04-19-2011, 10:55 PM
In the spirit of “Total Transparency,” This has been and will continue to be a “Warts and All" type of presentation. It occurred to me this afternoon, the biggest difference between a beginning or average model builder and an experienced model builder is that although they will both make mistakes (everyone does,) the one with experience can usually devise a way to overcome the error, unless it is a catastrophic one, and often it is possible to recover from them as well.
But then only way you begin to learn how to overcome mistakes as a beginner is to work at a bench next to an experienced guy. I was pretty lucky, that was the case at my first two design office positions; my bench was right next to the shop “wizard.” And now I have some experience in working with styrene and you, the reader, are sitting at the next bench!
So here we go … more recovery from lapses in concentration; one of the biggest “mistake causers” when building models!
To start today’s session of assembling the porch for the House for San Bernardino, I marked off with a scribe the edge of the mating surface where the porch side wall meets the front wall. The reason for doing this is that when applying the solvent to the area, the scribed line keeps the solvent from “wandering” across the face of the part, marring the surface wherever it goes …
The next steps have been shown before, so I’ll just flash through them …
Welding the first corner …
After welding the second corner in the same fashion, there are three porch walls standing …
Haste makes waste in one way or another. In this case, the waste turned out to be time …
I had to weld in, let harden, trim and then file smooth Filler pieces of strip in two problem areas, both cause by a lapse in concentration while lining up the side wall of the porch!
While waiting for these repairs to harden, stirred up a mixture of Duco Cement for Plastics and Squadron White Putty and applied a very thin coat of the mud to the areas of the porch walls where I scribed too deeply, in areas where I shouldn’t have scribed any lines and a couple locations where I just wasn’t paying attention and my razor sharp home made cutter made a few “stray” gouges.
Some filing after that hardened yielded some interesting serendipitous results, which I will happily discuss at a later date.
The porch floor is next up. When completed, if the floor of a structure does not sit down flat on the bottom of the “base,” or bottom edge, I like to use reinforcing spacers to insure the floor stays where intended and does not decide to drop to a lower position. With that in mind, after measuring and cutting a piece of 0.060” stock for the floor …
I made spacers for both the house floor and the porch floor. The house ones are longer and so I got them out to use as aids for installing the porch floor …
I wedged the longer spacers into the corners of the porch walls and brought them together so I could apply a small amount of pressure with my thumb …
… and placing the floor with its edges softened with solvent and very tacky on the spacers …
… slide the floor into position with the other thumbs and hold it and the walls tightly together while the bond was made …
All that remained was “floating a generous amount of solvent on the joint from the underside to insure the bond was solid.
In the morning I’ll attack the walls of the house and make an attempt to save the window with the broken muntin. I did order a couple packets of several styles of windows and doors. I’m sure I’ll use them since I’ll need a couple other scratch-built structures to present for review if I want that NMRA Structures Award! If that skinny little muntin is a total loss, I should have a replacement window in a few days … so, no worries.
And now, it’s time to say goodnight …
But then only way you begin to learn how to overcome mistakes as a beginner is to work at a bench next to an experienced guy. I was pretty lucky, that was the case at my first two design office positions; my bench was right next to the shop “wizard.” And now I have some experience in working with styrene and you, the reader, are sitting at the next bench!
So here we go … more recovery from lapses in concentration; one of the biggest “mistake causers” when building models!
To start today’s session of assembling the porch for the House for San Bernardino, I marked off with a scribe the edge of the mating surface where the porch side wall meets the front wall. The reason for doing this is that when applying the solvent to the area, the scribed line keeps the solvent from “wandering” across the face of the part, marring the surface wherever it goes …
The next steps have been shown before, so I’ll just flash through them …
Welding the first corner …
After welding the second corner in the same fashion, there are three porch walls standing …
Haste makes waste in one way or another. In this case, the waste turned out to be time …
I had to weld in, let harden, trim and then file smooth Filler pieces of strip in two problem areas, both cause by a lapse in concentration while lining up the side wall of the porch!
While waiting for these repairs to harden, stirred up a mixture of Duco Cement for Plastics and Squadron White Putty and applied a very thin coat of the mud to the areas of the porch walls where I scribed too deeply, in areas where I shouldn’t have scribed any lines and a couple locations where I just wasn’t paying attention and my razor sharp home made cutter made a few “stray” gouges.
Some filing after that hardened yielded some interesting serendipitous results, which I will happily discuss at a later date.
The porch floor is next up. When completed, if the floor of a structure does not sit down flat on the bottom of the “base,” or bottom edge, I like to use reinforcing spacers to insure the floor stays where intended and does not decide to drop to a lower position. With that in mind, after measuring and cutting a piece of 0.060” stock for the floor …
I made spacers for both the house floor and the porch floor. The house ones are longer and so I got them out to use as aids for installing the porch floor …
I wedged the longer spacers into the corners of the porch walls and brought them together so I could apply a small amount of pressure with my thumb …
… and placing the floor with its edges softened with solvent and very tacky on the spacers …
… slide the floor into position with the other thumbs and hold it and the walls tightly together while the bond was made …
All that remained was “floating a generous amount of solvent on the joint from the underside to insure the bond was solid.
In the morning I’ll attack the walls of the house and make an attempt to save the window with the broken muntin. I did order a couple packets of several styles of windows and doors. I’m sure I’ll use them since I’ll need a couple other scratch-built structures to present for review if I want that NMRA Structures Award! If that skinny little muntin is a total loss, I should have a replacement window in a few days … so, no worries.
And now, it’s time to say goodnight …
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & Western
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln