controlled areas of glue to the surface, as one would with flock, or lose sanity with gluing the individual gemstones?

Gluing onto paint never seems a great idea to me, but the self adhesive on these things is appalling..

I've been told I need a wax crayon, which bewilders me on a level hitherto unreached.
And a "special sorting tray". What is this sorcery?

I just ordered myself a whole load of rhinestones at 2mm, thinking ork rivets, so im probably going to superglue, as I intend to paint over them.

As for onto paint, personally I would want to glue them and then use maybe some layers of varnish to help seal them down? will varnish ruin them? I have no experience with this however, maybe do a test piece on some painted sprue?

I have by request, rhinestoned an entire 4" vinyl model before, with 4mm ones and could only work out doing it with tweezers and superglue. It was hideously slow and wrecked my fingers, tweezers and brain. I'm hoping there's a trick I missed. Superglue also fogs them.

Rivets sound like a great use though.

The self-adhesive layer is generally quite thick, adding 1-2mm to the height of the gemstone; this can look slightly off-putting. I found I had to sink the gems into the model using a pin drill, remove the self-adhesive layer and use superglue to get it to look OK on infantry models using 2mm gemstones.

Central model has a gemstone, others are painted:


For larger models you might get away with just supergluing and not drilling, or maybe using 1mm gemstones.

Yeah, I'm avoiding the self adhesive ones this time.
Unfortunately at this quantity and size, drilling in would be soul destroying...

I'm doing a white and gold Leman Russ with copious blue and silver rhinestones.
Because Monday.

Actually it's because someone told me I couldn't.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Yeah, I'm avoiding the self adhesive ones this time.
Unfortunately at this quantity and size, drilling in would be soul destroying...

I'm doing a white and gold Leman Russ with copious blue and silver rhinestones.
Because Monday.

Actually it's because someone told me I couldn't.

I love every bit of this post.

most rhinestones are made from acrilc...so basically you can use plastic glue...IF we´re talking about the same product...
i use these rhinestone gems as rivets... and they are usuallly used in nail art... you get them in packs of 1000 from some chineese retailers... and always just use plastic glue one drop on the place i want... then pick up the stone with the point of a very sharp knife7 scalpel and apply rivet to the place... done and redo... the state of mind you reach after the ...say fourhundreth rivet is called rivet zen and is an ecstatic state of mind ...like bliss......

as you can see in my sig... i am a riveteer... so...bloody chilly riveting is my second nature...
for one da vincy like turtle tank, a scratch built i applied 1400 rivets...yeah...right...

FearPeteySodes wrote:I love every bit of this post.

One of my friends told me that he would refuse to play if I turned up with it.

Viktor von Domm wrote:most rhinestones are made from acrilc...so basically you can use plastic glue...IF we´re talking about the same product...
i use these rhinestone gems as rivets... and they are usuallly used in nail art... you get them in packs of 1000 from some chineese retailers... and always just use plastic glue one drop on the place i want... then pick up the stone with the point of a very sharp knife7 scalpel and apply rivet to the place... done and redo... the state of mind you reach after the ...say fourhundreth rivet is called rivet zen and is an ecstatic state of mind ...like bliss......

That sounds horrifying and therapeutic at the same time...
Though I don't think plastic glue would work after I painted the tank. And I can't airbrush around them without faffing about quite a lot..

Ah, I see your point. Someone told me tho that plastic glue would work even when primered. I haven't tried that myself tho...so no guarantee there... Then I guess itus vaback to super glue and knife and rhinestones...and yeah, its a wonderful productive task that seems to ve drowned in meaninglessness...but once finished it was all worth the hurt...and like soda said...you will feel hurt...

I have used 2mm rhinestones as rivets for vehicles and it worked out well.

Determine your spacing and make a small mark. You now have to figure out if you are going to apply a small amount of glue to the model and then attach the rhinestone or dip the stone in thin superglue and then attach depending on how you handle the tweezers.

After a few hours just to be sure, I was even able to take a small flat jewelers file and flatten the top of each for a square bolt-like head rather than rounded.

I suppose with patience and a toothpick, glue on the model is a better idea than dipping the gems if I don't want to paint over them after.
Doing a dry run will at least be quite easy! I'm considering painting the panels to be crystalline themselves, if I can.

And I'm not making rivets, I'm making *~fabulous~*...

lol...