HOW To Create a Natural Metal Finish using foil. PART 1 Airfix Spitfire MKIX 1/24th scale 

Aerospace engineer here: I haven't seen your channel before, but mate that is some serious skill. I barely know what to say to what your doing. Its moments like these that show how fantastic social media can be when people are using it to show and educate others things they might not normally know about.

That’s incredible! I guess there’s no better way to replicate polished aluminum than Polished Aluminum!

Excellent. Transforms one’s approach to making kits

That is so freaking cool man, it looks better than an actual plane!

Great tutorial, Richard, thank you. I'm definitely interested in a part 2 with more complex surfaces.

I downloaded the video. Put it into Blender and had it saved as individual frames. Those I reloaded into DaVinci Resolve and only used every fifth frame. Once it was rendered, I saved it onto my HD. That video I watched at high speed, and ended up watching the whole video in about 30 seconds. The whole proces took about 80 minutes, but it was well worth it.

A modeller who loves Motorcycles, that's got my sub. Excellent tips, by the way, thank you for posting.

I don't do models , haven't since I was a kid. Just got into building watches via Ali Express parts and watching this has got me wondering about doing a watch dial with this method. Things we do. Lol.

Oh man, well done! cant wait for part 2

Great Tutorial. I found out, that if you burnish this too hard and to long the foil will eventualy come loose again, so dont overdoe it. And you are totaly right, for this one needs a lot of patience, but the outcome is well worth it.

Great work! What a brilliant idea! Thanks! Oh and btw I do think the spitfire is one of the most beautiful planes ever created!

Video really appreciated looking forward to seeing the next. I'm going to try it on a Revell P51 thanks 👍also now building a Airfix Spitfire 1/24 and using all your great tip along the way.

loved the video. must try this on 1/72. thanks.

Very cool tutorial show how to harder shapes 🤘 on

I can't wait to try this on my gunpla model kits ...thank you sooo much for this information

Great Tutorial Richard. Completely agree with your Statements about patience, It's a key component of success with this Technique. I'm looking forward to seeing how you deal with more complex surfaces. In regard to how you apply the glue to the foil, a word of caution if I may. I used the same procedure when I started out, as per the instructions on the bottle, but over time I found I was finding contaminants under the foil even though I had cleaned the surface thoroughly ! For the life of me I couldn't work out what the problem was, to the point of ,after a couple of very disappointing results, giving up on the technique ! I eventually realised that even though I thought I was cleaning the brush thoroughly between applications, small particles of dried glue still remained in the brush, which then contaminated the bottle when I next dipped the brush in the bottle. Just something to be aware of. 🍻

I really need to try this method!

Feckin awsome I’ve had mine since last spring yet to build it this is food for thought thanks have subbed for your great content 😊

Looks interesting!

I did something similar recently, with a large chicken.

The memories! I had forgotten about trying this when I started making models as a kid, using chewing gum wrappers and (I think) xanthan gum. Never got results like this! Another vote to see a part two)

Great content you put on RU-vid. I dont build myself but I love to watch ans learn. Keep it up😊 cheers from Norway

Excellent, thanks very much.

This is impressive, Its time consuming for sure; but the results speak for themself.

Great demo, thanks. It may take forever, but when it's done....WOW! Never going to get a proper metal finish using paint of ANY kind. Hopefully, you are going to show how to apply decals?

That cape cod polishing cloth you used for the final polish looks very like silvo wadding - the silver polish in the same range as brasso. Might be worth a look.

This is massive! I am definitely not going to try that, but the technique is super impressive

Nice job! I've used that polishing cloth in the tin before, but on brass. I noticed it leaves a residue that can attract oxidation. If you wipe it down with a soapy water, the metal stays shiny longer. Car wax helps too!

Really interesting Richard. I'll have to buy a cheap larger scale kit to try this on.

Awesome Awesome Awesome . i have ordered the foil glue already..

Incredible. I am definitely going to give this a go even though it's bound to fail miserably 😂

There is a chrome polished called Autosol trt that.

I think I will stick with nickel plating. It's fairly easy, but you have to spray the part with a conductive paint first. Then you can plate it and polish it. But it's a cool idea to use that aluminum tape.

Interesting technique. A few things to consider; For the 'difficult' complex multi high crowned pieces try softening (annealing) the Al foil by heat treating in an oven. It's thin, so around 240C for 1/2 hour will do. The high polish looks great,but it's far from authentic finish on aircraft grade sheetmetal.... especially 'war production' stuff. Perhaps finer grade sanding pad (>4000) to start with will reduce the amount of compound polishing needed to get it closer to finished authentic. Aircraft were made using different thickness sheetmetal - thicker where structural strength was needed. The different thickness materials had different finishes. You see this in 1940's images of B29 bombers, where distinct colour variations presented, especially noticeable along areas of the fuselage. Thicker sheets appeared duller - Polish the different areas accordingly. The 'shiny' and 'dull' side of foil comes from the way it is rolled thin during production - Two sheets are rolled at the same time.. the 'dull' side is where the two sheets touched each other passing through roll forming. Likewise, because it has been rolled the foil has a grain that may affect the compliance around curved surfaces. Obviously, the grain runs straight down the 'long' length of the sheet and it affects how malleable it is in that direction. Try marking the grain direction on your small working sheets to keep that compliance around complex crowned areas consistent. Good luck with that.

I do rebuilds of Dinky cars and use the self adhesive aluminum foil tape for the chrome trim on the sides of cars. I also strip, wash and clean my collection of 1/24 and 1/18 model cars. I use 70% rubbing alcohol applied with tissue paper. My main tip is FLEECE!!!! Don't know if you have tried this but wow, what an amazing buffing material. Old fleece top is good but a fleece 'throw' blanket is really soft and great. I am going to use the foil tape and try a 'wrap' of one of my Dinky Cars or get a model DeLorean to try it on. I wonder how well that Solar Film would do as a 'wrap' too, especially as you can shrink fit with heat. Hmmmm? There's a couple of projects for me to try.

Hey, for my models cars. I use spray glue: spray mouth 3M

Sees IPA, thinks India Pale Ale... Glad that got cleared up quickly!

please part 2

solarfilm and solar tex.. memories!

If my reasoning is correct, this could be done with basically any metal foil that is thin enough, respectivly to the said metal's ductility, yes? I'm thinking some awfully thin copper sheats going on phones, lighters, knife handles, basically everything I can get a hold on.

I think you maybe easier to use gold leaf guiding, you can get other colours than gold. silver, copper even matalic blues reds, greens ect. I do it a lot on my mintures bases for lead characters, but have full gilded mintures to give them real metal look.

I been wanting to try this for 40 years. :)

I have some model cars that I haven’t touched yet… thinking about this as the finish

Great tutorial, Richard. You are so right about being patient. Would using a soft polishing wheel / buffing wheel on a small Dremel be possible or would it create too much heat? Please do a Part 2.

Wow!

You can use metal leaf . It is designed for the purpose and is low cost. Even gold leaf costs less than you would expect.

You can get self adhesive aluminium tape used for ducting, I'm going to give it a go

What do you do to blend one piece to another so theres no uglt seem lines.

Try Bare Metal Foil, much thinner and glue loaded. I made loads of car chromed bumpers in 1/24 scale using it.

What a great technique. I will apply that to the inside of a lamp shade I use when modeling. Many thanks for the info! What glue do you recomend?

How do you stop the eventual oxidisation and surface dulling so common to alloy surfaces.?

Great video, any cheaper glue to use, thx Graham

I think the next advance in model planes would be to mould the airframe only and the aluminium skin is applied over. This would look much more realistic.

Love ths effect...now what can I do this to on a wargames mini?!... I think I see some very shiny power armour in my future, once you have shown how to do complex shapes of course 😊

The IPA dulls the finish because it reacts with the aluminum to make Aluminium isopropoxide

Thank you Richard- Is there may any indication on what is the micron size on the foil? in my country they call it " Heavy Duty" but looks and sounds much thinner then the one's you using Great Video - Burning to try this on 1/32 P-47D

do you need to prime you ship before starting the BMF? Is that standard kitchen foil, or some other material? Lastly... where did you get that burnishing tool? i am REALLY interested in trying this... i have a couple great test mules GREAT video... thanks for sharing your knowledge!

I've an F-86 to make which I've put off because I really never liked metallic paints. With some practice, this moght be the solution.

Better use rounded knife blades will not tear the stuff as fast as straight knife blades

Would aluminum tape not have worked as well?

Dude! sorry? you just gave me some ideas! like a flood! for heat treating, bluing, passivations, casehardnings, and electro plating? with some changes in priority or procedure. THANK YOU Sr!

I find Autosol is great on anything metal.

What glue is it😢? I missed that bit

I lernt sum ting 2 day

just casually here by the algorithm.. "if you don't have the patience to watch the full video you don't have the patience to do this" look at the time:52 minutes. you are right man. bye.

Fun vid, but try not to make that T noise too often.

That Cape Cod stuff looks like Duraglit which also smelled ace. Your vid has got me twitching to do either a BAE Lightning or MIG 15.