Sometimes we find ourselves purchasing a built version of a potential donor kit.

What are some techniques, tools, or strategies you have for harvesting the needed or desired parts?

My first go-to is to freeze the assembly for about 24 hrs to see if any parts assembled possibly using CA glue can snap off. Cold makes CA kind of brittle and easier to break. There is also CA de-bonder, found in most decent hobby shops. Wargaming mini's are often assembled with CA glue, and this tends to be everyone's first step in stripping and cleaning up someone else's work.

My second and more successful technique is to use LA's Totally Awesome 1:1 with tap water, inside a heated ultrasonic cleaner. Immerse the bonded parts in the mix and warm the parts to 60 to 75 Celsius (140 F to 167 Fahrenheit). This can soften resin-based model and plastic cements enough to pry them apart successfully. This also softens CA glue bonds.
The Totally Awesome also loosens many paint and primer applications. The ultrasonic function further cleans your donor parts.

I do not own an ultrasonic knife. Is it worth it for harvesting parts? I have a mostly built 1/24 Bandai Panther G arriving imminently in the mail (my first 1/24 Panther kit).

Hi all y'all,

I've been dabbling in kitbashed models of various genres for many years, just foudn this site. Some perverse demon prevents me from just building models stock.

I've moved the site to a new host. Pics seem to be loading a lot faster. Hopefully this will continue.

Thanks for your patience during the move. It took a lot longer than it should have, but I'm still new at all this stuff.

John

I have been bitten by the studio scale bug. I finally completed my DeAgostini Falcon last fall, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Studio Kitbash figures it started with me collecting many of the Lego UCS Star Wars kits since 1999.

I have been amassing vintage and re-pops of kits since last summer to do some ANH & ESB Star Wars studio builds. My eventual goal is a 5' Falcon, but I will likely warm up with a Probe Droid pod, a TIE Bomber, and an ANH Y-Wing.

I've done my best to post kit scans of parts of my collection (lots more to do!) but I never actually introduced myself when I first joined here last summer.

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Hey everyone! I look forward to making a contribution to the site and seeing what everyone else is working on!

How y'all doin'!

Hello all.

Just joined after seeing the 5 foot falcon thread on the RPF.

From my youtube channel (chefhawk)
"Ian sparrowhawk born in watford England.
The rest of his family is very artistic in one form or another. Ian was born with one hand, but this motivated him to try harder life. After seeing a film in London called Star wars his life changed, and not for the last time either. He met the uk 501st and his passion arose for props and prop making.
Costuming for charity as Lord vader his next project obsession was Chewbacca. This had to be sculpted and fabricated from scratch after many months of research. Combining this experience and fondness for charity and star wars whilst a keen prop builder his actual job is a professional chef and has cooked for royalty and worked in a five star hotel in London. Currently working on building a millennium falcon and trooping up and down the country. Chefhawk is a combination of his surname and Job and can be seen participating on more than a few forums and web pages"


cheers

You should notice a new PM method in the right corner called "Conversations".

This will allow you to include images in your messages now. The basic MyBB software didn't allow for this.

Please let me know if you have any issues.

Thanks,
John

I've changed the attachment settings so that pics load full size instead of thumbnails. If you think this is too much, let me know.

John