Even during a pandemic lock-down I don't think I have enough patience to deal with that many photoetched pieces.Originally Posted by grant hutchison
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Even during a pandemic lock-down I don't think I have enough patience to deal with that many photoetched pieces.
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Actually, I forgot to count a bunch. The total is 210 photoetch steel and 16 brass strips.
I actually find this kind of model building very pleasant--tiny little tasks that require careful planning and complete attention, each one a little flicker of pleasure to get right.
Grant Hutchison
Moderator
When we moved into our current house almost six years ago, I moved my HO scale model railroad layout. It survived the move with some damage, particularly to some of the track (which I felt I never did a great job on). I also had that layout for at least about 15 years at that point, and was kind of ready for a change. So I dismantled that layout, except for the table, and even decided to do a change of scales to N scale. I've been putzing around with some temporary trackage since then, acquiring equipment, and learning about DCC (which the old layout didn't have and the new one will) and working on a layout design.
I finally have settled on a design and started acquiring track and doing some test fittings. The photo below shows the first tests. The design is basically a double track figure 8. There will be a line, on the right in the photo, that comes around the foreground and down the left side that leads to a passenger station and engine facility. There are a couple of other sidings off the figure 8.
The photo was actually taken a week or two ago. I've now moved that track off temporarily, and last night glued a 1/2" (12 mm) thick foam board to the tabletop. Tonight I should add another layer of that. That will be the basic subfloor under the track (Kato).
The setting will be an urban setting, modeled extremely loosely on a small city like Cleveland. There will be a small river going left to right across the middle of the layout, with the multiple bridges crossing that.
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Cool.
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How are all those separate metal pieces attached to the rest of the model? I have done models with a few metal pieces but nothing like that.
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The Leif Ericson Cruiser
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Cyanoacrylate glue. The girder structures of the incomplete rim need to be partially assembled, with the struts threaded on to the longerons in the right order, then the longerons cemented in place at either end, then the struts slid to their correct locations and glued individually. There's a fan of little steel triangles that need to be placed around each spoke where it joins the hub--the locations are sketchily moulded into the resin parts, but basically it's a matter of coating two edges of a steel triangle with cement, putting it in place, holding until the cement sets, and releasing. You get quite good at it after the first twenty, and the kit does provide a supply of spares.
I have a large posable magnifying glass with a ring light, which is the critical bit of kit for this sort of work at my age.
Grant Hutchison
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Here's what I tried to describe above.
Positioning the struts on the the central longerons (the inner and outer longerons can be added after the core assembly):
One of the small photoetch flanges (a US cent fits just inside the outer rim of a UK penny):
You can see there's a little bit more file work required to smooth the edge of that piece where it was attached to the fret.
And the triangular flanges in place around the spokes:
Grant Hutchison
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Goodness! What are those little triangles, maybe 3mm long? You can almost see them!
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
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Must be about that; maybe closer to 4mm on their spoke-facing edge--the cutting mat the penny is resting on is ruled in centimetre squares. Awkward little things when you have to file down the fret attachment. They came in several different shapes, because the hub edges need to conform to the curve of the hub.
Grant Hutchison
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I have one of those. Yes, it's very helpful to old, tired eyes.
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Thanks Grant for the detailed explanation. That was quite interesting. I tend to avoid super glue as it always seems like I stick everything together except the targets. I more often stick my fingers together (or stick them to the target) than anything else. That said, I would imagine like you said, after some experience that it becomes less difficult.
I have recently seen some demonstrations that looked interesting about using it as filler on a model, or even to fix cases of some household items, so I might look into it more.
Same here, though I have used it more for some of my amateur electronics work. Incidentally, I wonder if a vacuum pick and place tool would be useful for some of your work? I have one for my occasional attempts at working with surface mount electronics. This is similarly small stuff that has to be fit on a pc board. The tool is a wand hooked up to a small vacuum pump used to grab and hold small parts. Best for flat pieces, not wire like items.
Last edited by Van Rijn; 2020-Apr-19 at 12:31 AM.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
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I've been using it for some filling with this kit. There are some nasty moulding errors that have produced broad creases in what should be flat surfaces. Ordinary filler works poorly on these, but smoothing on a little cyanoacrylate gel and then sanding works well.
On occasion it would be useful for placing flat photoetch on to a flat surface. What I generally use for that is a little bit of Blu-Tack on the end of a cocktail stick / tooth pick. Lets me put the part in place, let the glue set, and then roll off the Blu Tack. For very fine stuff I use a little blob of white glue to hold the part on to the cocktail stick--easy enough to rub it off the metal after the cyanoacrylate has bonded the photoetch to the underlying surface.
Grant Hutchison
Banned
I think Adam Savage used baby powder with super glue in a DIY segment once.
The Cygnus from THE BLACK HOLE was done by “Primitive Dave” from the rpf
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Many years ago, when engineering offices had long rows of drawing boards and we used pencil on velum, everyone had a hunk of blu-tack on the desk for cleaning residual graphite dust of newly pointed pencils. Someone showed me a trick: Form a bit of blue stuff into a rough column a couple of inches high. Form a little blob into a cube about 1/4 inch in size. Set the cube at the top of the column and it'll walk its way down.
Originally for cleaning typewriters, IIRC.
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Here's the completed Space Station V model.
Grant Hutchison
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I was somehow disappointed at seeing the stand -- I was wanting it to be hung by a thread from the ceiling. Very nice!
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Yes, very cool. Nicely photographed as well.
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Rocking it! Looks so much like the movie, it's amazing.
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
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Oh, impressive, very good. That looks like the Orion III launch poster. How many colors of paint were used for detail? Three seem obvious but I’d guess there is more.
"The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." — Abraham Lincoln
I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?
The Leif Ericson Cruiser
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Thanks, all.
Yes, Robert McCall's painting was what gave me a way of adding the Orion to the model without it looking excessively odd. I've seen builds of this kit that try to reproduce the docking sequence from the movie, but the spacecraft always just looks like it's been stuck to a stick. Flipping it around and lightly tinting the transparent rod let me evoke the movie poster and book cover instead.
There are five shades in the grey areas, and three in the red-brown, with of course some black for the windows. I hand-tinted selected detail with some strong shades before airbrushing less saturated colour on top, then used a couple of different densities of grey wash, and some burnt umber on the "red oxide" sections. There are also a lot of small more-or-less transparent grey decals, which I printed myself, dotted across the surface to add a bit more surface interest and to (hopefully) give the subliminal impression that the thing is bigger than it actually is.
Grant Hutchison
Established Member
Did you consider installing any interior illumination?
Selden
Moderator
That's awesome; I love the Pan Am liner flying out.
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This is not exactly kit building, but stay with me. I was recently in Nashville helping my 85-year-old mother organize things at her house preparing to move in with one of my sisters, who lives much closer. She wanted me to take a wooden table I remember from growing up. 20x30 inch top, slightly fancy curved legs and lathe-worked central column top. What I did not know until two weeks ago was that my father brought it with him when they married in 1956 - he had used it to build airplane models on. (As she was reminded when she once had it refinished and was asked what all those little digs with occasional metal flecks were). I have a use case for this! Much more character than the folding plastic table it just replaced.
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It's all moulded in big chunks of solid resin, so getting lighting into the rim windows would require massive and potentially disastrous surgery. I think it would be easy enough to drill out the hub and place lights and diffusers at the back of the docking bays, but I was keen on using Marco Scheloske's lovely transparent stand, and didn't want to spoil the appearance with a run of wires and a battery pack.
Grant Hutchison
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The Moebius Moon Bus! Nice.
Grant Hutchison
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I was hoping to see the pilots' cabin and illuminated consoles from the opening scenes of "2001" inside the Pan Am spacecraft. You could probably rent a cheap electronic microscope. Plus, the model should play "The Blue Danube," of course.
Do good work. —Virgil Ivan "Gus" Grissom
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I see you have a Metal Earth kit in the bag to the right and I've been wondering about building the Apollo Command Module. Have you built many (or any) and if so, how do they work out?
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Here are a couple of rocket models I've done over the last few weeks. Left is the Atlas V with Starliner "Calypso" (1/96) and right is the Falcon 9 with Dragon "Endeavour" (1/100). Both are mostly paper with some details done with balsa wood.
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These are very nice. Where did you get the patterns? How tall? There's a sort of forced-perspective thing going on the photo that made me initially think they were over in the corner of the room and about seven feet tall!
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Nice. And I spy with my little eye what appear to be Saturn I and V in the background!Here are a couple of rocket models I've done over the last few weeks. Left is the Atlas V with Starliner "Calypso" (1/96) and right is the Falcon 9 with Dragon "Endeavour" (1/100). Both are mostly paper with some details done with balsa wood.
Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk
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