Hints & Tips No.179
Details No.11 – Number Plates and other Items on Vehicles
by Trevor Gibbs (Melbourne Australia)

 You can use a laser printer to make tiny number plates for your vehicles, maybe even replicate your own car in a scene. Laser printers are extremely cheap these days and even my old HP 4l could handle a passable plate… after all I cannot read it from more than 3-4 metres away.

Just print up a series of numbers and cut and paste them out and a tiny dab of white glue ( placed with a toothpick) on your vehicles. You could also cut some figurines at the waist and place them as drivers and passengers in your cars.

Hints & Tips No.180
Modelling an Accident Aftermath
by Paul James

In an ideal world, nothing has an accident, trains cars or planes. However we know this is not the case. You can simulate the aftermath of an accident by having say one vehicle upside down on top of another with damaged sides being carried in a revenue train or other scrap parts in open wagons.

Hints & Tips No.181
Details No.12 – Model Speed Boards
by Trevor Gibbs
I use work-hardened copper wire (refer to H&T No.138) and a lid from a plastic butter container, cut into strips, to make a number of speed and other indicator signs. The copper wire is cut to length, the strips of plastic are super-glued to the rod and painted white. You could also use small code rail… but you might actually have to buy that, which defeats much of what I do!
An A4 page of stickers is made with various speeds - 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, etc.. I do not go much faster given the nature of my railway, but a modern mainline railway would run to 125. Signs can also be made for "No Road", "Beware of Trains" , "Slow", "Stop and Proceed", "W" (whistle) and any other generic to your area or needs, in appropriate size and styles of font.
When the paint dries, the sheets are cut with a hobby knife and the sticker placed on the sign post. Plant the posts in your layout at appropriate locations. The detail is very outstanding and, although tiny, really enhances your layout.
Although I do not have streets on my layout, you could use this same technique to make street signs… and any others that come to mind.

Hints & Tips No.182
Help With The Small Things Pt 9  style="font-size: 14pt;"- Wheel Cleaning
by Bob Heath - Barchester (Spain)
On trucks and coaches wheel cleaning is easy as the wheels are free moving but it can be difficult on power driven wheels. I use a shoe box full of soft cloth and turn the locomotive upside down on this and then I have a twin wire lead which I fasten to the live track with crocodile clips and the other two bared ends I touch to the motor's wheels to move them to a new position for cleaning. For the cleaning itself I use an old metal suede brush.

From Clive Greedus

The tip to use a wire suede brush to clean loco wheels is not a new one and the power supply to revolve them is the way I recall a Peco product did things (has this been discontinued now?). However, I have reservations about scratching pick up wheels in this way, as I believe a scratched surface will become dirty again, quicker. I also believe that some wheels may be coated to improve their conductivity and wire brushing will destroy this.

In the past I have used Carr's Electrofix, a chemical that fixes their metal blackening product and improves conductivity and "reduces spark induced oxides and deposits", according to the label. Some Bachmann wheels have the appearance that they have been through a similar process. So I will only use a cotton bud or cloth with track cleaning fluid and, if possible, get wheel movement by connecting electric leads to non moving pick up wheels or connected parts with crocodile clips. I have added pick ups to tender wheels, which helps, but there is also a case for making special connections, specifically for cleaning, on other types.

Trevor Gibbs

There have been several wheel cleaning methods in Hints and Tips so far. Refer to H&T 25 and 44. Light scratching may sometimes be necessary and all cleaning provides a certain amount of scratching. It is a case of what works for you personally

Hints & Tips No.183
Another Tree Making Method
by Trevor Gibbs 

A Branch from a live or (preferably) dead tree is simply a miniature tree. So if you happened to find dead branches and even deader twigs, you may have an ideal tree shape. Just cut it to size and approximate shape, decorate it with ground foam or painted or dyed flocking teased out over the branches and you can have a great looking tree for pennies.

My (then) 8 or 9 year old daughter and I made a bunch on a Sunday afternoon from twigs in our garden and I have only just changed some of them for more Canadian looking pines. The area is still known as Kathryn's Forest and she still reminds me of that day she remembers well… at age 26 as this was first published.

Hints & Tips No.184
Using Foam As a Scenery Base Pt 2 – Making a Hot Wire Cutter
by Peter Mitchell 

You can make a simple hot wire cutter for polystyrene foam by recycling a mobile phone transformer and a length of Nichrome element wire. Cut your wire plug off your ex phone charger and feed wires to either side of a handle stick. Terminate these at a screw perhaps with a soldered loop.

Now form a loop of the Nichrome ( Nickel Chrome) around from the handle between the two terminals. This type of element will be like a cutter which will act like a “gouge” in your scenery. You can reshape your wire and your handle to suit.

Cutting is much cleaner than by knife, saw blade or rasp but be careful of the fumes and work in a ventilated area. You can then overlay your hills and terrain form with whatever method suits you, Cloth and Glue, Mod rock, plaster etc.

Hints & Tips No.185
Details No.13 - Scrap Tyres in a Junk Yard
by Trevor Gibbs

"No Scrap Yard looks complete without a pile of tyres. Simply visit your local auto parts shop and get a short length of the small diameter water hose. Cut into thin slices (depending on your scale) and paint with a greyish or dirty black and mud colours and stack accordingly to make a tyre mountain if necessary.


Hints & Tips No.186
Help With The Small Things Pt 9
by Bob Heath

Weathering : If you want to add a bit of weathering, making things look dirty or well used, things like pavements, walls, concrete etc then try this, it's FREE. Find a small glass container, or plastic, put some water in it and whenever you do any work with water colours, doesn't matter what colour, use the water in the container as the first cleaner for your paint brush.

After a while this water will become a muddy, grey, horrible messy colour but ideal for a spot of weathering. If whatever it is that you are weathering has highlights then put a wash of the mucky stuff on then lightly wipe it off again to see the effect.

Hints & Tips No.187
Two-stage ballasting
By Nevile Reid 
Everyone has their own method for ballasting track - this is mine which I find to be very effective. This method does away with that unsightly strip of bare board between ballast and scenery which can be so difficult to deal with!
1 - Having painted up your track, apply an even coat of neat PVA to a strip either side of the track and between tracks, stopping just short of the ends of the sleepers. Sprinkle on a layer of fine grade ballast material of your chosen colour, lightly tamp down and vacuum off the surplus.
2 - With a medium grade ballast of the same colour, ballast up the track applying just enough to cover the bare baseboard. Tidy up the edges with a fine brush – do not make it too neat. Spray the entire area with a light coat of water/washing up liquid mix - just enough to dampen it - before applying dilute PVA to both grades of ballast in the normal way. When dry, airbrush or otherwise weather the ballast to taste.

Hints & Tips No.188
PVA Glue as Glazing
by Trevor Gibbs

You can use PVA type glue as a flush type glazing when it is built up in a window area. It is best to place something in the windowless hole to stop the glue leaking through which will not stick to the glue. I would suggest a shape of styrene assisted with a waxed paper covering.

Now take your window, for example a port hole on a locomotive, place your stop behind and keeping the “window” as level as possible lightly pour in some PVA glue. Gently wipe the excess and allow to dry thoroughly. Remove the backing and you should have a free standing flush fitting window glaze. The slight opacity will be very effective on steam locos in particular.

Hints & Tips No.189
Help With Tools Pt 1
by Bob Heath 

In this mini series, you will find a list of tools you will need for your workbench. Some of them will be more of an added bonus but the majority will be the ordinary tools that most people will already have and if not then easy to procure. As with most tools however it is always true that the more you can afford the better the tool will be and the longer it will last.

Chopper : A great tool for rapid and accurate cutting of wood, Styrene strip & rod and small profiles.
Clamps of various sizes -  At a push in some cases you can use a clothes peg but there are many small plastic clamps on the market today and they too can come packed by the half dozen. Make sure you get the type where the jaws are parallel to each other.
Clamp Stands  and  Clamps :  For painting models.
Cutting Pad - Not essential, especially if you are using a glass modelling surface but they are kind to blade edges and last a long time.

Hints & Tips No.190
Puddles
By Nevile Reid 

Puddles are so common that we tend to walk through, over or round them without even noticing, yet they are rarely modelled. This method would apply equally well when using ordinary ballast or any other modelling medium such as filler or mod rock.

Take a sheet of clear acetate – 20 thou would be ideal – preferably the kind that has protective film on both sides. Remove the protective film from one side only and spray or paint that side with a weathered black or similar (or brown for muddy areas). When dry, cut the sheet into pieces roughly an inch square and glue the pieces with PVA – paint side down – in the positions that you want your puddles. When dry, prepare your landscape with your landscape material, leaving a puddle-shaped area clear of filler on each square. The clear area should be slightly larger than the finished puddle.


Next, with the point of a scalpel blade, very carefully cut out and remove the protective film from the puddle shapes. Then carefully leaving the puddle shapes clear of PVA, allow the PVA to overlap the cut edges of the puddles very slightly. Sprinkle on ash , ballast, scatter or whatever you are using.


When dry, vacuum off the surplus. If you use a brush, make sure it is a very soft one as the surface of the acetate is very easily scratched.

Hints & Tips No.191
Making Portable layouts and Grades
by Trevor Gibbs 

If you are making a portable layout with gradients between station modules, try to plan your gradient between stations so that it has medium grades like 1 in 50 to 1 in 60. If you are obliged to move either your layout from room to room or in fact whole location including your home, and the joining space is an issue, the gradient section can be the part to be rebuilt to a steeper gradient say 1 in 35 or an easier gradient greater than say 1 in 65.

That way, you will hopefully only have to rebuild one section to get going again and your work is not destroyed… sometimes starting again can be a little soul destroying and we do not want that!

Hints & Tips No.192
Help With Tools Pt 2by Bob Heath 

Craft knives - This is one area where you can save money at first because although the blades on cheap knives are inferior and won't last very long they are still sharp enough for the job while they do last and you get a lot of blades for your money. These are the snap off type that come in a plastic holder.
Drill -  "Electic, preferable but not essential.
Drill Bits - Various sizes for most materials, metal, wood and walls. 
Electrostatic Grass :  Do it yourself application tool. Modellers on my forum have made this so it works.
Empty biro - The tip makes a different type of scriber.
Files -  Again of various sizes and cuts.
Fretsaw :   handy for cutting out those awkward shapes. Of course you could just avoid the awkward shapes.

Hints & Tips No.193
Bi Directional LEDs for Signals
by Trevor Gibbs (Melbourne Australia)

I have a number of working colour light signals home made at both ground and upper levels which I have lit by a single Bi Directional LED.

The feed in for this is a small Alternating Current and I have two switches governing each of them. The AC has one line in with two diodes in reverse direction to each other, one which will give a half wave positive feed and give a green light while the other gives a half wave negative and gives a red light. So far so good and maybe that is enough for many of you. There is very little perceptible difference between the half wave in this way and using a reversing switch.

The second switch feeds in straight from the AC to the LED, effectively shorting or bypassing the Diodes. The Feed of Red and Green together at a frequency (in Australia 50 Hz) produces a very plausible Orange-Yellow tone which does as a Caution signal. If you have room on your control panel, a three position rotary switch could also do this.

So those of you who do not want to make oscillator circuits because you feel as if you are electronic klutzes but know a little about electricity now have no excuse… so get out your soldering irons!

Hints & Tips No.194
Loco Shed Ballasting with Real Ash
by Nevile Reid (Tunbridge Wells)

With the exception of Water, generally speaking you cannot beat using real materials where possible, real coal in loco tenders and coal staithes being the obvious example. Any one who has tramped round a preserved railway loco shed will remember the black, gritty, greasy, compacted 'stuff' underfoot - usually a mix of coal dust and loco ash. I have been experimenting with real ash to simulate this and have come up with a procedure that I think gives a realistic result. Ash is dirty messy stuff and difficult to work with, and this is not the easiest of jobs - bear this in mind!

 Step 1 - obtain some ash - preferably coal ash. Dry it out thoroughly if it is damp, then grind it to a powder, a teaspoon full at a time, using a mortar and pestle - not the kitchen one if you wish to remain on good terms with the cook of the house! Be warned, this is a long, tedious and dirty job. Pass the powdered ash through a fine mesh kitchen sieve to get out any remaining lumps.
 Step 2 - prepare your loco yard area by building up the gaps between the sleepers and between the tracks with light-weight filler - a smooth but uneven undulating finish will give a good result. Paint overall with a matt dirty black, remembering to clean the wet paint off the tops of the rails. Allow to dry.
 Step 3 - working from one end of your yard, apply PVA to the surface between two of the tracks covering an area roughly 6" square at a time. Sprinkle the powdered ash carefully and sparingly, stopping before you reach the edge of the glue, then extend the glue area, sprinkle, extend, etc. - keep the process rolling. When the areas between the tracks are complete, repeat for the areas between the rails taking care not to get glue on the inside faces of the rails or near the working parts of points. Allow to dry, then brush and vacuum off any surplus ash.
 Step 4 - with an airbrush, damp down the whole area with a solution of water and washing up liquid - not too much, just enough to darken the ash - keep the airbrush far enough away to avoid blowing loose ash around. While still damp, airbrush again, more liberally, with Woodland Scenics white scenic adhesive or similar matt finish adhesive - a light coating of the adhesive will result in a matt, gritty finish, whereas a heavier saturating application will give the ash a smooth slightly oily sheen which can be quite realistic. Allow to dry, then, if ash still comes off on your finger, repeat step 4 until the ash is secure.
 Step 5 - piles of firebox ash. I find the easiest way to create these is to make the piles from track ballast secured with PVA - as you would ballast trackwork. When dry, coat with PVA, and apply ash as in steps 3 and 4 above.

Hints & Tips No.195
Help With Tools Pt 3
by Bob Heath 



Gauges - Back To Back :   For O, 00 finescale, 00 universal, EM & Protofour, scroll down the page.
Geometry set - The ones sold for school children will be adequate.
Guillotine Type 1 :  style="font-size: 12pt;"Specifically designed to enable you to cut to repeatable lengths of plastic strips such as Styrene, Plasticard, Evergreen or Plastruct.
Hammer - Obvious again.
Kitchen Roll - As above and to wipe up other messes, of which there will probably be a lot if you are anything like me.
Mini Drill : A very handy item indeed and one which comes quite cheaply nowadays.
Needle Files : These usually come in a pack of varying cross sections for different jobs.

Hints & Tips No.196
A Source of Cable
by Trevor Gibbs (Melbourne Australia)

If your workplace is being fitted up with Network cable or Security Camera Cabling, the installers usually have long reels (by model railway standards anyway) of the cable left over. Usually it is taken for scrap and sometimes dumped.

I have increased my own supplies of this by asking for the left over cable and got various lengths which are otherwise useless to them but a treasure to us. The cable come in 4 and 6 wire, and stripped down is more than ample for most applications.

And all you have to do is ask…

Hints & Tips No.197
Drains and Manhole Covers
by Nevile Reid (Tunbridge Wells)

Next time you are out and about, take a look around you for drain grates and manhole covers. You will be amazed how many there are - our landscape is riddled with them! How many do you see on model railway layouts? Usually none at all.

A number of scenic suppliers market etched brass frets of assorted drains and covers – or you can make a simple plate cover using sheet styrene with small slots and dimples cut in.

They are very easy to fix in place. For manhole covers simply paint each cover a neutral grey and glue in place. For the drain covers, carve or drill a small hollow in your base a fraction smaller than the cover and about 1mm or so deep, paint the inside of the hollow satin or gloss black and glue the cover over the top, taking care not to get glue in the drain cover slots.

Hints & Tips No.198
HelpWith Tools Pt 4.
by Bob Heath 
Nibbler :Makes inside cuts in plastic and metal easy. Very useful for the scratchbuilder.
Paint brushes - Like the craft knives you don't have to spend a lot of money at first as the brushes will be used mainly on rougher work. Available on sheets at many cheapo shops.
Pens and Pencils - Obvious.
Ruler - Metric or otherwise, depends what your preferred unit of measurement is, in most cases today that will be metric.
Sandpaper - In various grades, can be good for road surfaces, depending on grade and scale of model, as well as it's more obvious use.

Hints & Tips No.199
Traction Tyre Replacement - An Alternative

by Geoff Stone (Sydney, Australia)

Use electrically conductive epoxy to fill the gap in wheels to replace traction tyres. When mixed, the engine can be run slowly in a cradle and the epoxy applied with a cocktail stick. When cured, the tyre can be smoothed with a file. Traction and conduction in one product.