Hints & Tips No.910
  Using Printable Sheets on Styrene Sheet
   From Graham Ross (Adelaide)
  Printable shingle and flooring templates for label paper should come out correctly sized. If not, you may need to resize. To print, enlarge pic to full size, right click, and then click on print picture. Set your printer on best quality. Use felt tip markers on label paper edges to keep white from showing. Make sure that shingles have bottom edge (shadowed) on bottom of roof sections.

In time, label paper may come loose. A thinned coat of contact cement will prevent this.

 Hints & Tips No.911
  Rusty Wheels
   From Charles Beckman (Nevada)
   To paint wheels without getting paint on the treads, open a wheel-diameter hole in a piece of anything stiff and thicker than the tread width, grease the wheel bearing, insert the wheel in the hole and spritz lightly with an air brush, spray can or equivalent.
   By using several holes, you can paint several wheel sets at one time. Turn the jig paint-side-down to unload. Do not re-use until the paint on the jig has dried.
 

Hints & Tips No.912
  Gluing and Painting Styrene Sheet
   From Graham Ross (Adelaide)
  When Building up Styrene buildings, it is better to paint exterior surfaces only before you assemble them. Do not paint edges for good plastic to plastic glue bonds. The edges left unpainted can be touched up later.

Hints & Tips No.913
  Steam Side Rods
   From Charles Beckman (Nevada)
   On most railways and railroads, side and main rods were simply wiped down with oil to keep them from corroding. They were left their natural, unpainted steel to make inspection for cracks easier. The oil would collect dust and crud, so they would only be shiny if freshly wiped down.
  

 Many preserved locomotives have their siderods painted to protect them from corrosion, which can be a source of confusion for folks who never saw steam in common-carrier service.
 I have seen 'stuffed and mounted' locomotives with the flute portion of the rods painted with such unlikely colors as baby blue! I do not doubt that the people who operated and maintained them cringe at the thought.

Hints & Tips No.914
  Cutting Styrene Sheet
   From Graham Ross (Adelaide)
  When cutting styrene one of the most aggravating things is to have your straight edge slip, resulting in a ruined piece. If you clamp at least one end of your straight edge to your cutting surface, this can be avoided. You can also glue sandpaper or wet and dry to the bottom of your straightedge for a non-slip surface.

Hints & Tips No.915
     From Charles Beckman (Nevada)
   Automotive wheel weights can be attacked with vice jaws, hammer and pliers and beaten into almost any shape. Ditto for large fishing weights. If you saw or file them, use a respirator mask and be sure to clean up and segregate the dust and shavings. Adding lead to landfills and/or the general environment is frowned on.

Hints & Tips No.916
  Using Switches for routing and point position indication,
   From Peter Mitchell (Sunshine MRC, Victoria)
   If you have a switch to allow your Capacitor Discharge Unit to work, you can use Double Pole Double throw switches which will throw your points in the direction you want as well as switch your routing to your preferred track using one leg of your DPDT switch. The other side can feed to your point motors.
   You are highly unlikely to throw more than 3 or 4 points at a time to route a train so a number of momentary contact switches can do small “banks” of motors in areas such as throats of yards etc. This would mean too that from a distance, you can see the intended direction of the points from your control panel!

 Hints & Tips No.917
  Taking Apart an Old Layout
   From Charles Beckman (Nevada)
   The trick in salvaging old track is to avoid twisting or kinking it. Depending on how it was anchored to the old roadbed, and what the roadbed was made of, it might be easy to lift, require extra care or be totally unuseable. Flex track laid with latex caulk on extruded foam will lift nicely, using a drywall knife as a friendly persuader.
   On the other hand, some flex track I glued to plywood with construction adhesive would have required dynamite! I cut my losses, and the spikeheads (with a utility knife) and salvaged the rails. I also swore a mighty oath not to do THAT again! You might also consider salvaging sections of roadbed complete - easy if you've built on cookie-cut plywood, harder if a flat tabletop.

 Hints & Tips No.918
  An Ersatz Paint Handle
   From Lionel Strang (Canada)
   I use old Pen tubes glued or blu tacked on to flat surfaces while I spray or brush models, especially stuff like small platforms etc.The other advantage is that the object can be suspended in air while it is drying.

Hints & Tips No.919

Electrofrog or Insul Frog?

From Charles Beckman (Nevada)

Never connect the frog of one turnout directly to the frog of a turnout facing in the opposite direction without having an insulating gap in the rail. Always power the stock rails, or feed power from the point end.

Since I have a few items (DMU, EMU and one 2-6-4T) with short pickup wheelbases, I am firmly in the 'all metal hot frog' camp. The minor nuisance of connecting up three wires to SPDT contacts on the point actuator is paid for the first time some stall-prone unit passes over the frog without a hiccup, particularly in a harder to reach area of the layout.

Hints & Tips No.920

Health and Safety in Model Railways when Painting

From Lionel Strang (Canada)

The manufacturing process for plastic kits may leave excess material, called flash, on the parts. I use a combination of fine sandpaper, files and emery boards to clean up the parts. Emery Boards are easiest in as much as they are flexible.and provide you with a good surface while handling small parts.

Hints & Tips No.921

Painting Small Objects

From Anthon Matteman

Especially when you're painting miniatures you want to be able to paint very tiny things. For this you obviously need a small brush. You can take a brush (e.g. size 0) and cut the outer hairs so you are left with a brush that is thin enough for even the finest work.

Hints & Tips No.922


Pockets for operating Cards


From Charles Beckman (Nevada)

I save and use that clear sheet plastic (plane surfaces only) from containers for the clear waybill pockets on car cards which I affix to the side of my layout.

Hints & Tips No.923

Printing Interior Walls

From Bruce Leslie MA USA

I do my interior walls “details” on an inkjet printer. I use cardstock, not photo paper. It is much cheaper and I don't end up with a glossy finish.

Generally, interior walls can only be seen through the windows of a structure. Thus, the ability to distinguish details from outside is very limited. You can get away with a lot.

Hints & Tips No.924


Making Tall Buildings 1


From Charles Beckman (Nevada)

A typical architectural modeler's trick would be to start with a sheet of plexiglas and layer styrene on it to form the structure beyond the glass line of the windows. This is primarily used for modern, "Mostly glass," construction, but there is no reason that the same technique could not be used to model older-style masonry buildings - even the style that had ground-level walls six feet thick. The best part is that the single plexiglas sheet would guarantee a strong, plane surface.

Hints & Tips No.925


Making Tall Buildings 2


From John Bentley (New Jersey)


Tall buildings are easily created simply by "stacking" the walls of shorter buildings, or multiple structure kits. Many of the larger Walthers Cornerstone buildings lend themselves to this particular approach, as does DPM's hotel. The buildings in the attached image show a number of tall (6-8 stories) structures created through this kitbashing method.

Hints & Tips No.926

Following Building Instructions in kits

From Anthon Matteman

Do not take building instructions too literally. Often it turns out that for instance the order in which you are supposed to glue parts together is not the most handy. Always read the building manual before you start building and try to think ahead if the suggested building method is indeed the best way. It is also advisable to see if the parts fit together properly before you really join them together. If they do not you might still be able to correct the situation.

Hints & Tips No.927

Making Tanks in N Scale from Condui or Water Pipe Unions

From Robert Backman (Texas)

I use an eight inch PVC coupling that makes a nice N scale tank. It has a styrene top super glued into place. I use a lot of these. They are about 5-6 inches high. PVC pipe and couplings are an easy, inexpensive way to make tanks for N scale.

(A Note from Trevor – You could also use a conduit inserted to double the height of the barrel union and make such a tank more suitable for OO or HO. I would not recommend going any wider for the tank as I feel that it will take a lot of real estate for not much return on your model.)

Hints & Tips No.928

Preventing Solder from Flowing

From Bernie Moore

A trick to not have things solder where you do not want it to, is to use a black felt tip pen like a Sharpie. Smear it where you do not want solder to flow. Works like a charm and comes off with alcohol and a tooth brush.

Test it on a piece of PCB tie first (the brand of marker you get). You can heat it till the PCB delaminates, solder will not flow on to where the ink lies.  

Hints & Tips No.929

Realistically limp looking scale rope

From Crandell Overton (Vancouver Island)

Suspend a length of black thread in the approximate sag/radius that you want between two points. Use clothes pins or what ever you have and get the thread to sag as you need to by moving the ends together.

Then make a mixture of white glue and water with a drop of dish detergent in it. I would use one part glue to four parts water. Over about 8 different sessions, use a small artist brush to paint the thread with this solution. Ensure it dries before returning to paint it each subsequent time. Eventually, it will be quite stiff. If necessary, paint it with acrylic paint to get it back to the right hue, but the white glue may just give the black thread a weathered look.

Use whatever method seems best to fix the appropriate length of what you have rendered between the appropriate part of the pole and any securing cleat or handrail.