Flashing is caused by old moulds or a poor manufacturing run. This occurs when the mould has been used so many times that the edges wear away, this results in liquid plastic filling these holes during the injection process. When released from the mould this excess plastic is left on the kit. This creates that unwanted small strips of plastic around your kit. See photos below:
Flashing, however is not to be confused with moudling seams. Most parts will have a "seam" around the edges, this is simply where the two halfs of the mould join together and the join is never 100% flush therefore a seam is produced.
An example of flashing around the edges of this part
There are various techniques to remove flashing, i will describe a couple below. The best thing to do is expierment, every modeller has his own techniques;
A surgeons scapel, or other VERY sharp knife is perfect to remove unwanted plastic along easy to get to get parts such as fuselarges and turrerts. Simply work the blade at right angals to the part and work the blade downwards away from you. Becareful to only just "skim" the part you dont want to take out a huge chunk! The essential tip here is less is more; one can always remove more plastic but one cannot add any. This means that its best to do three or four scapel runs to get a smooth job rather than atempt it just the once. The more you pratice this technique the easier it will become!
Remove the unwanted plastic with a scapel.
An alternative to the scapel is wet & dry or sandpaper. This has the benefits of being mouldable to your desired shape, therefore gaining access to areas where the scapel would be awkward! It is important to use the right "grain" wet & dry as if its too rough it will ruin your model by pysically tearing and shreading the plastic! 400 grain is reccomended as its very fine! Using wet & dry takes a little pratice so we reccomended trying this on a few spare parts first. Grab a mug of water and your wet & dry, with your finger lightly dab water onto the model. The water acts as a lubricant, so as not to "shread" the plastic. Now rub the wet & dry in a circluar motion, evenly over the surface of the plastic. Dont press hard, you need very little pressure! You will now notice weird bobbles of plastic all over the place and murky water, fear not, simply grab some tissue and mop up the mess. This will leave you will a nice smooth surface to work on. The benifit of this technique, when combined with other advanded techniques is that it will provide you with a "keyed" surface to apply your paint to.
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