Hints & Tips No.1069

From Paul Plowman

Always use a mirror to take a sight along the rails when gluing down. It is easier than trying to place one’s head on the baseboard to eyeball the track.

Before gluing down have a dry run and place drapers pins into the trackbed to hold the sleepers in alignment. Place pins against the ends of sleepers, not through them. Then when the glue is applied the panel of track can be dropped into the right place using the pins to locate it. I use two pins at each end plus two near the middle of the panel. If the rails won’t take up the desired alignment I might add further pins as necessary.

Hints & Tips No.1070

Spray Painting Turntable

from Ken Darville

On a recent holiday, I watched as a local craftsman spray a wooden vase. He had turned up on a treadle lathe, using a airbrush powered by what look like a bagpipe bag and operated it the same way (I knew there must be a better use for bagpipes)! But the vase was mounted on an old record player, geared down and powered by a car battery! It turned slowly enough for an even paint coat to be applied on all sides. It would be ideal for locos and or coaches! So, it’s off to the local dump (car boot) to see what I can find.




(A Note from Trevor – a small 12 volt motor using the belt drive would probably be sufficient powered from your track. To spray a long vehicle you might need to stop the turntable to spray along the side keeping a consistent distance. I have used the spools that hold blank CD's for much the same purpose – it is what works for you!)

Hints & Tips No.1071
  Removing Stubborn Paint
 from David Rollason
  Removing paints from plastic models rears its head on occasions and one method that I have found is to use Mr.Muscle Oven Cleaner.
  Recently, I successfully removed several layers of paint from an old Tri-ang Clerestory coach. My method was as follows: two polythene bags, one inside the other (in case of holes/tearing), insert the model, spray in the well-shaken foam, seal bag, put in shed for 24 hours. After, open bag remove the item and dispose of bag and liquid contents safely in a bin.
 Next, wash model under a cold running tap and scrubbing with an old toothbrush. For more stubborn paint finishes, repeat treatment with oven cleaner etc. Obviously, wear rubber gloves during process and do not wear your best suit, in case of unwanted liquid splashes.

Hints & Tips No.1072
  Simulating Stucco
 from Several Modellers
   To simulate Stucco and rendered finishes on buildings, fine sandpaper could be used. (Peter Bowers)
   Try Gesso. You can find it at most art supply stores. I am very sure I have seen it used for a scratchbuilt station and it looked great. (Pierre Oliver)
   If you are laminating to a styrene surface, try the texture of masking tape (Trevor Gibbs)

Hints & Tips No.1073
  Preserving your Paint Brushes
  from Ian David Smith
   I use this tip myself at the end of every painting session. First wash out the brush in your favoured cleaning medium; then I wash the brush out in some soapy water. My own discovery is that, after drying on a kitchen towel or similar, I work a small amount of Vaseline Intensive Care hand lotion into the bristles and using my fingers form the bristles into a nice point.
  I have found that this keeps the brush in a good supple workable condition for far longer than other cleaning methods provided for, and, further more, it does not appear to have any effect on the paint the next time the brush is used.

Hints & Tips No.1074
 Small quantities of Paint
 By Andy De Lucia (California)
 If you need small quantities of mixed paints, make it in inverted paper cups. Using the cups upside down requires much less paint, ideal for painting figures, window frames, etc. Stacking a second inverted cup on top of the paint holding cup will seal the mixed paint for several hours, and maybe even days.

Hints & Tips No.1075
 Laying Rail outdoors
 By Sacramento Valley Garden Railroaders (California)
  If you use aluminium rail and brass joiners, electricity through two metals can cause corrosion, which will result in non-conductive joints. A small piece of aluminium foil around the rail and inside the joiner will allow the current to flow in spite of any potential corrosion. Coat a little "no ox" or "oxygard around the rail to hold the foil in place.

Hints & Tips No.1076

Customising Model Buildings

By Sacramento Valley Garden Railroaders (California)




Customize those kits to avoid your buildings looking like everyone else's. Add some windows, enlarge a window, paint the window and door frames. You will like the look, and you will get the satisfaction that you did it.

Hints & Tips No.1077

Extreme Rusting on Wagons and Structures

By Garry Redding (British Columbia)

Paint the side of the wagon or bridge span then pick small amounts of flour on the tip of a knife and drop into the wet paint . Leave the vehicle of span level until the paint is dry. Tip off any excess flour and if any of the flour stuck into the paint still appears white you may need to paint over it with more of the body colour.

When the paint is dry, sprinkle weathering powder on the wagon side and scrub with a stiff brush. Some powder will stick to the level paint but more will attach where the flour has created texture.

Hints & Tips No.1078

Logs and Millponds

By John Russell


I am using one of those glass cutting-boards for the surface of my millpond. After I retired it because it destroyed my wife's kitchen knives, I thought it better to recycle it into something useful, rather than landfill. One side has very fine rippling like one sees from a gentle breeze; the other is flat glass. I removed the pretty plastic picture from the flat side.

Logs were planed down to about 1/4 of their thickness or less to simulate floating. The surface of the water is easy to clean, and the logs can be pushed around anywhere if they sit flatly enough. Tempered glass is a pain to get cut so I placed mine from below the scenicked edge and bypassed the cutting. The underlying water colour should be much darker than blue as it is often stagnant.

Hints & Tips No.1079

Feeling “Blu”

By Daryl Dilger (Queensland)

I have figures to paint. Hence whilst I am working away from home, I take the little people with me and some paints. I use Blu Tack to hold figures whilst being painted and whilst they are drying. I put my figures in long strings of Blu Tack … if you do the same, you will need to be careful however as they can turn into Lemmings and go over the edge.

Hints & Tips No.1080

Preventing Point Damage when Ballasting

By Several Modellers

If you are painting or ballasting your track,and do not want paint or PVA getting into the blades,you can …

1) Open the point half way and push Blue tack into the gap between the stock rail and blade. The blue tack will stop paint or wood glue from
getting in. Once you have finished, use another bit of Blue tack to pull it out. works very well.

2) I always use a coating of oil on point blades, railhead etc before painting or ballasting. Nothing sticks well to that, and a thorough cleaning with alcohol or white spirit afterwards will take it off effectively.

3) Masking tape will also do a good job of protecting these parts and may be easier to remove than bluetack.

Hints & Tips No.1081
Removing Paint from Metal Models

By Dan Nelson (Minnesota)

I found by accident that if you want to strip paint from metal models, especially the factory finish on diecast vehicles which appears
to be more resilient to usual methods, try Plasticweld liquid cement. For obvious reasons, do not use it on plastic models although I did try
other liquid cements on diecast vehicles but none of them worked as well.

Hints & Tips No.1082

Yard Ballasting

By Roger Dennison (USA)




To ballast large areas of yards and achieve a dirty mottled look, spread regular fine builder's sand evenly between the tracks till it's even with the top of the roadbed. Use a small wide brush to even out any "humps" or "holes." When everything is smoothed out to your satisfaction, wet the sand with a spray bottle which has water and a small amount of dishwasher detergent added. When the area is thoroughly wet, dribble on Elmer's glue diluted 3 parts water to 1 part glue and dyed to a dark charcoal grey with India ink. use a large Elmer's glue bottle to distribute the dyed glue evenly and let the sand absorb it as you go. To help it spread into the sand spray occasionally with your "wetted water" solution. After the sand is colored and glued, leave it to dry at least a day. To achieve a more "grungy" appearance, use washes of thinned waterbase paints in "dirty" colors to make the area look more "used".

Hints & Tips No.1083
 Wood Stain
 By Bob Ogrodowski (Wisconsin)
 

 I found to simulate wood colors, use "brown shoe polish". I am building a wood trestle bridge and found if you do each piece individually, and rub at different pressures, you get varied colors. After that you can add silver or black paint for weathering.

Hints & Tips No.1084
Weeds Straw and Hay

By Terry Rouhier (USA)

To model weeds, hay, straw, and grass get some "binder twine" from a farmer/horse owner. If you can, get both new and old twine. The twine is a natural (make sure that you don't get the new plastic stuff) material that takes paint/stain well. It also weathers naturally. Hang some outside for a year and it will look like fall weeds, let it lay on the ground and it will get a grayish color. It can be cut in very short lengths and used as some ground cover.

Hints & Tips No.1085

Using RTV Moulds Pt 1

By Tony Segro (USA)

RTV (Room Temperature Vulcanized) Rubber moulds are simple to make and can allow you to cast several identical detail castings for your scratchbuilt models. RTV Rubber is a two-part mixture made by Dow-Corning. It comes in various styles. I find 3110 the easiest to use because it does not require an expensive vacuum pump to decompress air bubbles.

Take the detail you wish to copy, called a MASTER, and glue it into a cardboard or styrene box with dimensions about one inch longer than the master by one inch wider than the master. When placing the master in the box, you will have ½" (12mm) on all sides. The height of the box should be a minimum 1/4" (6mm) higher than the master (the master should be 1" (6mm) below the top of the box).

To find out exactly how much RTV it will take to make the mould (I don't like to waste any RTV because it is a bit expensive), I fill the box to the top with salt, or some other granulated substance. I then pour the salt into a clear plastic cup, and level it off. With a black marker, I mark a line around the cup at the height of the salt. I then return the salt to its container.

In the cup, I slowly pour the liquid rubber until it's just about to the line. I then take some of the catalyst (it is in a tube with the liquid rubber mixture) on an ice cream stick. Read the directions on the tube for how much to use. It should be a 10:1 ratio of rubber to catalyst.

Hints & Tips No.1086

Using RTV Moulds Pt 2

By Tony Segro (USA)

Slowly stir the catalyst into the rubber until the two are blended well (about 2 minutes). Air bubbles will surface as you stir. Trickle the rubber mixture into the box slowly, trying to fill the corners first. Then, slowly fill the box with the rubber. The master should be totally covered by the rubber. THE SLOWER YOU POUR, THE FEWER AIR BUBBLES THERE WILL BE.

After pouring, the box should be just about full. Gently tap the box on a flat surface for 3-5 minutes to get rid of air bubbles. Another way to eliminate the bubbles would be to use the warm air from a blow dryer. Any trapped air bubbles will ruin your mold as they will destroy the details.


Once the air bubbles stop surfacing, let the box sit on a flat surface for 24 hours. To check to see if it hardened after 24 hours, take a toothpick and gently rub it over the smooth, rubber surface. If it is still in a liquid state, let it sit another several hours, checking it from time to time.

Once the rubber is hardened, cut down the sides of the box and remove it slowly and carefully from the master detail, and powder it with baby powder.

The mould, if handled with care (cleaned with dish detergent, blow dried and powdered between each use), will last for an extremely long time without losing detail. You can use Alumilite (2 part liquid plastic) or a type of plaster or polyurethane to cast your copies.

Hints & Tips No.1087

Roads Paint and Rust Pt 1


By Peter Planter (USA)

There are several brands of alcohol based asphalt patch material used to mend roofs and gutters. I found that I could dilute and pour it in a form made of stripwood, to make a road bed. Before it completely hardens you can rub in some talc and cut in cracks and divisions. You can even carve scale bricks as the underlying old road bed. The surface looks remarkably real.

Also I almost never paint anything. I gesso it and then add layers of alcohol stain (used for shoes.) I usually mix and dilute my own colors and then put them on in several uneven layers. I have several moss green washes that I put on finished shingles to imply a little moss growing. If you have a cabin in the deep woods, dust the moss stain with fine white grout powder. It absorbs the color unevenly and looks exactly like lichen growing on the shingles. Works great.

I hate that fresh painted look, it kills scale. A nice washed out slightly uneven color really helps keep things in perspective. I'm always interested in finding new ways to achieve this.

Hints & Tips No.1088

Roads Paint and Rust Pt 2

By Peter Planter (USA)




For old metal and rust I discovered Instant Iron by Modern Options It's excellent for iron smoke stacks and works great as a coating on scale correlated roofing. I drizzle their Instant Rust down the pipes and roofs to get a nice aging effect. It takes about an hour, but the surface actually rusts. The roof effect can be enhanced by dusting with different colors of grout powder while it's still wet. When it's dry I do an uneven wash of very dilute dark stain to get a more realistic look.




Okay my favorite way to make rusted iron culvert pipes, ancient smoke stacks etc is to take aluminum tubing or wrap heavy aluminum foil around an appropriate sized bolt to get the correlated look. Then dip the end in Radio Shack printed circuit enchant. Be careful, it's nasty stuff and it eats away slowly at first then it goes like mad. A bonus is that this thins the tubing to almost scale thickness…i.e. very very thin. It really helps drive home the illusion. Once I have that eaten away look I either paint it with the instant iron and rust it or I paint it black then treat it with Rustall…several coats. Sometimes it comes out too shiny, which also kills scale so I dust it with rust dust or dull coat it.