What are your Scratchbuild / Kitbash Pointers ?

[Hobby Dreamer]

With all the available materials (plastics, card stock, wood etc) and methods of adhering (glues, epoxies, fasteners etc) what advice would you give to a first-time scratch-builder?

 

 

Any things to avoid; or things to embrace?

 

Any ideas for unconventional materials?

 

Any successes or failures?

 

 

Cheers

Rick

[Hobby Dreamer]

The Plastruct catalogue, in particular, shows hundreds of material options. The Evergreen site does not have images and you have to navigate the site:

 

http://www.plastruct.com/picat/Vol_9_Complete_9.pdf

 

http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/Sheets.htm

 

 

I'm going to build a canopy station and there are a ton of materials from both sites to get started! 

[cteno4]

few little pointers ive found useful myself and passed onto folks in the past:

 

- Start simple. when starting out with scratch building or kitbashing, its best to tackle one technique/material at a time if possible. taking on too complex or too many techniques in the beginning project is just a recipe for frustration and disaster.

 

- start with simple, cheap materials to play with. that way if it takes you a few tries to get something right no biggie, then move onto using nicer or more expensive materials for things.

 

- Play! a lot of doing this sort of stuff is just experimenting to learn how to use the tools and materials and get comfortable with them as well as learn what you are good at and not good at. not being great at a tool or technique when you start also does not mean that with some practice you can get proficient to do good work. you dont always have to be an expert at each little thing to come up with something nice.

 

- experiment first with new stuff. try little bit of something you want to play with on a scrap of wood or cardboard to do some tests and make sure to keep track of what you did in each. i have dozens of hunks of cardboard laying around with little tests of materials, paints, techniques, etc. i keep them around as they are great little visual tools i use when thinking of how i might want to do something later. im great at visualizing in my head, but having something in hand is great to get the final details right on track.

 

- dont be scared to fail -- lots of failures is good and normal, especially starting out! you really learn a lot when things go bad or you mess up. you may never realize how critical one step is in a technique until you blow it and better if its on a smaller, cheaper project than at the pinnacle of some big project!

 

- dont be confused or disheartened if you find there are a range of opinions on how to do things. everyone has their own strengths, weaknesses, talents, knowledge, experience, favs and hates that will all effect how they skin the cat so take it all with a grain of salt, see what meshes up with your own experience and feeling and start experimenting there, but be willing to try some odd ideas, ive found some of the best things by being open to looking at odd ways of doing stuff.

 

- learn how to get to carnegie hall -- no not a left on 7th, practice, practice, practice. except for those few with lots of natural talent this way, scratch building just take some practice to get good. thats why experiment and playing as much as possible really helps. its something thats good to try and piddle on a little each day or week so you keep things fresh in your mind until they become a really learned behavior. taking long breaks can be frustrating as you sort of remember how to do things but lost enough detail to make what you did well in the past not so easy or clean. it will come back and you can relearn, just will take a little more time than if you keep piddling a little frequently.

 

- dont be scared to ask questions and share your results. this can be a quick way to learn a lot and for others to learn from both your successes and failures!

 

– search the web and youtube. youtube is a great way to show how to do things and lots of folks have posted great videos of them doing specific techniques.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

plastruct and evergreen are great. evergreen gets you a lot more bang for the buck and is my first goto source at the hobby shop, but plastruct also has some very odd parts as well that can fit that odd need, but they usually are aimed at the architectural market more and thus the prices are higher.

 

my routine when i visit the local hobby shop (no much in the way of trains there interesting, but some scenery materials) is to usually pick up 1 or 2 packs of strip styrene material. its my little way to pump some money their way and its actually the cheapest place to buy the stuff (most online place have little discount on this and high shipping). This way i have slowly collected most of the range (like 75 probably) of strip i use in modeling so i have it there when im playing. having stuff like this on hand is a great help to mess around fast with something and not get side tracked into trying to split stuff etc.

 

i also got a load of 1/2" clear butyrate plastic tubing a few years back on sale. ive slowly chopped this up in to 14" lengths with little tube caps on them to store all stock strips. really helps to find stuff and tap out a piece quickly. with tiny wood strips its also a lot safer from breaking them getting them in and out of the bags.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[KenS]

If you can, get one of the NWSL "Chopper" cutters.  I have the Chopper II, but the others, particularly the Chopper III, may be better choices for larger stock. A small metal straightedge/ruler is very handy.  As are calipers; you don't need fancy ones, but it's good to be able to tell if a part is 0.010" or 0.015" after it's out of the bag.

 

I'll echo Jeff's comment.  Every visit to the local shop I browse through their rack of Evergreen and pick up a few packs.  I've got quite a large selection now, and that makes it easier to find the right one in the middle of a project, since I can try out different sizes and see how they look.

 

I use primarily sheet, strip and "L" stock, but I've used "I" and "H" girders a few times and rods twice.  For sheet, 0.080" (2mm) sheet makes a solid base if you need one. But I'll usually use 0.020 (0.5mm) or even thinner and support it with other elements. Perhaps the single most useful is 0.080" square strips, which makes good structural supports, or internal reinforcement, or corner braces.

 

The other bit of advice when scratchbuilding is to think of a strucutre as separate elements you can build individually, since you really ought to wait 2 hours after gluing something before handling it or depending on it to be strong. That way you can set one element aside and work on others while the glue dries.

 

I use styrene cement almost exclusively (unless I need to attach non-plastic elements), since it "welds" the parts together for form a very strong bond.  Usually the cheap Testors stuff in the red tubes: squeeze a dab out on a bit of cardboard, and then apply with a wooden toothpick before it can dry (after 30 seconds, use fresh glue).

[quinntopia]

I agree with everything Jeff and Ken said! 

 

But here's a few more suggestions: Don't expect perfect results - ever!  You can easily get discouraged by all the mistakes you can/will make.  Instead, use them as opportunities to learn from.  For example, on many of my early kits I would use CA glue - and now I regret it.  It really does not provide the kind of strength in the bonding process and will completely ruin any clear plastic (by 'fogging' it).  It has a place, but its just not one of my preferred adhesives. 

 

In fact, I think selecting glues and getting to understand the best way to use them and the right material to use them on is a big part of the process.  Testors Plastic Cement and Styrene Cement are great, but I also like Walther's "Goo Glue" and a glue available at home improvement stores called "Welder" that work really well for non-plastic adhesion where it won't be visible (e.g. attaching foam core to styrene).  Another favorite of mine is available from Faller called "Super Expert" - its similar to Testors plastic cement, but comes in a container with a needle-nose applicator but also adheres faster and because of the applicator is a lot easier to apply.

 

For cutting, I would also recommend the "Chopper II" from NWSL - its a huge time saver for making many cuts. Or this alternative (I've yet to find anyone who has one of these, and it may have some advantages from the Chopper):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/TC-100-ROD-TIMBER-CUTTER-ADJUSTABLE-ANGLE-ARM-MODELERS-TOOL-PROSES-/300767131687?pt=Model_Kit_US&hash=item46071e3827

 

For other materials, if you are going for more modern, high rise type structures, there are a couple of materials that I use:

 

- Get transparency sheets from your office supply store, and then using a computer drawing program, create your window frames for your structure then print your window frames onto these transparency sheets (preferable with a laser printer).  My massive 'glass-framed' terminal station was done with this approach:

Quinntopia Passenger Terminal by quinntopia, on Flickr

 

- One of my favorite construction materials is a material called "Sintra" - I get it at shops that specialize in plastic and plastic based signs.  Not sure where or if its available everywhere, but with some investigation you should be able to find it I think.   Its going to be more expensive than card stock, but its very durable, easier to cut than styrene (although too thick for many applications where you need to use styrene).  Here's a shop online where you can order it, but the pricing isn't as great as what I can get locally: http://www.foamboardsource.com/sintra-pvc-foam--sintra-pvc-board.html

 

- Finally (again, if you are doing modern high rise stuff) clear acrylic sheets can be found at many home improvement type stores.  They are a pain to cut (requiring multiple scores with a sharp blade before you can - hopefully - snap along the score to get the dimensions you need) but are pretty cheap and available sources for the glass walls to use as a foundation for your exterior style of choice.  The two buildings below are facades made with acrylic sheets and then covered with different styrene effects to create some modern buildings:

The "Banal Apartments" and the "908" building. by quinntopia, on Flickr

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Ken and Quinoppia!!

 

@Ken

I've been looking for an excuse to order from MBKlein!  Once one discovers the abundance of building materials there is a real attraction to scratch-building...  It might be tough to do a small Victorian house but a canopy station or highrise might not be too bad!  Mostly large sheets and right angles! Do these chopping tools do angles other than 90 degree?

 

If you wanted to put a window in a sheet of plastic is it just careful cutting with a #11 blade?

 

I like the idea of calipers! Perfect for small measurement!!

 

 

@Quinnopia

Thanks for your ideas. You have amazing modelling skills and I frequently hit your blog to see the light shows!  That terminal station is WOW!!  Did you use Plastruct or equivalent for the girders and substructure? I found an HO fence that would look great if used on the canopy top, as making a canopy station is my main goal. I thought of kit-bashing a tower kit to the canopy part.

 

Are the transparency sheets sufficiently rigid? I've heard that Acetate is both strong and flexible for making the top curve. How does the transparency sheet compare to the acrylic? Is is simply that the former feeds into a printer for additional detail?

 

I have a fairly good inkjet printer (HP Photosmart; that seemed to get high reviews overall) but it bends the paper over a roller which means that it probably won't work for card stock. I'd be worried about anything rigid. I sense the transparency sheets would work but I'd worry that these are too flimsy.. What do laser printers do better that make them ideal?  I don't know where to get Sintra but have read about it before!

 

 

 

Thanks again guys... My LHS does not have a lot of plastic so I may have to scope out the whole region. Like most hobby guys I want to accumulate materials before building so I can plan and even dry fit things..

 

I think MBKlein and Micro Mark are going get dome orders soon.

 

 

Thanks!

Rick

[cteno4]

Quinntopia,

 

Excellent work as always! your structures are really amazing!

 

i wholeheartedly agree with you guys on the chopper and chopper II! i have them both (upgraded at one point but the old one is still useful for flat stuff like fun foam, thin chipboards, card stocks, and small strip stocks.

 

I discovered a few things with the chopper I that helps give squarer cuts on thicker stock. first is to cut a chunk of strip brass and drill two holes thru it to make a plate for the outside of the razor blade. this was later done on the chopper II to hold the blade stiffer. always going to be an issue with razor blades as they are meant to flex some. the other is to cut in the center of the blade, not the end of the blade. the center is lots less prone to bending than the ends/corners are. you can just double stick tape a couple of piece of 3/8" wide wood strip stock to the fence on both sides of the blade to extend the fence out to the center, sweet spot. you can also see this on the chopper II a little. also ive found in the 4 or 5 brands of razor blades laying around the shop that the xacto ones were the stiffest. maybe xacto figures most folks buying them would be chopping so they use the stiffest blade possible. other uses like scraping the flex it to your advantage. last thing is to hold your stock well. once the blade starts to flex the stock wants to move even more in the direction its flexing and you get an even worse cut.

 

i dont want to think how many cuts ive done with the choppers over the years. i made about 500 1cm bits of heat shrink tubing the other night in like 10 minutes with it!

 

The proses timber and rod cutter looks very nice, thanks (my cc may curse you though). ive wanted something with a bit more umph to it for cutting and this uses a bit stiffer blades that hopefully might do cuts on thicker stock more squarely. the video cheats a little in showing its flush angle cuts as it flips over the piece cut off and if the cut is not square vertically and you flip over the pice on a 45 cut they will compensate for the off perpendicular... I like the fact that its arm goes all the way vertical, i find the chopper handle is always in my way when up. i guess with it up at 90 degrees you would have to watch more about running a finger over the blade. but i find myself getting dangerously close to the blade with it at a 45 up on the chopper when clearing stuff and you have to watch about pushing your finger forward under the blade and having it forced onto the blade in a wedge! ouch but have not done it yet!

 

but does look interesting. from turkey of all places. ouch that its $18 shipping to the us, but might be worth a shot. ive gone to using the little harbor freight chop saw for any stock over about 060, but thats a bit messier and harder to do really small bits with and jig well.

 

they have some interesting other tools as well. i like the magnetic corner clamps for building walls! thats pretty cool! they may be a bit large for N but i may see about making some, i like the concept. their 90degree clamps are basically what ive been making with the hair clips for the papercraft stuff.

 

http://proses.com/a1hobbyshop/index.php/cPath/43

 

they also have a bunch of laser cut kits and other scenery tools as well. i like their idea of doing little laser cut rooms to pop into buildings w/o interiors to give a few lit windows some interior detail. sort of how they modularly build large buildings and ships these days! they even have little back lit lcd flat screens. this is something for room interiros these days even in n scale as a 50" screen is going to be like 7-8mm wide so something you would actually see lit up! hmm a smd led, little bit of clear plastic and a printed transparency on the front. maybe put it on a flicker circuit so the light level fluxes a bit

 

I like the track cleaner tool. i think they just have velcro on the handle that will grab the felt, going to have to test this one out!

 

http://proses.com/a1hobbyshop/product_info.php/cPath/38/products_id/71

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hobby Dreamer]

Jeff...

 

Looks like you found a new source for toys!

[Guest Closed Account 1]

Don't worry about color. You can always paint.

[cteno4]

I love sintra as well. Unfortunately our local plastic shop shut down its scrap sale as I use to get great bits of scrap cheap! Really is worth the money, nothing stays flatter except ultraboard, but you can't get that as thin as sintra.

 

Jeff

[KenS]

Mostly large sheets and right angles! Do these chopping tools do angles other than 90 degree?

 

If you look closely at the pictures on MBKlein you can see a couple of black metal angle parts.  Those let you do 30, 60 and 45-degree angles.  I'll confess I actually lost the ones that came with my chopper, and just do everything by eye or by lining it up with whatever part it has to connect with, and then trim with a file if it's not perfect.  The Proses tool looks like it would be better for precision angle cuts.

 

A small file set is very handy.  As noted, the blade sometimes bends while cutting so the egde isn't clean.  A few passes with a file can square that off. A self-healing cutting mat is also a usefule thing to have, since it makes scribe-and-snap and similar activity possible on tables other than a workbench. You can find those at any crafts store, and even some office-supply stores.

 

For sheets smaller than 0.080" the scribe-and-snap method works well, even for some complex lines (mark with a pen, trace lightly with a fresh Xacto blade to form a line, then follow the line repeatedly with increasing pressure to cut). I found 0.080" hard to do that way, and for that reason and others I eventually bought a modellers table saw, but that's only something you need if you end up doing a lot of heavy-plastic cutting. It is useful for making strip plastic wider than what you can buy, although it can be a bit erratic (I made a lot of 10mm strips of 0.040", and most of them tapered to about 8mm on the last 20mm or so).

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Ken for the detailed and useful response...

 

I'm liking the idea of kitbashing/scratchbuilding more and more..  If one wants an unique structure, or one that exactly fits a space then its the only root to go!

 

And there is fun in building!

 

Cheers

Rick

[cteno4]

rick,

 

ill temper this with saying that doing scratch building does take a lot of work, thought, and practice. folks like Quinntopia make it look oh so easy, but he puts a lot of time into planning out what he wants to do and has a lot of experience in techniques and materials do make his fantastic structures.

 

Not to say anyone cant do it at all, just that my earlier warning of start small and build up is really important. one thing we haven't discussed yet much in this thread is planning. this is a big part of scratch building thats minimal in kit building. with scratch building you need to not only plan the building itself out, but also plan out how the structure is going to go together, sequence of assembly, as well as its materials to do each part correctly.

 

Structure Design

this means doing a lot of measurements on real buildings and kits to get a sense of what size to make things, their spacial relationships in general, aspect ratios, etc. One thing to take in mind is that scale kits will usually take some liberties over real sizes so you need to think if you want it to match your other buildings or be totally true to scale. some of this is that some details need to be there but you have to exaggerate them at 1/150 scale to see them or produce them. Once you start to build up your parts list like this it gets easier to mix and match. always good though if you are planning things out on the computer to print it out at scale size and quickly nip it out with scissors and put it up against other model buildings you have to get a feel if it looks in similar proportions etc. there is a lot of variability in buildings out there, but certain things tend to be pretty universal and your eye will tell you if something just feels wrong. sometimes at scale you need to fudge with details, proportions, etc as you are looking at something 1/150 smaller and things can change in the minds eye. also you are usually looking at the building at a larger scale difference than you normally interact with the real building. these things are very subtle and very intuitive, not heavy rule based things, so it needs some playing with, follow your eye it will tell you when things are not quite right. fudging somethings at times can make it appear a lot better to the eye at scale with modeling materials.

 

What Will You See

what do you plan on being seen inside the structure. if there are lots of larger windows and close to view then it screams that you may want some interior detail. this also means you need to think about how the inside walls, bracing, colors, look to make sure something does not show through the windows that is glaring its all just an exterior facade. Many times you only need to detail out the first 10' or less of inside detail as your eye could never see deeper into the structure. some love to do it all the way even though your eye will never see it (im thinking of curt's papers on the conference table of his office building) and thats totally cool if you are into that, but you need to decide how much effort you want to put in for your pleasure. sometimes just a few random objects and figures here and there is enough to trick the eye at 6" or more that there is something going on inside and your mind fills in all the details and you get credit for a lot of stuff you never put in there.

 

Distance

Figure out ahead of time what is the desired effect of the structure, something in the background only ever really seen at 2-3' minimum distance or something up front that you will get really close to and want  to look at little details and photograph up close. if its in the distance you can play a lot with perspectives, depth, materials and detail to give a good scale distance look. if you want something that will stand up to close up eye or worse close up photography, then you will need to be very careful with detail and keep the tricks to a minimum as they wont translate so well to very close up scrutiny and worse can be very obvious and distracting, ruing the shot. even at close up you can play some tricks tough. usually this is trying to keep consistency of detail going. one piece either hyper detailed or not so detailed in a bit of scene close up can throw off the eye. being consistent in most thing usually gets you graded up a notch by the human brain, w/o it usually you get graded closer to your lowest quality bit, just an odd fact of human behavior thats pretty universal.

 

Materials

This take some experimenting with and time to build up a cashe of materials to do different things in a scratch build. some take paint well, others not. some have a texture that comes through thats useful others that is distracting, others are totally smooth and maybe not the right feel in some situations. what can you get away with maybe printing out for details (ie no painting detail bits). what materials will you need for structural needs. again just all planning and experience will gradually make these choices be almost automatic. Collecting a good cashe of all sorts of bits of materials helps even starting out as you can snip a bit of something and try it out to see how it might work in your use, very helpful in speeding up learning.

 

Assembly

rolling your own means you have to figure out how its all going together. Here leveraging your experience with kits is a great way to develop your own designs for how your structure will go together. sankei kits are great to look at how cutting up 2D material and layering can achieve both details and great structural assembly elements. try a few of those first go learn some ideas. plastic kits even have some elements like having tabs in corners to help make a larger contact surface. gluing some square strip stock in a corner on one wall first, letting it dry then glueing the other wall on gives you a much larger area to position the joint and keep it square than just two thin edges butted up against each other.

 

Painting

painting is also something to plan as many times you can maybe figure out a design where you can pre-paint many parts on larger scales separately and then assemble and you have little trying to do detailed painting or masking later. save your detail painting for little interesting bits and weathering instead of trying to paint two separate parts glued together that you could have preprinted separately cleaner and faster and easier before hand. also try to use as few materials that will need painting. colored scrapbooking papers can help a lot with this. if everything gets painted you end up with the same texture and look on all parts. if you look at real buildings and you will see that they usually have several different surface finishes and textures that can get totally lost on a scale model if you paint everything. a coat of paint also on a scale model can cover up detail as its like an inch or two thick scale unless very carefully done.

 

Sequence and Doing More Later

even the steps of what to build first so you dont paint yourself into the corner is important before you actually start. will you want to do more interior detail later, if so you need a way to pull out the interior floors later to work on them. will you want to light them? if so where are the wires going to run, will you need to put in materials to block light from bleeding through walls and joints, what areas will get lit and what dark?

 

Lighting

quinntopia is great on this as he thinks through individual rooms being lit in a larger building, rarely do you see them totally lit up. this is the big big trick to the minds eye that there is a lot more detail there with this over the old make the whole building glow with a grain of wheat bulb! doing some subtler lighting in various parts at different levels can have huge effects. luckily with leds these days its super simple to play with this, just put a variable pot on some of the leds (10cents each) so you can tune some of them down. or you can tune them to where you like it and then wire in permanent resistors at that value you like. Day vs night lighting also can be played with. We see lighting in the days in buildings. on a scale model this may need to be exaggerated with brighter lighting in the day to give this effect. all something fun to play with doing scratch building

 

 

Again all this stuff may sound daunting, but its not if you start small and simple and just keep growing with each project. many of these things become second nature in your planning once you build up a little experience. Like you said rick it can really make the process itself become really fun and interesting. Some find it tedious and not their thing so thats important to know about yourself and if thats the case stick to kits! Some folks love the building more than the rest of the rr modeling, so its all in what trips your trigger and your needs and goals and likes are.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hobby Dreamer]

Hi Jeff,

 

Thanks for the useful information - you should write a book!

 

I've actually thought a lot about the items you've mentioned. I'm hoping that exposure to kits that I have built in the past including various materials will help. We had both building brick (like real bricks that attached a bit like Lego), and a bridge and girder set. I always had luck building what I wanted, so hopefully this experience will translate. I did build a geodesic dome out of toothpicks (OK, I lacked the math/architectural knowledge to use 2 different lengths of TPs so it over hanged a bit at each junction). But it was way cool for me at the age I did it. I also built a close to N scale model of Toronto's city hall. It only lacked the roof (that was to be wood) and windows (I planned to use coloured sheets and ink the windows). All it all, it was pretty good - hate that I threw it out..

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto_City_Hall

 

I guess my list would differ from yours, as follows:

 

1) Failure is an Option !

2) I'm hoping to learn from 1:1 builders

3) There are always gaps, seams etc and I am planning on that in advance..

4) I'm not shooting for Quinnopia good in structure or lighting..

 

I'm not planning to fail, but at the same time I don't mind making mistakes. I have a Plan B and that is to buy a kit(s). I want to build a canopy station that is loosely based on this:

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/blog/img/20120823jam18.jpg

 

Its easy to over-think this but I see it as 2 challenges: first, the supports; second the canopy. I'd probably shoot for less of a camber. I know that Plastruct makes some nice looking parts, but until one has them in hand its hard to get a sense of scale.

 

If for some reason what I have planned cannot be done (or at least not by me); I'm certain that it would be easy to build a flat-roofed station: or one that is entirely canopy! That is, an arc...

 

I'm hoping to find a clear plastic sheet (acetate, acrylic, or whatever) that can support its own weight and then glue parts to it that look like supports, window framing etc. If this is not possible then I would cut the clear plastic into longitudinal strips and maybe attach small "L"s along the length, then join the L's and fill any gap with 1/2 round, for example.

 

I just got some Evergreen parts to play around with. I want to understand how much give there is..

 

Another option would be to glue plastic strips to the clear sheet, where the strips might have enough strength to support the canopy.

 

The one thing I am banking in is the sheer strength of material w.r.t. N scale.

 

[i just took a sheet of paper and it can easily support its own weight if cambered, but can wobble a bit.  If you put 2 holes through and slid a rod in then it would easily remedy the problem. The rods could be attached to vertical supports so I'm confident of building as long as I can find a clear plastic that is at least as strong as paper.]

 

Another method would be to find a clear plastic and then use clear labels with perhaps some support printed on it. The clear-on-clear should give the glass a frosted look which might actually be ideal.

 

Or, one can make a wagon wheel arc and attach clear plastic to that... lots of ideas!

 

If the canopy works then it would not take too much effort to mount it on pillars. If you consider the kit in the image, there are many supports but, in reality, you could break off all but 4 and the structure would hold thanks to the strength of the plastic, in N, when compared to steel, in 1:1!

 

For lighting, I'm looking into several options. But nothing as elaborate as Quinnopia has done. My main ignorance is the amount of heat put off from the various options. One could always buy Brawa lights and use these but I'm thinking about maybe reflective light or LED strips. Also E/L wiring or panels but I don't know how bright these are.

 

The kick in the pants that I want a double roofed canopy so one canopy sits on top of part of the other.. And I think this is doable. !!

 

I also want to attache the canopy to an existing structure. Maybe a tower kit or if I can find no other solution to one of the Kato kits..

 

 

There are really only a few pieces I have not sourced yet such as stairs, railings and ramps. There are tons of tiles, plastic and paper, one can use for parts of the ground and walls. I either know most of the products I want to try and a few sources for each..

 

----

So, for Design, I have an idea but need to source some stuff and play around with it a bit to understand strength and what glues to use etc.. There is always the option of using rods and wires (maybe string) to help attach things.

 

If for some wacko reason this structure works out, then I might look to build tram barns. But nothing like the structures in the photo above..

 

 

I think for materials its a question of building a cache as you stated. I also don't mind using card stock (or labels printed on card stock). I have some foam brick sheets that look pretty decent...

 

For assembly, I'm set because I have a friend who can lend a hand! But there are a tone of clamps, magnets etc (speaking of magnets, that might be a cool way to attach a roof!)

 

There are always problems with gaps and to remedy that I plan to use plastic moulds such as 1/2 round, or even vegetation etc. Maybe even pin striping!

 

Thanks again Jeff for your input!

 

The hardest part for me is to figure out the footprint as I want to accommodate 4 tracks plus additional space. I have a good idea of the length - maybe 40cm.

 

Cheers

Rick

[quinntopia]

Whoops! I see I have a few questions!

Thanks for your ideas. You have amazing modelling skills and I frequently hit your blog to see the light shows!  That terminal station is WOW!!  Did you use Plastruct or equivalent for the girders and substructure? I found an HO fence that would look great if used on the canopy top, as making a canopy station is my main goal. I thought of kit-bashing a tower kit to the canopy part.

 

Yes! I found some (O scale I think?) Pastruct girders for the station canopy area.  I needed 4 of them to cover the entire station.  I like your idea of using an HO fence...one thing about scratchbuilding is that a little creative imagination is one thing that's really essential!  So YES! Definetly look at different pieces in different scales (or different hobbies!) to get ideas for how you might use them!

 

Are the transparency sheets sufficiently rigid? I've heard that Acetate is both strong and flexible for making the top curve. How does the transparency sheet compare to the acrylic? Is is simply that the former feeds into a printer for additional detail?

 

I didn't explain this very well!  The transparency sheets were actually glued to acrylic sheets for precisely that reason! No way they will stand up correctly! 

 

I have a fairly good inkjet printer (HP Photosmart; that seemed to get high reviews overall) but it bends the paper over a roller which means that it probably won't work for card stock. I'd be worried about anything rigid. I sense the transparency sheets would work but I'd worry that these are too flimsy.. What do laser printers do better that make them ideal?  I don't know where to get Sintra but have read about it before!

 

Hmm, good question.  Your inkjet may work find for printing onto the transparency paper...and I'm pretty sure that it will have no problem printing onto the material.  One of the advantages of an inkjet is that it doesn't use heat, whereas the laser printer heats up paper!  The reason I prefer the laser for these jobs is that I want my 'black lines' for windows and such to be as dark as possible, and I couldn't get the level of opacity I wanted with my previous ink jet.  Yours may do just fine, like I said.  Worth a try! One note...any glue that gets anywhere near any ink or toner (ink jet or laser) will rapidly smear your lines, so the trick with transparency sheets is to print onto the side opposite of the side you will adding glue to (if, like me, you are going to glue onto clear acrylic or something).

[quinntopia]

@ Jeff:

 

  I had to laugh regarding your comments about the Chopper! Yeah, my little fingers get scary close to that blade sometimes too!!!!  I've also had a challenge getting consistently vertical cuts, but your comments on the razor blade flexing makes a lot of sense.

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks a lot Quinoppia...

 

I keep forgetting about the differences in printers.. mine loops the paper from the feeder to the out tray. So thicker items may get caught and with heat ...better up the insurance...

 

I don't know where you get some parts such as the escalator but I just got the Walthers catalog which is good for some ideas...

[cteno4]

Rick,

 

escalator can be done with an easy visual trick for stairs of doing alternating light and dark lines for the treads on a strip. when put at an angle our brain just says stairs when it sees it. then sandwich between two strips of styrene for the side walls and shape the ends. use a marker to make the top edge black all the way around for the hand rail. done. at n scale you would be hard pressed to ever see real 3D steps in there right up at the eye ball, but at a foot or more the illusion should work fine and you will probably find that you may not have the view be dead on to see the treads at all in the final model! part of the fun of scratch building is figuring out if and where you can cheat like this!

 

another thing to look at for stair treads is some large zip ties have little V ridges at about 2mm or so apart. there was something in the craft store a couple years back that also looked like perfect n scale stairs on a strip and i grabbed one, but have totally forgotten what it was and its lots in the pile that is the office now. Another part of scratch building is wandering through craft stores, hardware store, home despot, etc and looking at things thinking what could that do in 1/150 scale!

 

i really agree with quinntopia that for doing structural things i like the laser printer as the toner is pretty heavy on transparencies its much more opaque. i also like that it has a bit of depth to it and will give you a little feeling of depth, but it does pretty much wipe out any paper texture (can be good and bad) where toner goes over. you do have to set up laser printer to different fuser roll temps for different stocks (ie cardstock needs it hotter to make sure to bond the toner to the paper). there are some places where you could use paper texture to your advantage and the inkjet lets that come through. a friend had a very good art career late in life printing his old photos out on interesting rice papers and manipulating color an b/w in areas of them. the combo of old photo, b/w, color, and inkjet on really interesting textures was wild.

 

jeff

 

ps ive often thought it would be fun to do a station escalator that you only see from the side with the top and bottom obscured and have a belt with people glued on it that just keep cycling through!

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Jeff!

 

What I need to do is accumulate some items in N scale to become more accustomed to its size/scale. I have a Smart car that is about the size of a fingernail so an escalator would be so much smaller (narrower)!

 

I like your point about trying various sources for potential parts.  Years ago, I started to keep all sorts of things from packaging etc but had no good place to store it so they are lost ..

 

Now that I have containers..

 

My LHS doesn't stock a lot of parts but there are plastic stores around and many hobby and hardware shops that can spur ideas! The stir sticks some coffee shops use would be great for pillars or pipe! Buy a flat car and fill it with Q-Tips!

 

I'd love to buy an ideal laser printer but I broke the bank this year.  I'm actually enjoying looking through catalogs and thinking about parts. Building can be creative.. and that keeps me from being a homicidal maniac!

 

Cheers

Rick

[cteno4]

dollar store can be your friend for this sort of hunting along with odd tools, containers, etc. once you get your eye for the scale you start to look at things and how they might get used! im the same way you are about having a few piles of odd shipping bits that look like they could do something sometime! lately ive been able to collect a selection of colors of very thin film plastic bags from one of our local ad things. the plastic is very supple and thin so perfect for a n scale tarp.

 

you can always get an odd laser print done on an overhead sheet or card stock at your local copy shop. once you have it the way you want with your inkjet have them do a laserprint for a buck or so.

 

jeff

[Hobby Dreamer]

you can always get an odd laser print done on an overhead sheet or card stock at your local copy shop.

 

That's a good idea! 

[Martijn Meerts]

My advice would be practice, practice, practice :)

 

Some trial and error is usually the best teacher, just make sure not to use the more expensive kits/materials for testing purposes