HINTS AND TIPS - THE FOLLOW ON
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Taking Up Slack in Feeder Wires Pt 1. By Trevor Gibbs
One of the banes of my life as an electrician was finding where wires had been drawn too tightly to work with easily but in our sense feeder wires and slack can create a jungle under our baseboards and frames.
I normally allow at least 5-6†(125-150mm) of slack or extra then wrap the wire near the end around a small nail or screwdriver into a coil. This will allow you to undo a wire and manipulate it around. You can also easily make another coil of wire to adjust the slack. It looks more professional and saves you a lot of grief if you have crossed connections etc.
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Taking Up Slack in Feeder Wires Pt 2. By Marlon Medina
As a rule of thumb, I usually leave the length of my hand in wire slack which gives me plenty of wire if a repair or adjustment needs to be made.
Last edit: by xdford
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Staining Timber in Wooden Construction.
By Richard Cowman
if you plan a project where you may want to stain the wood, I would suggest staining the wood before assembly. Different woods or different parts of the tree take stain differently even if you use popsicle sticks from the same packer. If you have gotten any glue on the surface if you preassemble, the stain will not penetrate.
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To Skirt or not to Skirt… By Several Modellers
A hard skirt will be made of painted wood and would not all the easy to the floor, but would be wide enough to hide the rough edges. One club replaced all the cloth skirting with wood panel to give the railroad a more finished look. It goes down to maybe within 18 inches of the floor.
This looks great but it is a pain in the behind when there is a problem that requires getting under that portion of the railroad. There comes a time in life when laying on one's back and limboing under an impediment becomes an undesirable activity.
A soft skirt could go all the way to the floor would hide everything under the layout including the take legs and wiring. it would likely be made of disposable table cloth material or similar but requires cleaning.
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Cleaning Airbrushes after Acrylic Painting. By Several Modellers
- Submerge the airbrush in some alcohol for a few hours – Mike Motley
- I flush the air brush with Windex followed with lot of water to remove all trace of it. I also use Windex to strip acrylic paint when I made a mistake while painting structures. Very effective. - Guy Papillon.
- I've also used Windex and it works well. I'm using isopropyl alcohol now since I was given a gallon jug of 91% and I can mix it with a little distilled water to make 70%. Right now I'm too cheap to buy some more Windex – Joe Tregambe
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Painting Track Pt 1 By Terry Roberts.
Make all your electrical connections to the track before painting. This includes points and frogs. I recommend solder as I have not found another way that will last over a lot of years. I use a piece of wood to clean the rail surface before the paint has a chance to fully set - It cleans without scratches.
Last edit: by xdford
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Painting Track Pt 2 By Bill Brolinger.
If you are painting track it before laying it, I would also solder leads to each section in advance.
You can solder to the underside of the rail and your leads will be invisible when you lay the track.
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Painting Track Pt 3 By Bill Brolinger.
With N scale track or Code 100 Rail I would paint it with a darker color such as railroad tie brown or krylon camouflage. This was actually recommended to me by a professional model builder. The darker color helps hide the oversized rail and spike heads.
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Making Concrete Retaining Walls By Ross McConchie.
I use 3mm MDF painted with grey undercoat from an el-cheapo spray can, add weathering/detail as required from that starting point. 3mm cuts with a Stanley knife, is strong enough to support things/stand up under its own weight, but is thin enough to curve.
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Heights of Pavements By Richard Cowman
I have been in places where it seemed the curbs were nearly a foot high. However, if a street has been repaved a few times they can be only an inch or two, barely enough to keep the water off the sidewalk in a hard rain. Even though engineering plans may show a height, repairs can change things. Try a few different sizes and see what looks good to you.
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LED options Pt 1 By Various Modellers
Most "white" LEDs are actually a very harsh bluish white. They are fine if you are mimicking fluorescents, but they do not look very realistic where incandescent lighting is desired. These are usually referred to as "super bright white". You can get "warm white" LEDs but they tend to be a bit on the costly side if you are using 3mm or 5mm sizes.
A possible solution to the colour/cost issue was to paint bright white 3mm LEDs with a thin coat of beige paint. This not only corrects the colour but also causes the light to be diffused more than normal, and you can adjust the colour by adding some yellow to the mix.
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LED options Pt 2 By Various Modellers
Most 3mm and 5mm LEDs focus the light too much for interior lighting. While you can get LEDs with a wider light dispersal (they have a concave top). In my experience they are more expensive and harder to find than a regular 3mm white LED. Besides painting, you can get much more rounded light dispersal by sanding the regular round top LEDs with fine sandpaper.
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Printing Paper Buildings and applying to card. By Mike Boydon (Poole)
Rather than mess about with gluing printed paper to card, i print to A4 labels, paper or vinyl, stick that onto the card, Lighter weight card print direct to card (my printer will take up to 200gsm card)
Brick and stone papers I also print to label stock, an easy brick/stone wall can be made from plastic angle or plastic lipping (shallow "L" section) from DIY stores (8'/2.4M long) cover it with brick or stone paper, the angle makes it easy and stronger to fix. I've also used angle so covered for bridges, two bits of angle set as far apart as you want the bridge width, card, plastic or ply for the bed, supported by the horizontal part of the angle, the vertical making the wall either side, see pics. Easy to tailor your bridge to the layout! I used foam board for the piers, again covered with stone printed label. The ends of the piers are now covered by bits cut from the end of Peco stone bridges or tunnel mouths
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Screen, Lattice or Wire? … By Joe Hinze...
Cardboard is a much better framing system than screen for your scenery. I have made some pretty high mountains in the past. and if you do it right it comes out just as strong as the screen does. After you staple and adjust your cardboard I would start putting on my plaster cloth at the bottom of the frame work. Do only one layer up at a time and let fully dry before moving up to the next layer. This will help the card board keep its shape. It takes longer doing it this way but I have been pleased with the results
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Screen, Lattice or Wire? … By Michael Golding.
I do not use any wire type products for scenery support or base shell support. If you have to change it, it becomes hard to cut with a saw when it has plaster on it. However, I have used fiberglass screen and hot glued it to cardboard and wood supports.
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Screen, Lattice or Wire? … By Greg Coghlan.
I would still use the cardboard lattice system, even if I had screen wire I could use. The cardboard is such a flexible and workable system, I would never go back to screen wire. What I remember about using screen wire was how lacerated my fingers got trying to tease it and work it into shape
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Selecting Glues By Crandell Overton
For my bonds that are meant to be super-durable and tough, I use a two-part epoxy. In the case of brass and plastic items being glued together, I would seriously consider using either gel CA (Super glue). If the brass item has a couple of small pins meant to be inserted into pre-drilled holes, then roughen the pins' surfaces a bit for more tooth adherence, and use the CA or if you can get it ,Ambroid glue. I think epoxy might be overkill in that instance, but it most certainly would not be a poor choice. It is just that epoxy likes to “wander†when it is searching for a containment.
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Using Skewers with Kadee Couplers Pt 1 By Randy Rinker
I find it helps to take a swipe of sandpaper or a file to the tip, you do not want a point like a pick, you want effectively a teeny flat screwdriver blade sort of thing. You slip it between\ the knuckles where, if you look closely at a coupler, there is a lip that grabs the lip on the opposing knuckle which is really the key to Kadee reliability. A slight twist there, with the slack loose, and the couplers will separate enough to uncouple.
Once you see exactly where to do it, it will become very easy to do and make work every single time… until you come across one of the compatible couplers that uses a 2 piece design, like Accumates. This trick does NOT work on Accumates. But I replace any non-Kadee couplers with Kadee anyway.
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Using Skewers with Kadee Couplers Pt 2 By Jeffrey Wimberly
I use a small flat tip screwdriver with a 1mm tip. Just insert and turn clockwise.
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Using Skewers with Kadee Couplers Pt 3
By Guy Papillon
A plastic peg or rawl plug used to fix screws in Sheetrock makes a nice handle for the skewer. You can even choose the size to fit your fingers.
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