To Spruce or Not to Spruce

[Guest]

looking around I have seen people painting the parts of the model still attached to the spruce. but then others have removed them cleaned them up then painted.

what are the advantage and disadvantage of both the methods

[Guest]

Small parts can be primed or painted on the sprues. The advantage is then not having to utilise the often complicated toothpick & bluetack method of holding them for painting.

The downside is usually that the sprue attachment point is the side most visible, so it'll need painting again. This is especially annoying is the sprue gate is huge, like with modern Airfix kits.

I'd never paint major parts on the sprues. Whatever the kit is, it needs to be painted & weathered as a single item - just as it would be in reality.

[monica]

would have to say and agree with what Patrick,as said,
I find it much easy to paint some on the sprue,and do a small touch up than
paint all the other way,
and a lot is to what suits your building method or just the way you do things,
no wrong or right with it I,think,

[Gern]

This question pops up quite regularly. It's all about how to hold the piece while you paint it and set it down to dry. As Patrick says, lots of parts will need to be built before painting so no problem with those. For tiny parts and parts you may want a different colour to the main body of the model, there are lots of options open to you depending on your personal preference.

Painting on the sprue gives you plenty of options where and how to hold the piece - you can cut a section of sprue holding the piece you want away from the main sprue as desired - but cleaning up any flash and mould seams can be tricky. The other disadvantage is that when you cut the piece away from the sprue and clean up the attachment point, you'll end up with an area that's not painted - and 99.9% of the time this WILL be a part of the piece that will show when you fix it to your model - meaning of course you've got to get the paint out again to touch up the missing area.

The other option is to cut the piece away from the sprue, clean up the attachment point and any flash or seam lines, then paint. This obviously means that you shouldn't need to touch up any of the paint when you come to fix it to your model. The disadvantage is that now you've probably not got any way to hold the piece while you paint it. You could hold it and paint half the piece, then when the paint is dry, hold the bit you've just painted and paint the other half. That's fiddly and messy and you've still got to put it down without the new paint touching anything else.

I suspect most of us cut away the piece and clean it up and maybe build it into sub-assemblies, then hold it using small clamps on attachment stubs, sticky tape, bluetack, a cocktail stick stuck into a hole or even glue it temporarily to a stick (if you opt for this one, DON'T use your normal plastic cement. Use superglue or PVA so the piece will break away from your holding stick easily). What you need is some way of holding the piece firmly enough for you to paint it.

Pick a place to hold the piece which will not show when it is fitted to the model so no touch up is required. Sometimes you will need to think of the best way to hold the part and many ingenious methods have been used depending on the size and shape of the piece and where it will be fixed to the model.

Don't forget that you will need to put the piece down to dry when it's been painted. Using cocktail sticks with the part fixed to one end seems to be favourite as you just stick the other end of the cocktail stick into a piece of polystyrene, or hold the other end in a clamp. I've seen guys use the pegging boards used for cribbage to hold rows of cocktail sticks.

One other advantage of taking parts off sprues is that you can gather together all the parts needing the same colour and paint them in one lot - and you also avoid the problem of masking the other bits on the sprue if you spray paint them.

My apologies if this is long-winded - I've just expanded on what Patrick and Moni said, but it seems now I have some free time on my hands .........

[Guest]

I agree with Dave with the proviso that either method can be used, I generally cut from sprue and mount in the best way possible to ensure I don't leave the attachment point showing when it goes on Model. However, there are times when I prefer to paint, or at least prime, on the sprue. I have found myself doing this more with car and bike kits for things like windscreen wipers and wing mirrors. In this case, I cut off all but one attachment point, the one being left being in the least damaging position, and paint it up knowing I may have to drop a spot of paint on that last point.

My advice is, as always, do what works for you.

[Robert1968]

All the differant approaches are easy and it's really up to the individual in my honest opinion.
Depending on the size of the kit and my moods I can prime the whole sprue with a primer before I even start clean up but then that can be a pain too some but a quick swipe with the sanding stick is not that bad. I'll do this with most kits even 1/48 if it saves me time but I rarely paint top coats on the sprue as I think mentioned earlier you always have to clean up once cut fromthe sprue and this is a pain, your lovely paintwork ruined.
I personally have a good supply of lollipop sticks / coffee stirrers etc which I place white tac on and attach there, spray, reposition respray etc etc
Madness in my method but it works for me

Regards

Robert

[Guest]

For my armour, I generally tend to build the kit to the point where I can prime it all in one go for example I build all the wheel the turret and the upper and lower main hulls, at this point I will not attach the wheels or the tracks. I will prime then paint in my base colour scheme E.g dark yellow then attach the wheels, re-attach the turret and build up the tracks I always paint the tools and tow cables on the sprue and touch up later. For my gundam builds, all the parts come off the sprue and onto coffee stirrers keeping each sections parts separated as I have done with my Kampfer build, I prime and paint all the parts this way as its easier.

[Guest]

thank you all for the response