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Must be the most dumb q ever, i use stanley blades ( not in a knife) i know there are bure removers, but do you go against the line or with it? And di you sand plastic models?

I use an exacto blade, diamond file, sandpaper, emery boards, sanding wheels, carbide burrs, metal files.

The thing i love about plastic is that anything will work, depending on the angle and shape of the part, I pick the right tool.

Generally, i will use a rough file, scrape the area with a knife, then 1200 sandpaper it.

You go with the mold line most times. But also depends on where the line is located as well. I use either a x-acto blade or a small file. You can pretty much remove any mold lines with those two tools.

You can sand plastic models as well, I don't myself, just the scraping or light filing works for me, but some do use sandpaper for extra smoothness. All personal preference.

Its just that when i use rhe blade it seems that i am making it "blocky" especialy on the pouldrens or rounded surfuces

KINGPIN54 wrote:
Its just that when i use rhe blade it seems that i am making it "blocky" especialy on the pouldrens or rounded surfuces

Try using a small 2x2 inch square of fine sandpaper. I have some old worn sandpaper bits and scraps I use for rounded areas. You can also fold the sandpaper in half and get into the little nooks and crannies.

KINGPIN54 wrote:
Its just that when i use rhe blade it seems that i am making it "blocky" especialy on the pouldrens or rounded surfuces

If using a knife I'll often use the back of the knife and scrape rather than cutting in to the model. You do it in several light quick passes rather than trying to scrape it in 1 pass, that lets you gently work the curve back in to it so it doesn't look blocky.

In general I hate cleaning mould lines, the part of the hobby I hate the most. If someone designed models where the mould lines don't need to be cleaned up I'd happily pay a premium, lol.

Yeah, i look at it like any kind of machining. Material removal, blending surfaces, polishing.

Sand paper can do all of that, it just comes down to efficiency. An exacto can do it all too, it just comes down to skill.

Drag the blade backwards over the seam, then finish up with wet and dry sand paper.


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Skink, the maelstroms edge figures have very few

When you do it with a knife blade, the blade needs to be reasonably stiff. I've found scraping is easiest with a thick blade that has a linear taper, so something like a #11 in a decent handle or one of those Testors knives with the fixed blade

"Disposable Hobby Knife": http://www.testors.com/product-catalog/testors-brands/testors/tools/cutting-tools

I tend to not use sand paper on miniatures, I find I get the surface smooth enough using the knife that I can't see it under a layer of paint. I use sand paper for aircraft models more, aircraft models tend to have a despicable seam that runs down the centre of the fuselage and along the leading edges of the wing and the only way I've found to fix it is with a decent filling putty and then sanded smooth. But for regular miniatures I rarely touch anything other than the knife.

I know people scoff at it, but the mould line remover is one of the the best things I've bought from GW. People said just use a knife (or the back of it) but that's how I did it, and still use a small blade for cleaning out little nooks and crannies; but for long, unbroken mould lines over even surfaces, I find the MLR is very smooth and controllable, without any judders from knives or scratches and fuzz from files. YMMV.

Other seam scrapers are cheaper, but for whatever reason the ones I found had shipping that bumped them up to the same cost.

This vid is a review of the mould line removing tool, but if you skip to about 2:30 he shows how to remove mould lines which can be applied to any knife or similar tool.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nydcv415_Ug

Never removed a mold line in my life

Very cool, i know some models are very nice, bought some raptors a while back and was so stoked at the die lines being so obscure

hobby knife + files set has always done me well.

 Vermis wrote:
I know people scoff at it, but the mould line remover is one of the the best things I've bought from GW. People said just use a knife (or the back of it) but that's how I did it, and still use a small blade for cleaning out little nooks and crannies; but for long, unbroken mould lines over even surfaces, I find the MLR is very smooth and controllable, without any judders from knives or scratches and fuzz from files. YMMV.

Other seam scrapers are cheaper, but for whatever reason the ones I found had shipping that bumped them up to the same cost.

The reason I haven't bought the GW mouldline remover (aside from the fact it's $19AUD for what amounts to a shaped piece of metal ) is that those long unbroken mould lines are the easiest to remove anyway. They usually only take me a few seconds to remove. It's the mould lines that are in around detail that are fiddly and time consuming to remove.

If you're getting judders with a knife it probably means the knife isn't stiff enough or you are doing slow heavy scrapes when you should be doing fast light scrapes.

I just use a hobby blade and go with the " back side" of the blade along the lines until it becomes smooth.

One of these I tend to use for curved surfaces like the center join on airplanes or boats:

For aircraft I tend to use sanding sticks like these:

http://www.hobbytools.com.au/flex-pads-assorted-grits-6pc/

Or a Tamiya sanding sponge for convex curves (like the wing root). Then I just finish the surface off with some regular sand paper from an auto parts store (because my sanding sticks are reasonably rough so I just give it a quick polish before priming).

But I don't think I've ever used a sanding stick on an miniature, I use them on aircraft because it's really fething hard to hide the seams on aircraft models, way more tricky and time consuming than just removing mould lines.

You generally hold a scraping tool (whether it's a blade or a mold line remover or a standard file) perpendicular to the mold line for the most efficient removal of mold lines.

Different tools work better for different shapes and sizes, and if you're in the hobby for long enough, you'll find a use for almost everything you can imagine, from sanding blocks and mold line removers of various strange shapes to diamond files, sandpaper and rifle (angled) files.

Personally one of my favorite files is this machined Tamiya modelling file:



It leaves an amazingly finished product. There is also a wider version of it (I think 8 or 10 mm) and a round one, too.

 Talys wrote:
You generally hold a scraping tool (whether it's a blade or a mold line remover or a standard file) perpendicular to the mold line for the most efficient removal of mold lines.

I'm going to disagree with you there and say you want to hold it about 30-45 degrees off perpendicular, angled toward the direction of motion (so it's scraping rather than digging in)

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Talys wrote:
You generally hold a scraping tool (whether it's a blade or a mold line remover or a standard file) perpendicular to the mold line for the most efficient removal of mold lines.

I'm going to disagree with you there and say you want to hold it about 30-45 degrees off perpendicular, angled toward the direction of motion (so it's scraping rather than digging in)

For a lot of models, and especially if you're using a knife, you're right.

If you're using most standard (not diamond) files, the teeth are angled, so holding the file perpendicular gives you that the correct cutting angle. There are exceptions, as files are also made for cutting at odd angles.

I'm doing a ton of terrain right now, and using a mold line remover, 90 degrees works best because the mold lines run the entire length of the piece (so you're running a mold line remover from one end of the large piece right to the other).

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The reason I haven't bought the GW mouldline remover (aside from the fact it's $19AUD for what amounts to a shaped piece of metal ) is that those long unbroken mould lines are the easiest to remove anyway. They usually only take me a few seconds to remove. It's the mould lines that are in around detail that are fiddly and time consuming to remove.

If you're getting judders with a knife it probably means the knife isn't stiff enough or you are doing slow heavy scrapes when you should be doing fast light scrapes.

Ah, I was well practised with a knife, knew the angle to hold it, knew that slightly-blunted left things cleaner than just-out-of-the-packet, etc. I was a plastic-cleaning veteran. But I got to test the MLR in GW just after the last hobby tools revamp, and it just worked so much more easily, even after all that knife practise and muscle memory. I buy a lot of weird hobby tools, and most of them gather dust, but this is one of the few that doesn't.

As for 'shaped piece of metal', just like a knife blade. I use a few different types of those too, and go through them quicker than I'd like, while I'm still on my first MLR. (one of my favourites is one that Swann Morton makes for slicing corns)

I swear to god if I end up buying an MLR I am going to be so mad with myself.


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e: and you

KingPin54, as for you question about doing mould lines on round surfaces. You have to do a bit more work, and go a little lighter, and rework the curve with the knife blade.

That is the nice thing about plastic, you can do some work with it, and make it look good. You just have to remember that it doesn't take much pressure to scrape off the mould lines, so don't be cutting into the plastic, you are just scraping off the top layer in a way. You can also do that as well with a file or sandpaper to round it back into shape again. All comes down to what you feel comfortable with, and what looks the best to you.

Great tips and advice guys, as with all things in this hobby - practice makes better, as i doubt any of us consider simething perfect as there is alwYz room for improvement

Another question on the tail of this one, how do most people remove lines on pipes and the like? particularly the ribbed ones who are the bane of my existence as they seem to sneak into every model.

Half-round needle file, use the rounded side of the edge and go down each groove, then turn the pipe around and go down each groove again, that way you get both sides.

Them and Skaven toes/tails ugh!

just to add a question to this, because back when I was doing metal figures, well I didn't even know what a mold line was! How do you tend to deal with metal? scraping doesn't work as well, unless it's very thin flash which then pretty much just breaks off at a touch anyway. I try to use files, but I find I'm having trouble getting the areas 'clean'. Plus once it is rubbed on it polishes which makes it hard for me to see what I'm doing.

Metal is a pig. Diamond file it, sandpaper it.

Tiny triangle files are good for pipes. It's still bs though.