Hai Guyz
I've googled for ages, with no success... I need to be able to give a model i'm making a near mirror metalic reflective finish, the catch is it's made from this soft utherene cast like material, forgotton the name, looks like mdf but doesn't split. It's easy to get smooth, but what resin/laquer could I try to use to get that look, if it's even possible? Thought maybe someone might know.
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That's a tough challenge! You need something like electroplating; I would try to find out how consumer gadgets get a shiny coating on plastic parts. Googling "plastic electroplating" brings up a ton of links!

Vacuum deposition is the tech I think

Try googling "Plastic Chroming"

If you find someone who does it locally for small runs, let me know please, I have some items I would like to get done too, but its too small an order for most of the places to be bothered with I would imagine, some bezel surrounds for nixie tubes
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a few guys have spray painted there plastic pocket bike fairings with chrome paint. it comes out looking pretty good.



still no idea what the material your talking about is
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For a home-grown option, Bunnings sell a product called "liquid Glass". It is a 2 part resin meant to give table tops a smooth & shiny surface. You could pour on a layer or two of that, then spray paint it with chrome paint. Do a test first to see if you can add a top coat of the Liquid Glass for a extra shine and toughness.

that sounds almost too easy nick out with the 1200 wet and dry angus
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Re Chrome Paint

My experience with it in the past is that it looks reasonably good when first painted (still not highly reflective like chrome though), but left to itself, it quickly goes dull and just looks like silver/grey paint.. a layer of clear *might* help stop that.
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hmm I'll try to get my hands on that stuff Nick, sounds like the ticket to getting a smooth surface! I think chrome paint might well do it in that case, it only needs to look good for about a week..
The material is this:
http://www.designophy.com/uploadedimages/tmn/2009/01/20/12.jpg
They're a polyurethane based block material, under a variety of brand names.
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You could spray it with Polyurethane to smooth out the imperfections
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I ended up fine polishing PVC rod and using chrome spray paint, came up rather nicely actualy!
Used ali for the centerpiece though, nothing beats a metallic finish than real metal...

Now onto another annoying question, probably Chris will be able to help with this one, I need to get hold of some wood veneers, make a models material look like woodgrain with a thin overlay of real wood. Apparently you can get it down to paper thickness or something, if I could find a non-useless Australian company that is...
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Bunnings sells wood veneer, I think $40 for a 500mmx500mm sheet.

My dad used balsa wood when he needed cheep wood veneer. It worked fairly well.
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how real does it have to look?
you can get "contact" in wood grain if you want it, its just printed. should be a few $
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Ended up using balsa wood for time reasons, plus it was $2...
Not quite finished, needs a screen still. This accurate sh*t is so hard....


PS, I stole the lens.
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