Rub n' Buff: make anything look like metal....?
My Rub n' Buff has arrived!
Ooohh you say, that sounds exciting, but what the heck is Rub n' Buff? Rub n' Buff is a "wax metallic finish" like a paste that you can rub onto something that you want to look metal-ish. Sounds fantastic! If it works. Now, this is the type of thing I would normally kind of shun, as I am more inclined to actually make something out of metal if I want something to look like it is made of metal. Makes sense. However, I have this big piece of furniture that the laminate is all coming off of, and I would love to be able to steampunk it. Make it look like it is made of sheets of brass or something like that. A bit pricey and time consuming to do for real, so I did a bit of looking on line and came up with this stuff. Worth a crack. It seems to often be used to change bright yellow and orange nerf guns into retro futuristic looking weapons. I am sure this is not what Mr. Rub n' Buff imagined when he developed his top secret wax metallic finish formula, but hey nerf guns it is.
Anyways, when my little box of tubes arrived I immediately looked for something I could Rub n' Buff to my hearts content. The battery charger was sitting on the table so I grabbed it and started rubbing. Here's what I got.
steampunk battery charger
Interesting... Some of my initial impressions are:
It is gonna take a lot of practice to get the right technique down that will look good.
It doesn't seem to work to add more layers, as the next layer seems to dissolve the previous one.
It will need some kind of protective finish to keep from rubbing off.
Wax and grease remover spray seems to work very well to clean it all off, so I can try, try, again.
It is somewhat translucent, so everything underneath has to look the same.
Well, there you go, for what it is worth. I am going to have to do some more experimenting to come up with a final product I really like. I think it is never going to actually look like metal, but it still might look fun and funky.