Hi all !!! I have a question. I'm doing my first polyurethane resin kit and they say I have to clean it first (the parts I mean) Can I use Bestine to clean them??? Thanks guys
I would be reluctant to do that. In the past, I have used a product from Sylvan models that's intended specifically for cleaning resin kits. Think it might be called Resin Prep.
Candy, typically soap & water and a lite scrubbing will do the job on resin kits. After you get it cleaned be carefully in handling so as not to get oils from your hands on the model. Gene
Dawn dish soap works well for degreasing. If that doesn't work, what solvents/cleaners do you have in the house? Denatured alcohol, acetone, Simple Green, and others might work, just need to test in an inconspicuous area to see if the resin is attacked by the solvent.
I would say no to Bestine, as it might attack the material. As already suggested, try a known degreaser such as Dawn dish detergent. I would soak pieces in barely warm water with the Dawn, and then use a soft bristled tooth brush to gently scrub. Rinse thoroughly and allow to air dry overnight.
MY first resin kit was a model of Hubble. It pissed me off to no end. The instructions didn't mention washing, I didn't know the ins and outs of resin so my Tester's glue didn't hold, CA didn't hold and paint would flake right off just looking at it cross eyed. I ended up selling it to a friend and he was able to build it just fine! I was at this point really pissed but I asked him how he did it and he said he just did! He later mentioned that he thought my problem was I had not washed the parts good enough. Wash the parts? Then he explained all about the material the model was made of, and how to handle it. He was a much more experienced modeler than I was at the time. Now I wash even styrene models before I paint or glue them. I have had no issues building models since!
All molded parts, whether resin or styrene, are likely to have a certain amount of mold release on them. I remember building one of the old Walthers solid resin kits for a Ford tank truck. There was one corner between the tank and the walkway that I couldn't get to take paint to save my life. Later I read about the need to wash resin kits. Duh. Go figure. I bought a bottle of the Sylvan product (essentially just a citrus based cleaner) and never had any more trouble, so I never got around to trying dish soap. I do, however, use dish soap for styrene kits. 3D printed parts in fine detail plastic on the other hand, are covered in a wax support material, for which Bestine is an ideal solvent- two totally different things.
Yup this is the difference from late teen me to the me now. I was building Star Trek ships, and model cars back then and would notice that some took paint better than others. I stayed away from AMT cars because paint never stuck to them but AMT made the Star Trek ships and I had no issue. I guess it was a different molding process, as the finished plastic on the cars was usually smoother and shiny where the ships were not as much. My Hubble was the same scale as a Revel Space Shuttle kit I had and would fit in the cargo bay if you didn't put the cargo from the Revel kit inside. I had a model of Challenger with boosters and launch pad and one of Columbia that was just the shuttle herself. I wanted to hang Columbia from my ceiling with the little astronauts working on Hubble. I already had DS9, Voyager, and many other Star Trek ships there so why not? That was the plan any way. Oh well lessons learned! None of those models even exist any more Times changed, kids thought they were toys when dad wasn't looking and when my ex and I split she thought it was funny to throw the ships and stuff outside, not caring what they landed on or what landed on them.
I painted the truck shell and it came out fine. I used Dawn but I do have a citrus cleaner that I will try next time.
One year, I displayed some of my Pere Marquette/C&O stuff at the depot during our country fair days. Got to talking to a guy who had an O scale big boy on display. He told me he had rescued it from the trash, still in the box. It had apparently been the casulty of a nasty divorce.
