Hints & Tips No.970

Cutting Thick Plastikard (Styrene) Pt 2

From Geoffrey Lomann

A "Plastic Cutter" or "Scrawker" (which is what Eileens Emporium called them a few years ago as you read this…) is what you need. The blade is different to a normal Stanley blade and effectively machines out a sliver of plastic. It will take several strokes to cut through 2.0 mm but as you apply less pressure you are more likely to get a clean, straight cut.

I have a Tamiya version but they are done by a variety of other tool suppliers.

Hints & Tips No.971

To Convert From One Scale to Another

From Stephen Macallum and Trevor Gibbs

There are many blueprints out there but not always in your scale. The cost would be prohibitive for magazines and others to make a blueprint for each scale. There is however a way to combat this. You can take the blueprint and go to a Copy place and on one of their copiers simply convert it to your scale. If the blueprint is in one scale simple look at the chart and then use the percentages to convert it to your scale. For instance to convert HO to O scale I would need to set the copier to 181.4 % when copying.

To convert from one scale to another when copying a blueprint, use these percentages;

(Unfortunately the table has not worked for this so I will set up an alternative web page with a link from this site… one of these days… actually fairly soon! - Trevor)

Hints & Tips No.972

Reusing Old Electical Items for Effect

From Diedre Kaiata (Greymouth NZ – formerly of Wolverhampton!)

An old MRR had an article using flat auto glass for lake surfaces (safer), paint from underneath blue/black, scrape tiny slits in paint, glue tinsel underneath, add small light and mini fan and you have twinkling moonlight off the water, now we can utilize old computer fans!

Hints & Tips No.973

Recycling Thrown out items

From Diedre Kaiata (Greymouth NZ)

I saw a guy's refinery built of bits found around the home. One in particular that I thought of was the float out of a toilet flush for a circular spherical tank. Ball floats come in all shapes and sizes, I am sure may are tossed out at land fills. Just make a circular styrene ring with support stauntions to drop the ball right in as it will not glue with styrene cement.

Hints & Tips No.974

Cheap Stationary Boilers

From John Carter (USA)

Great looking upright, stationary boilers…cheap! I recently visited my local hobby shop and when I left, one of my purchases was a handful of C/A adhesive applicators. These things look like really long eye droppers and are made of a flexible plastic. On closer inspection it was clear that by cutting off the very bottom and the tip, a great static boiler could be created.

The really nice thing is that these applicators are designed to take C/A and most paint and solvents don’t seem to harm them. Prime them, paint black or rust, add some wire and valve detail and you have a nice model. At time of writing, you can get these applicators for about .50 cents!!

(A note from Trevor - I have just recently saved a few of the party popper plastic containers which also look like stationary boilers with a bit of an accordion effect - They could be wrapped with a thin styrene sheet or even paper and painted accordingly.)

Hints & Tips No.975

Making a Lighthouse

From Jack Hanks (USA)

If you wish to build a free-lance lighthouse try using an upside down drinking glass as the foundation. The upper part of the structure can be built from the parts box.

Hi,

Re tip 461

Hi for a scrawker I use an Olfa Cutter: Squires Tools sell them and it is on this section -

http://www.squirestools.com/13-13.pdf

That is a 1.25MB PDF.


I've had it for years - it doesn't wear out on plasticard, but will on aluminum. When it removed a sliver of plasticard there is no raised edges, unlike a knife blade produces.

On my favourite building material (PVC solid foam) push it though: if pulled it rips the surface.


No connection with Squires by the way - just a customer.

Yours Peter.

Hints & Tips No.976

Lighting Motor Vehicle

From Steven Robertson (South Australia)

One place that many people tend not to put lights is automobiles. It can be done! I drilled out the headlights on a plastic Hot Wheels car, and put one Minitronics bulb in each hole. Now the car has working headlights. Also, I lit up a double deck London bus, for a nice effect at night. Red bulbs make nice tail-lights, especially in a heavily trafficked area.

Hints & Tips No.977

Aging Timber Easily

From Michael Lester (Toronto)

One tip is to make unstained wood look old and gray. The tip is very simple just lightly go over the balsa wood or other timber with a dull pencil.

Hints & Tips No.978

Uses for Wet & Dry Sandpaper and Masking Tape

From Michael Fahey (Chicago)

Can be cut into thin strips to simulate tar paper roofs.
Can be used as a one piece for flat or sloped building roofs.
Perfect for sanding balsa wood to remove the “furry stuff”.
The finest grade of wet & dry sandpaper can be used for roads and parking lots.

Hints & Tips No.979

Uses for Masking Tape

From Michael Fahey (Chicago)

Makes easy to model tarps covering loads, if extra holding power required then paint sticky side with CA Glue.
Also good for different textered tar paper roofs – will accept paint easily.
Wider tape can be used for roads – paint with desired color.

With just over 4 hours to go here in Australia - Happy New Year everyone and all the best!  Trevor

Hints & Tips No.980

Simulating Small Window Glass Panels

From Jos Geurts (Brunssum, Netherlands)

I mainly make windows out of acrylic plastic and the large( outside) windowframes out of an other sheet of thin cardboard that I glue behind the cardboard walls or I use a flexible kind of transparent plastic like the type used to box chocolates etc. First I measure out where to mark the lines to imitate the small window frames. Then I carve a groove with a sharp needle over those lines. Make sure you cut your grooves as evenly as possible.

Because you have carved the lines, there will be some burrs on both  sides of the lines. Use an small piece of wood to remove these burrs (stick from an icecream?) Fingernails will work too! Then I colour the carved lines with appropriately coloured paint. I "paint" it with the fingertips…I push the paint into the carved lines and let it dry for 15-30 seconds and than remove the paint with a smooth cloth. Dont push to hard on the cloth. If you do it right, the paint will be left only in the lines!!

So now it is only a matter of glueing the piece of acrylic or plastic carefully behind the window…Just use a LITTLE bit of glue!

Hints & Tips No.981

Making Concrete Slabs

From Paul Aegerter ( Ziemetshausen, Germany)

As I did not want to put just asphalt down around my "Auto Repair" model, I decided to make concrete slabs. It is simple! Take a piece of thin pasteboard, cut out "puzzle-pieces" and glue it on a sheet of paper. Leave a small gap between the slabs and then there is just to plant some grass between a couple of slabs. For the weathering, I used a mix of black, brown and white pigment color. I think that it looks much better than simple asphalt! It took me about an hour to make a fairly sizable slab piece!

Hints & Tips No.982

Marking Wiring

From Steve Jacobs (Wellington NZ)

When running wires under the layout things can get a little confusing really quickly! A few years ago now I was in the process of wiring and wanted some way of Identifing my wire runs.

Here in New Zealand our bread has plastic tags to close the bags. They come in a number of different colours, BLUE, GREEN, RED, YELLOW, ORANGE & WHITE. I just staple them on the joists but before doing this, I write on the tag with a black marker pen some reference info EG: M/Line Track Power etc. To put the wire in the tag you just push up on the bottom of the tag and the tag holds the wire in place all neat & tidy. I choose a colour and use it only for track power wires, EG for my track power I use Red & Black wire so I use RED Tags for track power and nothing else. The best thing of all is they are FREE or at least only the cost of the bread.

Hints & Tips No.983

Cutting Thick Plastikard No 2

From Doug Dickson (SW France)

Most railway modellers using styrene sheet to build models cut their plastic sheets by making repeated passes with a sharp scalpel blade, or score the surface deeply with a scriber before bending and snapping the piece away. There are disadvantages to both these methods. Not least, when using thicker sheets like .040” the ragged break-line needs a lot of cleaning up and the ‘plough’ action of the blade or scriber raises a ridge as it works, moving the tool away from the ruler and introducing inaccuracies. Those expensive scalpel blades don’t stay sharp forever, either! Using this simple tool, you will be able to make clean, precise cuts that need little fettling, and with practice and an adequate template even cut out curved components.

The tool is a piece of ground-down hacksaw blade, but to function really well a little subtlety is required in the grinding. All cutting tools need certain properties to do their job efficiently, one of which is ‘clearance’. It is no good having a razor sharp cutting edge if the part of the tool that supports it gets jammed in the material being cut. That is what essentially happens when a scalpel blade sinks further and further down into a sheet of plastic, your strength alone helps it shoulder aside the cut plastic to reach fresh material. The razor sharp tapered edge lacks any ‘clearance’. The sides of the saw blade are ground away so as to become thinner the further it travels into the plastic, leaving the hooked chisel edge to function effortlessly.

When grinding a piece of hacksaw blade, use eye protection and remove only a little steel at a time to keep it cool and avoid ‘drawing the temper’ which will soften it. Dip it repeatedly in cold water as you work. The amount of ‘clearance’ need be very little; indeed there is not a lot of metal to remove from the sides of a hacksaw blade!

Take the tips off of the toothed side and wrap it in masking tape to make it more comfortable to use or fit it in an Eclipse ‘No. 12’ blade holder. The exact profile of the hooked tip is not too important, but try not to make the ‘beak’ excessively fine or it will dig in. After prolonged use, grinding only the tiniest amount off the front of the beak will restore it to full sharpness. I have used the blade shown for more than twenty years, cutting Perspex up to ¼” thick for various projects. If you don’t have a dedicated grinding wheel, an inexpensive attachment for an electric drill will serve equally well or you may find a friendly mechanic willing to do the job for you, it takes less than five minutes to revolutionise your plastic cutting.

Hints & Tips No.984

Simulating a Welding Operation

From Brian Jordan (New York)

My mother inlaw gave us some coin sized lights that flicker. You put them in pumpkins for halloween and the like as a safe candle if you will. They take a watch battery. I placed one in my foundry and it looks like some one is welding in there. I need to physically turn them on and off, but the effect is cool.

Hints & Tips No.985

Another Use for Chocolate Containers

From Doug Dickson (SW France)

I use Ferrero Rocher Clear chocolate container lids as platform canopies on my layout. They are of a uniform size. Thicker boxes can be used as actual platform segments.

(A Note from Trevor – this is a rather pleasant way of acquiring models as well!)

Hints & Tips No.986

How to pull up ballasted track

From Vicki Makin (Queensland)

This instruction will work for those that have ballasted using PVA (polyvinylacetate) glues such as Selleys Aquadhere (AUS) or Elmers (US).

The first step is to wet the ballast with water, between the rails and on either side. I coud not find my eyedropper so I dunked my finger in water and spread it. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes. Next dig out the ballast on either side of ties that have a nail into the tabletop and pull out nails.

Using something suitable, utility knife or putty knife (I used a 1/2 inch wood chisel upside down because I could not find my utility blades) gently push the blade under the ballast and prize the track up. Once one piece of track has been lifted the rest will follow. What is left is ballast ready to be scraped up and I used my chisel and it did a very neat job.

You can recycle the ballast if you wish and the track can be cleaned up by washing with water.

Hints & Tips No.987

Bread Tags for Car Forwarding

From Steve Jacobs (Wellington NZ)

I also use Bread Tags for my freight car/ Wagon forwarding system as well as for the wiring system . Assigning a colour for wayfreights, Through freight as well as 1st Class & 2nd Class passenger trains etc.

I use green tags for my Unit coal trains, the information contained on all the tags are usually Train Number, direction such as East or West, Up or Down, the “from” destination and the “to” destination. Then on the reverse side is the journey in reverse. I run an average of 52 trains on a sequential operating schedule, I operate by myself and I usually take a couple of weeks to run the full schedule.

Hints & Tips No.988

Scaling a Picture for Model Building

From Rich Boudreax (Canada)

When I am out and about taking photos, I keep a yard stick, that I have painted white, in my truck.Whenever I take a picture, I lay the yardstick "in the photo". Later as I put the pictures on my computer, they automatically have a scale reference and I size the picture for HO so that the yard stick is 36" or 10.5mm long in HO long. It would be 12mm Long in OO

Be sure to take your pictures "flat on". In other words, not at an angle to the subject, but as near to 90 degrees as possible. Sometimes when you do not have a lot of time, this is a quick, simple "measuring device".