Archive for May, 2007
May 30th, 2007
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May 18th, 2007
The debate still rages on with regards to the best sulphur free clay on the market today. What we have to realize is that every manufacturer of this type of material will be continually developing their product to prevent any loss of business, afterall, most auto manufacturers use this material to develop their future products. Modelers of all nationalities have their own opinions on what material should be used especially with sulphur free but the unfortunate reality is in most circumstances, the company policy where they work dictates the material to be used.
I’ve been in the position to have used or witnessed the offering in sulphur free clay from three of the main players, Chavant, Eberhard Faber and Kolb. To give you a more detailed description of how these clays face-off against each other, here is a more in depth review.
Clay Comparison
Chavant V130
- Compared to earlier versions by Chavant this finishes very well, allowing for spot check highlighting without the use of film by experienced modelers. Lesser experienced modelers will still have to view the traditional way, with dinoc or highlighting film.
- Once applied, the clay firms up very quickly which is good for instant modeling but can be a disadvantage, especially when priming bucks with a substantial amount of clay. A heat source would be advisable to ensure all clay layers adhere to each other to prevent delamination.
- Does not blend very well without an external heat source.
- Still has adhesion problems although better than previous versions.
- Substantially less abrasive than previous versions but still requires frequent sharpening of tools. The main culprit from the previous version was the glass spheres that were used for the filler, once the clay was brought up to temperature it blended very well but any length of time in the oven, i.e. 2-3 days would see a glazing of the billet surface. This glazed surface would not blend into the rest of the billet, giving an appearance of small pieces of shale in the mix, resulting in the steels skidding off the surface rather than cutting.
- Color still remains patchy due to aging in the oven and oven temperature change. Regardless of how consistent the oven temperature is the color will darken with age due to the materials used.
- Detailed edges are hard to repair or change. (Adhesion problems)
- Edges tear in any profile dragging process unless clay is keep very warm. This amounts to addressing small drag sections at a time as the clay cools very quickly. I would recommend an additional heat source such as a heat gun to rewarm surfaces prior to putting in any profile.
- Still susceptible to cracking. This you can probably put down to a 50/50 problem, 50% being the buck building process and 50% down to the lack of elasticity in the clay. The buck has to be tight, that is, no voids in foam joints and I mean, no gaps whatsoever otherwise the clay will eventually crack in that area. The clay has to be packed on correctly, in even layers and not by building up walls and filling in between.
- Machines very well although feed has to be slowed down to prevent cutter bounce.
- Machine finish is not as good as the sulphur based clays.
- Machine cutters require a regular re-sharpening but the abrasion issues are not as visible as in previous versions of sulphur free.
- This latest version of sulphur free still remains a hard clay to work with which will affect productivity in model changes. I would estimate a 25% increase in time in manual labor on any model change.
- There is a certain amount of delamination of the clay in areas that have design tapes affixed, again proving there is still an adhesion issue.
- Painting the clay proved to be a none issue. Using the recommended stripcoat as a barrier no adverse effect was noticed.
Faber Clay Light (3rd Generation)
- Very soft compared to the Chavant ( Softer than I307 and Y2klay V130)
- Color is a light brown/mocha, needing dinoc film or highlighting film to spot check highlights. I would prefer a darker color.
- Surfaces very good with far less effort and abrasion to tools.
- As the clay is softer it is far more modeler and design friendly, good for quick changes.
- Lower heating temperature than Chavant.
- Compared to Chavant it has good adhesion properties although it still displays some delamination from tapes.
- Faber is certainly more on the oily side making it harder to apply tapes. Tapes tend to creep after a certain amount of time on the model surface, more than the clay by Chavant.
- More elasticity than Chavant with no visible cracking but to be fair a scale model cannot compare to a fullsize model.
- Machines very well with no cutter bounce.
- Like Chavant, requires an outside heat source to fully blend because of the higher wax content.
- Minimal delamination, even after tapes have been on for awhile
- Holds edges very well but would be susceptible to damage because it’s that much softer.
- Painting is no problem providing a water based primer is used. When painted with the stripcoat, which is a solvent based material a certain amount of reaction was noticed in the form of minute bubbles.
Kolb TecClay
- Of the three clays Kolb is very soft compared to Chavant and Faber. This version was known as TecClay Hard but still proved to be the softest of the three.
- very consistant in color and was not effected by oven age.
- Kolb was the lightest in weight compared to Chavant and Faber.
- The color was the lightest of the three being a yellow/brown which I’m not use to but it did have very good light/shadow properties.
- I found that it had a tendency to be on the dry side, crumbling between the fingers when manipulated.
- Edges can be a problem because of the dryness but once attained hold up very well.
- Less abrasive than Chavant, about the same as Faber and finishes very well.
- Easiest of the three clays for packing but does suffer from shrinkage if applying in a large thickness, all at once. Behaves better if applied in layers.
- Very crack resistant but only a scale model to evaluate.
- Machines well with little tool abrasion.
- Lower heating temperature than Chavant but like Faber is softer and less dense.
- Painting was not a problem with water based primer but like Faber reacted with the solvent based stripcoat with minute bubbles.
Well as you see, each clay has it’s high points and low points, with no one clay totally outshining the other. To pick one as the overall winner would be impossible, each one is still trying to perfect its product. If there is any rationale in picking the right clay then maybe geographical location would be the answer, go with the material that is produced locally, at least the transportation cost would be cheaper.
May 12th, 2007
Now that the group writing project has finished on Darren Rowse problogger.net weblog a total of 893 participants managed to submit their top 5 list for the chance of winning the prize of $1001.00. When you consider that this tripled the number of participants from his previous high, money is oviously the controlling factor. After wading through this immense amount of information and yes it’s all good information the random draw winner was Nancy Callahan with her entry “Baby names from video games.”
During the reading of all these top 5 listings I have been pondering on how would I select a top 5 from all those submitted, everyone deserves a mention and to just relist the entire 892 other entrants would be in my mind the easy way out. So for me I decided that as my main discussion points on this blog are mainly automotive topics then what better top 5 to have than submittals that are automotive related.
So without further ado, here are my top 5.
No doubt all the 892 entrants will still be visited so that I can make sure there wasn’t anything that I missed and still continue the link fest. All I can say is, let’s look forward to the next fun group writing project and maybe it will be another record!!!!
May 8th, 2007
Darren Rowse of Problogger.net fame launches his latest group writing project this week and as usual there are a multitude of fellow bloggers eagerly pecking at their keyboards in the hope of being the lucky one drawn out of the hat for this weeks mega prize, $1001.00 cash, kindly donated by Chitika eMinimalls.
With this type of incentive how many of his regular 20,000+ readers are going to storm his inbox, or should I say 20,000+1 after I get this puppy sent out. Anyway for my participation I’m going to give an insight to the brand of vehicle that Southern Californians gravitate towards.
To try and give a somewhat true perspective I have jotted down on a pad the brands that are regularly seen on my daily 48 mile commute from Huntington Beach to Burbank. I’ve decided to allow two round trips to give a fairly comprehensive result, considering I’m marking each brand of vehicle that passes me against the name on the pad. As you can imagine a certain amount of dexterity is involved therefore I’ve kept my driving to the number two and three lane so as not to “upset” too many of my fellow commuters.
Southern California being the cosmopolitan area that it is reflects many trends before they become nationwide so let’s see how the results turned out.
- Toyota Motor Corp.
With vehicles like the Camry, Prius, Tundra, Corolla and Yaris just to name a few plus the luxury division Lexus, they managed to pick up 24.5% of the total vehicles that I was able to poll. These vehicles were of all different ages ranging from new to old but a significant proportion of them were newer Camry and Prius models.
- Honda Motor Corp.
Following their Japanese rivals Honda together with their luxury division Acura pulled in 19% of the votes with vehicles such as the Accord, Civic, Element and CR-V. As you can imagine the majority of these vehicles were Accord and Civics but amongst the numbers was a large amount of MDX and TL from the Acura luxury brand.
- General Motors Corp.
General Motors having more brands and vehicles to chose from then any other manufacture came in a distant third place with 15.7% of the vote and I can only attribute this to the current price in gasoline. A significant amount of the vehicles polled were larger SUV’s such as the Tahoe, Surburban, Escalade, Silverado Pick-Up and Sierra models. The only car presence in any numbers were the Impala and Cadillac luxury brand models.
- Ford Motor Co.
Fourth place Ford had a fifty-fifty mix of cars and trucks with the F150, Escape and Expedition being the most prominent of the trucks. The cars were led by the Mustang, Focus and Crown Victoria but with a total percentage of 13.5% was just above the half way mark of the leaders Toyota and like GM probably a victim of high gasoline prices and internal strife.
- DaimlerChrysler AG
This was a tough one to figure out, would I incorporate the Mercedes side of the deal or just stick with the Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep numbers. I decided to keep the American half of the equation as it looks as though the future will bring an end to this marriage so it is important to see where the market lies at this point.
With 8.2% of the vehicles polled the most prominent vehicle was the Jeep brand, from Wrangler to Grand Cherokee, Ram trucks were next and for the cars a mixture of Neons, Chargers, Sebrings and Chrysler Minivans.
In doing this small exercise it is quite apparent that the Big 2.5 are very much reliant on the SUV as their main source of income whereas the number one and number two in this poll are essentially purely car manufacturers who have just entered the truck business. With gasoline prices at an all time high in the States more emphasis is being paid to fuel efficient, eye pleasing vehicles, as also, are vehicles that also have hybrid technology.
The top five manufactures accounted for 80.9% of the total vehicles polled leaving just 19.1% for all other manufactures, so there you have it, 6 hours of driving and a top 5 list to boot!!!
I hope you enjoy!!!
