With a sponge?

 

Sanding sponges are a common (in many cases essential!) modeling tool.  




edit: typo

 

I usually use sandpaper with either my fingers or I'll put one of my needle files behind it for tight spaces or if I need it to be stiff. What advantages do the sponges give you?

 

Sponges are good for rounded/curved surfaces, or any type of surface where you want a softer rather than hard edge. For example, if you wanted to get rid of a seam line in a fuel tank or nosecone.

See 9:34 onward here:

 

I never got smooth surfaces with sandpaper on my toys. Sandsponges with water makes miracles. At least in my case, but anyone must use whatever works better for yourself and your needs.

 

wet sponges are great for sanding drywall too, eliminates most of the dust.

 

What grit size would you typically use for fixing the yellow panels? I'll buy some to expand my tools for my bots  

 

I use three different from harder to softest.
The harder removes quickly the yellowing. The medium one eliminates big scratches made by the harder. The softer will finish the job leaving the surface smooth like a baby skin.  

 

Something like 180, 240, 1000 and 1500?

 

I take it up to 2500. Even then the plastic doesn't get its shine back (though that's probably fine for MST figures which aren't that shiny to begin with). If I want to get the shine back, I use a plastic polishing kit. Also this is if I'm not planning on painting it. If I plan to paint, I just use like 600 or so - the slight roughness gives the paint something to bite into.

 

What Snaku said. And I would definitely not recommend starting with 180 and 240. That's way too coarse for this kind of job. In fact, that's too coarse for almost every plastic job, save for sanding something away entirely (and in that case, you're better served using a file).

In general, I'd start with a higher grit first--nothing less than 600--and then work your way up to 2500. If that doesn't get you what you want, then you can go back and try starting with 400. Remember, you can always sand off more, but once plastic's gone, it's gone (unless you got good putty skills). So err on the side of caution, or higher grit as it were.

All that said, I'd recommend just waiting until your airbrush arrives and painting the parts.

 

Cool, thanks, I'll definitely get the 2500, 1500, 1000 and 600. Maybe throw in the 240 as well.

Great advice   I'll skip the 240, too coarse for these small plastic parts.
Airbrush is in the house, but I'm totally new to airbrushing and different color shades could be a thing. Airbrushing Magnus' bumper red should be a piece of cake, but trying to get the exact same color white/off white will require some practice.

 

UM 2.0 vs CP-01, CP-01 is about half a head taller.

This is about the most articulation you will get out of the figure. However, you can mess around with the ab hinge to allow the entirety of the hip armor to get out of the way along with the hip skirts of the white Prime figure to get a bit more out of the thighs.

The proportions are very different from v1 but this works just as well for me.


And oh, the CP-01 extra hands do not work on him because they attach differently to the armored forearms.

Overall I'd give this a 7.5/10 and I like the bot mode a bit better than v1.

Edit: added another pic. This figure has decent balance:

 

So I transformed the armor into the trailer for the first time, just a few moments ago (had him in Magnus form since day 1) and that he holds together really well.. nothing pops of at all. Read multiple comments about pieces popping off really easy.
Did you guys use every tab available? Especially the one in the circle?

 

I didn’t really have any issue with things popping off the trailer either, just had to make sure everything was tight.

 

Question for you guys, which color scheme would you choose, white or silver bumper insert?
Don't mind the hasty edits, I got to go to work in a couple of secs, but wanted to ask this before leaving  

 

Silver is the way 

 

The silver insert looks better to me. My MP22 is hard to reach inside the display case, I believe he has the light grey/silver insert as well.

The overall default dark grey bumper just looks bad to me. I would've instantly bought it earlier if MS gives him the red bumper.

 

plus one for silver as well...

 

Finally, armor mounted. I'm very happy with the truck form... But I can't love the bot form, I have to be honest: It disappointed me a lot.

It's not a bad armor but it's not my idea of a "figure". It's not a Transformer as we all know, for me there's more handicaps than pros (totally personal):

- When you mount the chest, be careful with the stress marks on both sides. I sanded the tabs to avoid breakages (easy fix).
- The Gun is massively big, not nice to display, it feels weird.
- The arms are too short, or are the feet too high?. Proportions don't fits for me.
- The elbows can't lift the weight of the gun.
- Pieces of the legs are popping-out OVER AND OVER. Desperately annoying.
- A lot of left pieces when it's not in truck form, not a useful pieces. (Cannon shoulders... Nani!?).
- The arms of the white Prime are totally chipped because of the armor. The silver lines lost some paint... The armor bracelets are too tight.
- Very limited articulation on the skirt. If you push up the skirt of White Prime, then the piece of Magnus skirt pops-out.
- Yellowing everywhere... There's no homogeneous white.
- Made of ABS, I sanded too many tabs and holes to avoid stress marks...
- Now I miss my MFT Magnus and the Matrix Chamber.  

I'm gonna keep it because this last months I became a MST fan, but surely, I'm gonna buy the new MFT Magnus 48A.