I'm hoping some of you old heads can help. I'm starting on a Hasegawa 1/72 KI-84 Hayate. Love the kit, HATE the raised panel lines! I thought this might be a good candidate for rescribing panel lines. I've rescribed lines before that I've lost due to filling/sanding but never a whole kit. Any advice as to how to tackle this would be greatly appreciated.

If you've scribed before, it's really the same, only bigger.

Set aside plenty of time, because you will bore yourself rigid and you will make mistakes. If you're satisfied that they're accurate, use the kit's panel lines as a guide. Scribe along them, then scrape away the old lines. If the kit's not accurate, remove the offending lines first (they only get in the way) then lay down an edge and scribe along it. Dymo tape is flexible, but not tacky enough to go round tight curves more than once; masking tape is OK if you're very careful; I often use the edge of a business card held down with Blu-Tack. After a bit of practice you may get confident enough to do it freehand (over short distance, at least!). Some raised lines and features may need to be retained; scraping at unwanted ones gives them more chance of survival than sanding them away. As you're doing a Ki-84 you may find that there's a lot of fine fastener detail along the forward fuselage and under the centre-section. Be very careful when removing unwanted lines in these areas!

Either way, you then rescribe the new lines to clean them out, then do whatever it takes to get rid of the swarf without pushing it back into the lines. That depends on whether your scriber is a point or a blade - blades such as Olfa's P-cutter seem to be cleaner.

Always ensure that you mirror what you do - if the new line is outboard of the old one on one wing, it needs to be outboard on the other wing as well.

Did I mention setting aside plenty of time ... ? My next scribing project is a Vulcan, so pity me!

I just opened Revell/Monogram's re-release of the old 1/48 Stuka G and it's entirely raised panel lines.
10 years ago I would have thought nothing of this. Now, after finding this site and learning to shade panel lines, it just looks crappy. I got it for $5.00 - not worth scribing.
Think I'll use it as a speed build and let my son have it as a toy.

That may be for the best anyway. I have couple of those kits buried in my stash. The biggest problem isn't even the raised lines. It is the dimensions. (The kits fuselage is virtually a centimeter too short). I toyed with cutting the fuse and building it up with a succession of discs, but I can't justify the effort.

On the other hand, if you're going to practice a new technique (like massive re-scribing) why not do it on a $5 kit?


Cheers,
Fred