and less so for others. Dilapidated wood buildings are, I believe,
best
crafted with wood. Brick and masonry buildings, while easy to create with plastic sheets, look and color best when done from plaster. For those of you sus- picious that I am hawking future columns, well, you’re right. Well-paint- ed and nicely maintained structures are excellent candidates for styrene construction. Stonework and masonry are easily done with the vast array of styles of molded sheet stock if the cast plaster route is not to your liking. Like
wood or cardstock, styrene
walls must be braced. For most struc- tures in O scale, I use ¹/₈″×¹/₄″ stock. Smaller sizes are better in the smaller scales. The material is nice and stiff, and can (like all styrene) be easily scored and snapped off. Don’t try to hack your way through some beefy ¹/₄″ square stock, but simply score it a few times and break it off like a Kit-Kat® candy bar. You don’t usually have to cut all the way through; just scribe a line with a good sharp blade and snap it off. As for sheet material for walls and sub-walls, scoring will leave a slightly raised burr on the edge of the stock, which is easily scraped off with a standard hobby knife blade held per- pendicular to it. There are two schools of thought on door and window openings, and I will present both, letting you decide which is appropriate for the project at hand. If you are like me, both will come into play, depending upon the nature of the project.
The first way is to just use a hobby knife to cut a square hole in the wall. I
mark the window locations from the in- side of the wall so that when (not if) the knife slips, I will not mar the “show” sur- face. Over the years I have made up sev- eral small styrene templates for most of the windows and doors I use. The hole these templates render makes for a snug (not tight) fit, so the molding is held in by friction as well as adhesive. Too tight a fit will distort or even break those delicate muntins. I keep the hole pattern fixture in the same drawer as the doors and windows, even trying to be a good boy and return them to their proper place. Yes, some get re-made from time to time.
When there are a lot of windows in- volved and they are all the same style, I’ve learned (from John Nehrich) to lay up the wall in strips and sections leav- ing appropriate openings for the win- dows. This method will require some ad- ditional bracing in the assembly of the walls. Both methods have their place. I only use two kinds of adhesive for styrene: Tenax-7R, and Testors (solvent type) styrene cement. The Testors is slow enough to “grab” that there is a lit- tle time (5-10 seconds) to get the posi- tioning exactly right. Use it when you need time to fiddle around with the posi- tioning a bit. Tenax, on the other hand, sets up hard immediately! I use it when the positioning is difficult and or criti- cal. Hold the components in position (with a tool of some sort, unless you real- ly like fingerprints permanently etched into your creation), and lightly touch the joint with the 7R. Even if the positioning is uncomfortable or awkward, you will be able to relax and let go in a matter of seconds. I’ve got a chunk of 2″×4″ holed
to accept the bottles of solvent, wide enough at the base as to be extremely difficult to knock over, even for Mr. Klutz here. Few things ruin your day like spilling Tenax on a mostly-done project. Not only is the Tenax not cheap, but the project is for sure screwed up and will require a lot of work to fix after all that solvent flashes off. (I have, in fact, tested that theorem on several occasions.) In a future column we will go deeper
into pattern-making, mold making, and casting, but for right now I would like to mention that the best medium for pat- terns that go into RTV (room-tempera- ture vulcanizing) molds is, no surprise, styrene. I once needed some tall and somewhat complicated doors for a large warehouse, and I was not too thrilled at the thought of scratchbuilding a dozen of them. Being lazy and into shortcuts (just ask my creative writing professor), I decided to make one really nice door and cast the things! The styrene pat- terns required no sealer and was quick and easy to make. I made the twelve doors in far less time than would have been needed to craft each one from scratch. One of my many past layouts (On3 logging) needed four company houses. It was a no-brainer to make up a master pattern set of four walls, two main roof halves, and a three piece front porch. I cast them up in a morning, and had them all built by the end of the weekend.
Styrene is also a very good material for making jigs and fixtures designed for components of wood construction, as the
wood glue (not cyanoacrylate,
please) does not adhere well to the plas- tic. Conversely, wood is a good material for fixtures that are designed for styrene parts. Solvent cement does not stick to the wood and allows for easier removal of the final assembly. You can turn out roof rafters by the dozen in short order using a wooden jig and Tenax.
When you have a close series of windows on a structure, start by laying out all the walls in strips and sections on a sheet of styrene as a grid. Score and snap the pieces apart, then re- assemble them with spaces for the windows and doors. Brace the walls and joints well.
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
Styrene can be bent and formed when heated. Downspouts and exter- nal pipes can be bent to size with the careful application of heat from a can- dle flame. Here are a few rules to fol- low. Put the solvent cement away! Let’s just say that the cement and flames have a very explosive relationship. It will also be a good idea to have the can- dle in a dish of water, in case you forget to extinguish it. It will eventually go out without burning the house down! While on the subject of burning, make sure those interior lamps are well away from the walls. I will also glue some aluminum foil in strategic areas to prevent warpage. Next month, we will discuss some of the more esoteric building materials like cardstock, plaster, and resin.
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