Imperium

[OvRiDe]

Hmm.. I am thinking...

COPPER!

[blueonblack]

Bronze metallic in a satin finish. Either that or a brushed nickel look. Although you'd have to use a lot less of the nickel to keep it from being too much.

I had been thinking of both of those also. I have a can of Forged Hammered bronze that looks pretty cool. It achieves the hammered look through color mixing instead of the actual physical surface like the black does. I have a "soft iron" that has a lot of the grey you see in nickel also, I'll play with both of those.

Hmm.. I am thinking...

COPPER!

Copper. Copper is good.

[blueonblack]

Ok, I need some opinions. I found an excellent brush-on paint called hammered gray that makes for an excellent effect, and I'm concerned I have too much black on here. So which is better, the rivet heads that match the case or the hammered gray ones?

Same question for the Outsider symbol:

Painting every rivet really approaches the level of effort and tedium that it may be easier to start over, but I'd like to hear some opinions before I do either. Personally I like the gray better but I'm not sure I like enough better to warrant the time and work to retrofit the whole damned thing with them.

What say ye?

[msmrx57]

I really like the look with the gray. Possibly use the gray as a high light such as on the logo and other key features the keep the tedium to a minimum?

[blueonblack]

Sorry no updates from Sokolov tonight. He’s probably out drinking and womanizing. I’m not going to judge, he’s a genius and the Empire needs him.

So it’s been a while since my last update. At the time I had decided that I might need a little less black on it. While it looked pretty good in bright direct light, the finish was so flat it was actually hard to see without it. A lot’s happened since then so I’ll try to break this update up so it’s not a huge wall of text.

First off, I removed every one of those rivet heads from the project. There were a LOT of them, but it was easier than I thought it would be. They’re held on with Superglue and came off with a chisel and a tap from a hammer. Lots and lots of taps.

I had shown the rivets with a new grey paint on them, an oil-based Rustoleum Hammered paint that comes in quarts instead of rattle cans. It’s beautiful stuff, with a base of gray and tiny little veins of black. I decided since the finish I had wasn’t even anyway I would sand it down and repaint it with the black version of this same paint. Worst. Idea. Ever.

Thankfully I didn’t have to sand it bare since the new paint has similar hammered effects to the spray already on it. I got it all sanded down and repainted with the quart paint. It looked excellent on smaller pieces and larger pieces with a lot of changes in surface area (like the hard drive enclosures), but anywhere with large flat areas looked like crap.

So, after letting it cure for a week (this stuff dries really slowly but I figured it would come off a lot more easily fully cured) I spent 18 hours over the course of two days using this:

and these

and way too much of this

to get all of that enamel paint off.

This transformed my formerly perfectly promising project into this pathetic pile of parts (deal with the alliteration there, I restrained myself. And yes, I enjoy the use of parentheses.)

After some research I decided the problem was not the product but my application. I bought an HVLP paint gun, dryer and regulator and practiced with some copper paint of the same kind and was able to get some absolutely beautiful results on large flat panels.

Properly thinned and sprayed this is a great product. I didn’t get any pics of the black, but it gave the hammered look I wanted, it has these awesome little gray veins in the black, and is just beautiful. Problem is, it’s glossy. Really, REALLY glossy. I found Testors Dullcote that’s supposed to be great for that but I’ll be damned if I was going to spray anything on this finish and screw it up. Again.

So there I was, getting ready to spray this new awesome but overly glossy finish on my pile pf parts on my next weekend, doing some last-minute research online when I stumbled across an image that someone was complaining about. They were upset that the product they were using turned out like this:

I was smitten. *This* was what I had been looking for. Not too flat, not too glossy, the “hammered” marks were actually very fine wrinkles; it looked exactly like cast iron to me. I quickly found out what product they were using, went and bought some (for $6 a can instead of the $25 or more for the quarts I already bought) and gave it a shot when I got home. I had to use it wrong since this isn’t the result it’s supposed to produce, but… PERFECT!

With this product and this method I could go from bare plastic or metal and the paint still in the can to finished product, dry and ready to assemble in five minutes flat. five minutes.

First I laid out a bunch of those rhinestones I’m using for rivet heads on a piece of contact paper and painted them with a satin-finish Rustoleum Forged Hammered paint in Chestnut color. Looks like forged bronze, beautiful stuff.

Then I got all of my parts painted. I was done soon enough that the rhinestones were still drying. Once that was done I got all the rivets glued back in place and the whole thing put back together.

This whole thing was quite an ordeal but in the end I think it looks at least five times better. Pics! (There are minor flaws that need to be fixed and it's dirty, but those will be remedied.)

Opinions?

And some super macro shots of the texture of this finish.

And some closeup pics of the texture of actual cast iron for comparison:

Before I tell everyone what I used on these I’d like opinions on the appearance. Again, I think it looks exactly like cast iron, and I’m very happy with the results (which is good since I wasn’t going to paint it again regardless), but I’d like some outside opinions, good or bad.

[TheMainMan]

Short of casting your parts in iron, I'd say it's a match! It looks slightly less textured than the handle in the last two photos but it catches the light in almost exactly the same way. In the distance shots it looks flat black, the closeups are where the detail really pops. I love the look of the whole thing with the bronze accents.

[TLHarrell]

I really like the cast iron look. Do tell. I want.

[blueonblack]

Believe it or not I did this with black aerosol Plasti Dip. Took some experimentation but if you apply it right (or wrong if you're reading the label) and follow it immediately with a heat gun, this is what you get. The only thing I don't like is the texture. It loooks *perfect*, but it's got a "grabby" feel, like you'd expect from new rubber, and dust collects on it a lot. Comes right off with a damp cloth but it's a pain. I'm hoping the "grabby" goes away as it cures but if not I may experiment with some highly-thinned poly as a brush-on top coat or something. This finish is so easy to achieve I can make practice panels in literally minutes, ready to go. One thing I'm not doing is tearing it all down again so it will need to be a brush-on solution.

We'll see, I have plenty of work to do while it cures.

[Stonerboy779]

It is looking great and that is an awesome finish with the plastidip. Very jealous that you can get it for $5 a can

[blueonblack]

Quick TBCS-exclusive sneak peak at my tubing. Joinery is still in testing phase but if it passes this will be the final form the tubing will take: