Burned-in Panel Lines

[Ken Pugh]

Hi Gang,

I have some questions for panel line burners.

Do you just burn the detail like the woodburners do or do you burn it to the point that it actually engraves the detail into the wood?  I know you can use a knife blade to burn the detail, but does this give you a wide panel line?  Panel detail is a pet peeve of mine.  The panel lines the plastic fans insist on are grossly out of scale.  An airplane with that large a groove in its surface would have massive amounts of drag.

What does it look like after it is painted?  Do you see engraved panel lines, like the plastic puzzle guys love so much?  Or, does it give you a darker line under the paint?

I am working on my monster Hellcat and pondering methods of showing panel detail.  I know good ways of doing it but I've been asked by the owner of the plane to leave the detail off unless I really want to do it.  I am interested in burning detail in the future but want to pick your brains before I try it.  I would have to run experiments before I jumped into doing it on a plane I am building for someone else.

Ken Pugh

[davetunison]

Other than Jeff, I don't recall seeing any of the members carving panel lines, just ailerons, rudders etc. He also used a drafting tool to created a nice rivet effect on floats-



http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pid=568&fullsize=1

and I tried scribing them (not to scale) with a compass point just to give the model a die-cast toy effect -



http://smm.solidmodelmemories.net/Gallery/displayimage.php?pid=168&fullsize=1

I suppose they could be lightly scribed with a knife just to suggest a line, just barely showing through the paint.

[teddon61]

Ken
I burn all my panel lines in, but you must be frugal in you choice of lines to inscrib, because, as you indicated, too many lines, burned in to deep, takes the plane way out of scale.
but burning in lines is not the only use for a good woodburner, with a good tip on the burning tool allows you make the flying surfaces appear to be seperate from the wing or stab by first burning in the outline, then using the side of a chisel shaped burning tip to enlarge that seam and slope the leading edge of it.
I do this by placing the chisel edge into the outlined just burned into the wing, lowering the burning knife then drawing it back from the edge
I can't imagine painting a straight line on a wing panel from fuselage to wing tip without these lightly burned in lines, They remain as visible chanels throughout the sealing and pre paint procedures, and when finally you paint in the lines, the "ruts" of the wood burner are only slightly visible.
I do suggest that you get a tool that enables you to change the temp, so you can vary the depth of the lines if needed.
ted Billings
I think that if you try it you will like it, woodburning isn't perfect, it has it's problems, but by and large, it works.       

[Oceaneer99]

Jeff put a nice photo up of panel lines:



Panel_Lines
Close up of panel lines/rivets on 1/32 Beechcraft Baron wing. Using a wood burner, panel lines were burned into the sealed/primed model surface before painting. The knife blade tip is used to make fine lines; the thicker brass tip is used to make deeper lines such as control surface demarcations. The pounce wheel and gear tool are used to emboss rivet detail.

[JeffH]

All,

Thanks Oceaneer99 for adding that picture to the discussion thread.  I saw this discussion so posted that picture to add additional information on my experiments with simulating panel line detail.

On the model in the photograph, I used the gear tool shown in the bottom right to emboss the "rivets".  That was the first time I used that tool; although it makes evenly spaced indentations, they're a bit out of scale for this application.  The pounce wheel tool (on the lower left in the picture) makes much finer and more closely spaced indentations so next time I'll use that instead.  The gear tool is better suited for simulating cowling panel fasteners (which tend to be spaced farther apart).  That gear was salvaged from an old VCR, the pounce wheel was purchased at a drafting supply store.  I'm on the look out for old clocks which may also yield gears which can be pressed into service as rivet making tools.

Before using the gear and pounce wheel as rivet making tools, I modified them by filing the teeth to a point.  After filing, they make a more rivet-like "." mark than a "-" indentation.

As the photo shows, I use a wood burner to make the panel lines.  To control the wood burner heat, I rigged up a temperature control using a dimmer switch wired to an electrical outlet (that setup appears in the background of one of the photos in my member's gallery).  I burn the panel lines in after the model has been sealed and primed, and turn the heat up just enough to melt through to the wood as I draw the blade across the surface.  For a straight edge, I use a popsicle stick or piece of leather from an old belt.  This step leaves a raised furrow on the surface which I then smooth out using extra fine ("0000") steel wool.  It's important to use the finest grade steel wool obtainable since the coarser stuff leaves scratches which will show through the finish paint.  I then go over the model with a stiff brush (a tooth brush or household paint brush for example) to clean the sanding debris out of the panel lines.  If all went well, the result is a crisp line engraved on the model surface.

They may not be totally accurate, but panel lines and rivets add a little extra visual interest.

Jeff