Pressing Matters

A problem that anyone who has ever scratch built out of styrene will have experienced is that the material develops a life of its own, especially when you’ve used a harsh solvent like MEK to glue it.

This can be quite acute when building up several layers such as with a carriage side which left to its own devices will curl like a banana.

Many years ago I found a partial solution in the old-fashioned photo album - remember them?

Between sessions working on the pieces I store them on the sticky page beneath the cellophane, and then for good measure place the album at the bottom of a pile of heavy books, as if pressing flowers.

It might seem like overkill but it does make a difference, especially when you begin to laminate the piece.

If you have time to leave it for the styrene to fully cure you will find it stays pretty flat thereafter.

You can also reduce the tendency to curl by using something much more gentle like Limonene, but the downside is the joint takes much longer to bond, and pieces can move out of position while you’re handling the model.

Strip Search

I decided to do something which was long overdue yesterday, and tidy up my modelling area.

It was the perfect time to do it, having finished my work on number 20 and handed it over to Himself, and the place was becoming a bit of a disgrace.

Although I try to be quite disciplined about putting materials back when I've finished with them, it seems inevitable that over a period of months I build up a collection of stray plastic strips scattered all over the desk.

The simplest thing would be to gather them up and put them in the bin with all the other offcuts and chaff, but, as I posted here a while ago, I'm acutely aware that this stuff is getting a lot more expensive than it used to be.

As a result, the miser in me (which is never far from the surface) decided it was a worthwhile investment of my time to go through them all, work out their size, and sort them back into the vast collection of packets.

I am now bathing in the warm glow of both tidiness and thrift.

Skirting The Issue

Spending a hour at the workbench feels like a bit of an achievement after rather too long away.

I've fitted the skirt around the bottom of the chassis of 120.

Of course it's not really a skirt in real life, it's the big, solid underframe that the body sits on, but that's all part of the illusion of making a model.

This is a lot easier if you get exactly the right size of styrene strip to begin with, which is what I've done in this case.

On previous carriages in the series I've run out of this stuff and had to cut long pieces from a big sheet.

Not only do you have to ensure that they are completely straight and the same width all along, but I've also found that when you make the cut it leaves a slight angle on the edges so that when you glue it in place it sometimes develops a lean inwards or outwards.

Using the proper stuff generally avoids this issue and saves a lot of hassle, although with the price of a packet of strips now hitting £6 it's getting quite pricey.

I found a very old, empty packet at the bottom of my stash last night - probably dating back around 25 years - and it still had a price label on it showing less than £1.50.

A 300% percent increase!

I wonder how this compares to overall cost of living over that period?

Describing The Barn

After my last post about starting work on the model of the old barn a few people got in touch to ask about how I scribe stonework into the styrene?

(And a few others wanted to question my sanity...)

One of the questions was about what kind of tool I used.

I don't know exactly what it's called but this picture may help.

I've read some suggestions that it's some kind of dental tool - which rather puts me off ever going back to the dentist, if you ask me - but all I know is that I picked it up on a tool stand at an exhibition more years ago than I can remember.

I use the tool a the left hand end - the sort of pointy-spoon-shaped piece.

I hold the shaft very close to the bottom in the same way as you would a pen. The point is very sharp and it doesn't that that much pressure and a couple of passes to gouge out a convincing amount of styrene.

There are different types of plasticard, I know, but the stuff I use is probably a lot softer than you might think it is if you've never seen this done before.

The effect, I think, is rather good, especially at a distance.

The only problem is that the surface is much too smooth very rough or lumpy stones, but it's quite acceptable (to me anyway) for walls built out of Welsh slate blocks which can be quite flat.

Besides which, once it's six feet away from the viewer, as this will be, who is ever really going to notice?

Improvisation

I've been rather lax in letting my stocks of styrene strip dwindle, which means that quite often at the moment I'm finding I don't have the right size just when I need it.

Such was the case the other day when I wanted to add a big, bendy pipe which sticks out of the big box underneath 117 and disappears up into the carriage.

In fact, that's a lie. I did have a small piece of the correct size tube but it was old and brittle and snapped when I attempted to put a 90 degree bend in it.

So what to do?

Eventually I had a brainwave. Speaker cable!

I sliced off a section of one half of cable, stripped out the multi-strand from inside, leaving just the soft sleeve and inserted brass wire in its place which could be bent to hold it in shape.

The sleeve was almost exactly the same diameter as the styrene tube I was going to use.

Fixed in place on the model it doesn't look half bad.

And it was an awful lot cheaper than buying a new packet of the right size styrene tube.

Result!

Look out

A reader of the Bron Hebog Facebook page asked me how I was going to make the master for the guard's look out duckets on 11 & 12 so I thought I should show you some step by step pictures.

Instead of trying to carve the curvy shape out of a solid block I prefer to build it up with a framework with a thin styrene skin over the top.

In the first picture below you can see I'm making it up on a thick section of styrene because it's going to be used as a casting master.

I'm using 0.60" seize styrene and I've laid out the formers for the flat, square upper section of the ducket.

The bars on the outer edges of the top section are inset because this is going to form the tiny window opening - you'll see the effect when the skin is placed on top.

I've quartered a piece of styrene tube and glued that along the top - with a slight lip - to represent the tumble home at the top and the very bottom bar has been shaved a little with the blade of the scalpel to round off its edge.

Next I glue on a 'skin' to the exact same width as the framework.

It's quite thin. I've chosen 0.10" sheet. You'll see why in a moment.

You can also see how the window opening is there now.

In this last shot which shows the completed ducket you can see that I have pressed the tail of the skin down and glued it to the backing piece to form the distinctive curvy profile and chopped it off at the bottom.

I have also added some thin beading strip and filled the gaps with Milliput.

Now it's ready to have a box built around it and be covered in gooey moulding rubber mix.

Carriage Update

While you've been entertained by such fripperies as decorated mugs in the last few days I've been busy getting the bodyshell of our latest carriage put together.

The roof is still a 'rough cut' at the moment.

The skin is oversize and needs to be trimmed and shaped at the sides and the ends and, of course, fixed into position but that won't happen for a while yet - certainly not until the interior is in place.

I am considering casting some seat and table units again like I did with the last back of all-resin Superbarns I produced.

It won't be possible to use the same seat casting because the seat backs are a different shape and I suspect they may be set slightly further apart in the more generously proportioned WHR carriages.

Making a new master may be the next move, or possibly the boxes and bits which hang down from the floor.  I haven't made my mind up yet.