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 Red Harvest wrote:
Ah, you made a Dutchman, as that sort of repair is called in woodworking

I'll believe you.
I've puttied all the slight gaps in it and will see how it turns out after a sanding tomorrow.

Are you having some difficulty cutting the circles? I think I see some irregularities. Perhaps scribe the lines first, using a compass with some sort of metal point in lieu of a pencil?

Difficulty, not as such. Requires sanding, yes.
I have been cutting this all by hand though, most edges are going to be hidden to some extent anyway; such as the edges of the lower platform, under those flanged tubes, and around the hatches.
The flanges, hatches (the actual door bit) and things like that though need to be smooth-edged.

I should get my hands on one of those compass cutters (as OMN suggested), though making a scribe out of the compass I'm using is a good idea (that I should have thought about ) Ta.

It's one of those 'experience is the best teacher' things. At worst, drive a pin from a pushpin (you'll have to remove the plastic head) into a length of dowel rod-- which has a diameter similar to that of a pencil-- with a little CA glue, and then insert into the compass as you would a pencil. Other option is to have a nice Staedtler* compass that comes with optional points.

I think OMN and I exchanged comments on the compass cutter some time ago. It is barely adequate, but it is apparently the only thing out there.

No idea why that sort of patch is called a Dutchman, except perhaps a reference to the whole finger in a dyke story. Hmm, will the language filter alter dyke?

*The West Germans made such nice drafting tools.

I love anything miniature, so I don't mind if the subject matter is a little dryer than normal!

Or do I mean wetter?

Red Harvest wrote:It's one of those 'experience is the best teacher' things. At worst, drive a pin from a pushpin (you'll have to remove the plastic head) into a length of dowel rod-- which has a diameter similar to that of a pencil-- with a little CA glue, and then insert into the compass as you would a pencil. Other option is to have a nice Staedtler* compass that comes with optional points.

I think OMN and I exchanged comments on the compass cutter some time ago. It is barely adequate, but it is apparently the only thing out there.

The irony of this is that, not only was I using a Staedtler-like compass, but it also had a selection of spiky bits for just this purpose (or for whatever else you may want 2 pointy bits on a compass for; maps etc..)
I even got out the other one there (A-shaped) for doing the smaller circles, as the "typical" compass tended to wander while doing small holes.

No idea why that sort of patch is called a Dutchman, except perhaps a reference to the whole finger in a dyke story. Hmm, will the language filter alter dyke?

Crazy, crazy Dutchmen.

weetyskemian44 wrote:I love anything miniature, so I don't mind if the subject matter is a little dryer than normal!

Or do I mean wetter?

Thanks Weety. I see what you did there.

So, in the cold light of the early...afternoon, the perfectionist side of me decided he didn't like how the repair was going.
While I could put in more effort to hide the joins it was going to approach the effort required to make a new one,
And with that in mind, I noticed that the new patches were sagging a little compared to how it should be, and some of the other sections were also sagging due to handling (and it being 0.25mm plasticard).

Therefore:

You can also see the progress on the lower platform too.

The Ork in me hopes you saved all those stripped off pieces for some other crazy project - like an exploded oil tank or something. Anyway, this project is really awesome and coming along nicely. Looking forward to seeing the progress you make on it.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
The Ork in me hopes you saved all those stripped off pieces for some other crazy project - like an exploded oil tank or something.

Don't you worry, I don't throw things away that can still be used for models (especially when it's polystyrene); I even keep all the shavings from when I'm carving pieces (many just go into my "basing" tub).

Anyway, this project is really awesome and coming along nicely. Looking forward to seeing the progress you make on it.

Thanks. Here's a bit more from today...

The "new" air-tight platform got it's hatches (they still need handles, hinges and maybe some bolts/rivets).
The tubes for the hatches are made from a strip of plasticard, cut/sanded until the perfect length, and glued in once wedged in against itself.

The lower platform got it's main flange.
This was made from 4 semi-circles of 1.5mm plasticard; a couple of reasons for this, the piece of plastic I had to hand was not large enough (or didn't look it) for two full circles (needed 2 layers to make it 3mm thick), but I could fit 3 halves around the edge and one in the middle.
Also, as it turns out and wasn't planned, the middles are easier to remove from a semi-circle compared to a full circle (snapping them off rather than cutting all the way through).

Anyway, after I had the 4 halves I glued them in pairs, one of top of the other at 90deg to keep the joins strong.
Then followed lots of trimming and sanding to neaten them up and make them fit a) the tube and b) the platform.
Once it all fitted together I set about making it pretty (amazing what a few holes will do) by drilling many holes in my modelling board the flange.

Normally the spiky bits are so that you may use the compass as a set of dividers. Anyway, with plasticard and these things, you scribe the line, then score it deeper using the spike, then use the furrow thus created to guide a hobby knife, or, flip the piece, scribe and score again-- the compass center hole is going to go through the thin plasticar--, then snap the piece out. At least these are the methods I've used. the piece on the right is actually a set of dividers, not a compass-- or not a very useful compass.

V2.0 looks much improved. Now, for sanding, what do you use? I really do not work much with plasticard, so I'm curious. I've used a nail file to decent results, and emery boards too. Also, I'e used a chisel blade in my hobby knife handle as a cabinet scraper on the edges. This works as well.

 Red Harvest wrote:
Normally the spiky bits are so that you may use the compass as a set of dividers. Anyway, with plasticard and these things, you scribe the line, then score it deeper using the spike, then use the furrow thus created to guide a hobby knife, or, flip the piece, scribe and score again-- the compass center hole is going to go through the thin plasticar--, then snap the piece out. At least these are the methods I've used. the piece on the right is actually a set of dividers, not a compass-- or not a very useful compass.

Ja, I've been scribing all the pieces I've cut since then and it has helped with getting smoother lines. Should have thought about it myself, so ta.

V2.0 looks much improved. Now, for sanding, what do you use? I really do not work much with plasticard, so I'm curious. I've used a nail file to decent results, and emery boards too. Also, I'e used a chisel blade in my hobby knife handle as a cabinet scraper on the edges. This works as well.

Thanks.
I use... sandpaper...

Yeah, just pieces of sandpaper, sometimes folded to make them stiffer, sometimes a tiny piece held in tweezers to get into little gaps (such as with the insides of my toilets and sinks). I currently have a selection of grades from 150 and 240, to some 600 for finishing surfaces.

I usually shave down the plastic with a scalpel (I have a nice one with a hooked blade that really works well for pulling towards my thumb... in the way that you are not supposed to, but I have done for years...), I do also have a chisel ended blade

Sometimes I will scrape with my usual scalpel held sideways (90deg to direction of movement and perpendicular to the surface), though I mostly do this for mould lines.

And then I'll work down the scale of sandpapers until I get a finish I want.

I also have a few files that I will use occasionally.

As the actual items of interest to the customer, these "hook-on" points are necessary details.
They are also some of the smallest scratch-building I've had to do.

Tip for the day: if you are making something small with a hole in. Drill the hole first, then sand the rounded edged, and THEN cut to length.
I didn't do this for the first pair (the long thin ones on the air-tight platform), but had the idea after I'd glued them on.

It's tricky, but not impossible, to hold a 1x3mm piece of plastic with tweezers and drill 0.35mm holes in it, then join them up with the tip of my scalpel.

I also added the ring to the bottom of the lower platform. This got 3 hook-on points (2x2mm) in addition to the 6 around the outer posts.

Inspiring work indeed! The little details make it unbelievably real

You really are going to town on this one.

I find I have more control cutting towards me as well, last time I tried cutting away I cut myself...

nice work, I know how much of a pain making little things like those hook points can be.

Stunning detail and awesome inspiration, Dr H!

Excellent progress. How come you didn't use the heads of sewing needles for the hook-on points? I know they can come in just that shape.

inmygravenimage wrote:Inspiring work indeed! The little details make it unbelievably real

Thanks Graven. Real is the aim as I'm doing this for the engineers that designed it...

OneManNoodles wrote:You really are going to town on this one.

I'm not going completely mad on it; I'm not doing unnecessary details, I only added the rivets bolts to the little flanges as they wouldn't look right without them, other bolts that are just holding thing together I'm not bothering with as they will just add time without being useful to the customer.

I find I have more control cutting towards me as well, last time I tried cutting away I cut myself...

So long as you don't try to remove too much material in one go and avoid blunt blades that make you apply too much pressure, there's little more risk in cutting towards yourself. Just be sensible.

nice work, I know how much of a pain making little things like those hook points can be.

Thanks OMN. Once I started doing them in the method I mentioned they were pretty easy to knock out quickly.

Warboss_Waaazag wrote:Stunning detail and awesome inspiration, Dr H!

Thanks 'boss.

Red Harvest wrote:Excellent progress. How come you didn't use the heads of sewing needles for the hook-on points? I know they can come in just that shape.

If I had had some laying nearby that were the perfect shape, maybe I would have used them. But I'd like to keep this kind of model as near to 100% polystyrene as possible; then I know once it's glued it's glued for life.

No progress to report on the TP today, I had to wait for a few more drawings to be sent my way for some more details (some more hook-on points and ladders etc..), however, I can show one of the birthday presents I mentioned the other day:

I was told "Purple", so that's what I did.

I love your jewellery mate! Always makes me wonder what the wife is going to want next

Thanks Graven.
Mum was very pleased with them, and has "ordered" turquoise for Christmas (best 99p I've spent, getting those earring backs).

I did also intend to start selling earrings too, but haven't got around to making any to sell. But if anyone does have a person-wot-does-wear-earrings in their life, feel free to make an order.

On that front, the huts (built and kits) are still available too.
As are my boxes and bathroom items.

Anyway, plugging aside, progress on the TP.

The tube has been cut to size and I used another section of the same tube to expand the lower part of it (to represent the wider lower section of the whole piece).
I'll show this when I've added the putty to it to smooth off some areas, fill some gaps etc...

What I will show is an array of tiny items that I've made to "furnish" the interior with:

The ladder on the left is to go from one platform to the other. You may notice a "break" near the bottom (just above the flange), this is because that lower section is removable to allow access behind it for welding etc...

On the air-tight platform (right) you can see I added the hinges and handles for the hatches, and the other bits scattered there are:
1. Attachment points between the air-tight platform and the tube walls

2. Rungs to be attached to the wall above the hatch on the left (which has the ladder underneath). The hatch on the right is for equipment and so doesn't have a ladder.

3. Representative section of the ladder that ascends from the air-tight platform above the top of this model (so in reality would be much longer).

4. Mansafe attachment point. This goes above the hatch / ladder and has a safety cable thing hanging from it (called a "mansafe" see below. I don't know what women are supposed to use... maybe there's a pink one ).


5. Tool support brackets. These are spaced out above the lower platform and, I assume are for attaching tools to so you don't loose them.

You continue to amaze my friend. Wonderful to see your progress and all the creativity you pour into it.

Thanks Gits'. It's nice to have found a group of people that are as interested in this kind of thing (modelling) as I am. The marvel of the internet *sniff*


Half the work (designing) has been done for me, I just have to translate it into scale plastic.
It is interesting to see how flimsy real items become at scale after the chunky things I've made recently, and this is 1:48, not ~1:56 of 40K etc...

Last time I mentioned that I'd started on the tube that will form the walls of this model, now I can show you.

Although I didn't take a photo of the first step...
So here's a thousand words in place of a picture:

I needed to thicken the lower part of this pipe by 6mm (3mm all round) to get the correct ratio.
The pipe I am using has 2mm thick walls.
I therefore glued strips of plasticard around it, you can use as many as you like, I had a strip about every 30degs.
Using 1mm thick plasticard meant that when I surrounded this with another section of pipe, I had 3mm thicker walls.

PVC pipe, not being elastic enough to stretch around itself, I had to cut it lengthways; this meant that it was now not long enough to reach all the way around the now 6mm larger diameter circle.

Making sure that this new piece of pipe started and finished on one of the strips (so that the ends were at the correct distance), I added a piece of 1.5mm plasticard to fill the gap. But this was not thick enough to reach the desired radius, nor curved like the rest of the pipe.
Luckily it did meet up with the ends of the pipe, so I just had to fill in the curve.
To aid me with achieving the correct thickness, I added a thin strip of plasticard (1.5mm. Plus the 1.5mm piece = 3mm to match the 3mm walls) to the centre and flanked that with thinner pieces to hold it firm.


The upper edge of the added pipe and that gap have been covered in putty.
After a quick tidy I decided to find something else to do while I wait for the putty to cure enough that is doesn't clog my sandpaper every 5 seconds.

So I cut a great big hole in the side of the pipe:

A cut-away, so that the interior can actually be seen.
Using a combination of my razor-saw, jeweller's saw (breaking 2 blades) and my Dremel (for the vertical cuts and sanding the curved edges).
That's just a test fit of the lower platform, I need to get it all aligned properly for the position of the other pieces to be added (and to hide certain parts that shouldn't be seen by non-modellers )

Wow! Looks stunning. Great job.

Boy... in place... with the cut-a-way. Wow.

Wow. Amazing attention to detail. Great stuff!

 Dr H wrote:

It is interesting to see how flimsy real items become at scale after the chunky things I've made recently, and this is 1:48, not ~1:56 of 40K etc...

Things look so much better though, in scale. harmonious to the eye and all that.

Progressing well. Interesting solution to the tube problem. Looks very familiar to me too...

Say, what sort of hobby vise do you use? I've been considering a jeweler's vise like this to replace my current vise. The swivel action looks darn useful.

P.S. I hate cutting PVC by hand. I wonder how well a roto-zip (a dremel on steroids) might do. I'll need to try it sometime.

Thanks 'boss.

Thanks Gits'.

Hey ckig, Thanks.

Red Harvest wrote:

 Dr H wrote:

It is interesting to see how flimsy real items become at scale after the chunky things I've made recently, and this is 1:48, not ~1:56 of 40K etc...

Things look so much better though, in scale. harmonious to the eye and all that.

Yeah. I may experiment in future, with the balance between properly scaled and robust enough for gaming... not that I was far off with some of the things I've made in the past.

Progressing well. Interesting solution to the tube problem. Looks very familiar to me too...

Ta. It appears to have worked well, see below.

Say, what sort of hobby vise do you use? I've been considering a jeweler's vise like this to replace my current vise. The swivel action looks darn useful.

Looks like a nice vice. I have a small hobby vice...

...Like this one:

Mainly plastic, only stays put with suction... You get the idea,

I don't use it much.

P.S. I hate cutting PVC by hand. I wonder how well a roto-zip (a dremel on steroids) might do. I'll need to try it sometime.

I didn't notice any problems with cutting this pipe. I only broke the jeweller's blades due to cutting those curves while keeping the other end of the blade on the straight part and slowly twisting it... The dremel with a basic cut-off wheel went through it really easily, as did the sanding attachment.

Today's progress sees the air-tight platform being positioned and glued in...
...and all the fiddly bits to the walls.

First, the external view:


And then the internal views:


The lower platform is still removable (along with the attached ladder), to aid painting.

And that is about it, really, painting will happen soon-ish when I get some good colour references.

Wow. That looks great all together like that. Amazing work as always, Dr H.

Oh so, so good.

Thanks 'boss and Graven.

It is now primed and painting has started, no photos yet and don't expect anything exciting paint-wise; the inside is grey (pretty much everything except the ladders is grey) and the outside yellow.

I've been spending time trying to decide on what paints to use to match the colours I've been given:
Outside: RAL 1023
Inside: RAL 7044

The ladders are just galvanised steel and some of the hook-on points are either yellow or red, and the tool support points are blue.

Sadly, there doesn't appear to be any hazard stripes or anything exciting like that...

However, I can now show you the other birthday present I made recently:
You know how I said that I'd done enough wood recently (on the latest LoER terrain contest thread, that can be found here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/665211.page#8151782)... well this is more wood.

Originally, this hut was my grandfather's and is now my father's, to be included in a railway setup.
Below you can see what it looked like after I'd pulled it from a box in the garage,
after I'd cleaned and painted it,
and in scale with it's "big brother" and a pound coin.



After seeing it with it's red roof and wooden walls, I had to do that one.
The fence needed re-gluing as the old glue had become brittle and some sections fell off (so I took the time to rearrange them a little).
And I added a post to hold open the hatch at the rear (that was defying gravity).
I kept it nondescript, as I don't want it to jump out in the setup or upstage the eventual trains.

That base, is that the old model RR stuff with flock on thick brown paper? I haven't seen that stuff in ages. Model RR has essentially died as a hobby in the US.

I have no idea what size a UK pound coin might be. The wiki tells me 22.5mm diameter.

*pulls out a pound coin and measures it*
Yep about that.

No, that's a plastic moulded base, no flock, it's textured like that. Except for the couple of holes (for screws I believe) that I filled with the round bits off sprue (what else?!) and then textured with dried paint.

Painting at the moment is just layers and layers of grey to give me a smooth finish.
Not that exciting to look at, but I took some photos to check how it was progressing; using the camera's tendency to show errors in the paint-job for a benefit.
So I thought I'd share one picture with you. I think it'll need at least one more coat.


I will do a little shading of grooves and some highlighting of edges, but that's pretty much what it'll look like.

It's really fun to see you taking this to the next level Dr H. Every time I open your blog it's a new chance for amazement.