So one thing I’ve been curious about is the benefits of Aluminum parts over Resin, and even vice versa.
The obvious benefits to me of resin parts is they are cheaper, while the benefit of aluminum is they are lighter. I figure aluminum also wins in the durability department.
Otherwise though, what are the pros and cons of each material? Do aluminum parts simply look that much more real that their resin counterparts even once painted?
Just curious what the experienced builders have seen and think.
First thing that comes to mind is the advantage of being able to tap aluminum. Screwing things in resin can go south veeery fast. Plus there’s the advantage of being able to use shorter screws, even with nuts and washers, because aluminum doesn’t need to be as thick to be as tough as resin.
Also, weathering aluminum is a breeze. Heck, most of the time you don’t even need to weather it, just handling the part will do the job for you. Waaay simpler than trying to emulate realistic chips on a resin part.
For the ■■■■■■■■ accuracy freaks, there’s also the fact that the real packs were made with aluminum parts.
It’s not always necessarily lighter though. I got my accurate aluminum filler and beam line tubes today and they are pretty heavy. They still look 100 times better than what I was going to use though.
For the most part though, aluminum is lighter.
Cheaper too, really, if you’re doing it yourself. I wish I had known about the aluminum parts earlier. They are much cheaper than most of the resin parts I bought.
Big thing for me is accuracy, as mentioned above. Just depends on your skill level with certain materials, and your budget. My own goal is to have every part that was aluminum on the movie packs, be aluminum on my pack. Plus I love the idea of the aluminum weathering itself as time goes on. Accidentally get a part scratched? Well, it now looks even cooler.
I’d recommend going over every part with some fine steel wool to remove some of the slickness of the aluminum. It will help keep the paint from scraping off too easily.
I’d personally just do what CPU64 said, hit it up with some steel wool to get the paint to stick, and just hit it up with some satin black (or whatever black you use). You’d start getting cool weathering sooner, but then again I’m a sucker for weathering.
