Technics vol.5: Scribing over raised panel lines

Scribing to obtain recessed panel lines is a tedious and difficult technique to master. Practice is the most important factor to get good results. Remember that there are alternative weathering techniques as i showed earlier, that included drawing with a sharp pencil along the raised details. However, old models with poor fit sometimes have the raised details destroyed by the building process that sometimes involve sanding and filling with putty. When this is the case, you may need to work all the panel lines and building raised details is far more difficult then to inscribe them all. In the pictures bellow, i will give you some suggestions on how i do inscribing on my kits. I am working on an Hasegawa F-5E in 1/32 scale.

First i take a sharp pencil and draw the panel lines to make them more visible before inscribing. I used the raised details as a guide to run the pencil along the panel lines.

These are my favorite tools: i like Tamiya scribing tool as an easy and effective instrument to do the job. A ruler and a very flexible piece of styrene are useful in order to align the scriber along the panel lines. Another very useful tool are these plastic label makers with adhesive on the back side. I allways work over a soft piece of cloth the keeps the model still under the pressure of my hand but allows easy movement of the part to get easy  access  to all the angles necessary to inscribe.

Once the panel lines are marked, i glue the label maker along them to create a point of support to the inscribing tool.

Keeping the sharp end of the blade at a 90 degrees angle to the surface of the model, first i push the nice along the panel line. This offers more control. Then i pull it back as it now runs inside a very subtle recessed panel previously done by the first movement.

Once all the panel where inscribed, a wet sand all the model with a 400 grid sand paper.

Some mistakes often occur. They are easily solved with some putty and sanding. Once this is done, all you need is to inscribe again. 

The finished work. I like to wet sand the model again with  600 and 1200 sand paper to get a smooth finish on the palstic surface.