Last week, I bought a Meng/Dspiae glass file:
mainly because I had never heard of it and it was not expensive (not sure how much I paid, but IIRC it was a little over €5 [Edit: €5.05 including a 6% discount]), so I decided to give it a try to see how good it is. I’ve not put it to an exhaustive test, but when I started to build the Takom VT 1-2 kit, I found the suspension arm bump stops had a mould line on them that I decided to file off with both the glass file and a Trumpeter diamond file to compare the finish these give.
[ATTACH]465792[/ATTACH]
(Bear in mind that these pieces are about 3 mm across the part at the top with the mould line.)
On the left a part that hasn’t been cleaned up, showing the mould line, on the right is one I used the diamond file on, and in the middle is the one that I filed down with the glass file.
The difference between the last two is clear: the diamond file leaves a matt surface, but it’s not as obvious here as in the flesh that the glass file leaves a very smooth surface that actually shines. The light-coloured, rectangular area is where the part attached to the sprue, and it remains visible even though I can’t feel it with my fingernail anymore (always a good test for whether you’ve filed or sanded something enough). The part really is very smooth, and though I haven’t tested the file with a clear part yet, I have good hopes that it would work well on that too.
On the down side, it takes far more strokes with the glass file to get the mould part line off than with the diamond file, but that’s to be expected with a file as fine as this. These parts are also on the small side to use the glass file on, because it’s fairly wide (about twice the width of the Trumpeter flat diamond file) and because of that, I had a slightly odd experience
I’m sure that anyone who files things sometimes, has a habit of looking under the file to see if it’s being done right — but with a glass file, you can of course see the part through your file. I didn’t even realise this immediately, but when I did it was one of those “weird …” moments
On the whole, based on this small amount of experience, I think I would recommend these glass files — there are small and large ones, this is the small type — if you occasionally (or often) need to file things very smooth. I’m thinking car, bike and aircraft modellers will likely have more use for them than military modellers, certainly.
mainly because I had never heard of it and it was not expensive (not sure how much I paid, but IIRC it was a little over €5 [Edit: €5.05 including a 6% discount]), so I decided to give it a try to see how good it is. I’ve not put it to an exhaustive test, but when I started to build the Takom VT 1-2 kit, I found the suspension arm bump stops had a mould line on them that I decided to file off with both the glass file and a Trumpeter diamond file to compare the finish these give.
[ATTACH]465792[/ATTACH]
(Bear in mind that these pieces are about 3 mm across the part at the top with the mould line.)
On the left a part that hasn’t been cleaned up, showing the mould line, on the right is one I used the diamond file on, and in the middle is the one that I filed down with the glass file.
The difference between the last two is clear: the diamond file leaves a matt surface, but it’s not as obvious here as in the flesh that the glass file leaves a very smooth surface that actually shines. The light-coloured, rectangular area is where the part attached to the sprue, and it remains visible even though I can’t feel it with my fingernail anymore (always a good test for whether you’ve filed or sanded something enough). The part really is very smooth, and though I haven’t tested the file with a clear part yet, I have good hopes that it would work well on that too.
On the down side, it takes far more strokes with the glass file to get the mould part line off than with the diamond file, but that’s to be expected with a file as fine as this. These parts are also on the small side to use the glass file on, because it’s fairly wide (about twice the width of the Trumpeter flat diamond file) and because of that, I had a slightly odd experience
I’m sure that anyone who files things sometimes, has a habit of looking under the file to see if it’s being done right — but with a glass file, you can of course see the part through your file. I didn’t even realise this immediately, but when I did it was one of those “weird …” moments On the whole, based on this small amount of experience, I think I would recommend these glass files — there are small and large ones, this is the small type — if you occasionally (or often) need to file things very smooth. I’m thinking car, bike and aircraft modellers will likely have more use for them than military modellers, certainly.
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