Basic tools

Basic tool talk

Any craftsman, artist and your Granddad will usually tell you to buy the best tools you can afford, and this is generally really good advice. Cheap tools are frustrating, inaccurate, often dangerous, and generally false economy.

Cutting tools

Decent knives are important for both safety and accuracy. Don't waste your money on cheap imported 'hobbyist' sets of craft knives and blades. In my experience they are a total waste of  money, the blades are soft and don't hold an edge, and the handles don't grip the blade safely.

My preference is to buy a couple of Swann Morton No 3 scalpel handles and a box of 100 blades ( I prefer No 11's). You'll pay less for 100 blades from Amazon  than you will for 10 blades from a well known  UK hobby and craft store.

If you really want a nice fitted case with an assortment of handles and blades, I'd still recommend Swann Morton or X-Acto.

In the photograph, there are a couple of handles with chisel blades. I think these are X-Acto. I use these for cutting out window apertures. I can get through a lamination of various card and banner tape with a single vertical cut.

Real scalpel blades are really made for slicing through human flesh so they are frighteningly sharp. They don't hold their edge very well when used on card and styrene, so buy yourself a sharpening stone and learn how to use it, that saves a few bob in the long run.

A decent razor saw is handy, X-acto make a nice set.

Get a good steel ruler with nice clear markings.
I've tried various so called safety cutting rules, but I find that the aluminium which they are made from is so soft that it drags the blade and leaves slivers of the ruler behind. A company called Maun make a steel version, but all of the examples I've seen haven't been straight enough on the cutting edges for accurate modelling.

So, learn to keep your fingers out of the way!

I use hairdressers scissors for card. They are relatively inexpensive, they have nice sharp pointy ends for nipping into corners.

A set of pin vices is handy, as is an Archimedes drill.  You can buy a pack of 150 tiny drills on Amazon for less than a tenner,  they are good enough for card and styrene.

A set of needle files is a  necessity. Pay a bit extra and get a set of diamond encrusted ones, they don't clog up as much and cut far faster.

And finally, a decent pencil with a very fine lead. I use BIC matic 0.7mm, but the ones you get free with puzzle/sudoku magazines are just fine.

Gutters and spouts

The railway cottages under construction showing the gutters and downspouts.

The gutters are cut from umbrella ribs. A dead golfing brolly provides a huge amount of ribs and is just about right for 7mm scale (0 gauge) For 4mm (00 gauge) a normal or child's brolly is  probably near enough.

You'll need a Dremel or similar with a cutting disk, or a very good razor saw to get through the metal ribs, they are hard as nails.

After priming with car primer, I temporarily fix the gutters to the underside of the lowest row of tiles with brackets made from slivers of paper backed with double sided tape. When I'm happy with the position, I make a slightly more sturdy job of fixing them with dots of superglue and when that`s dry, I run a fillet of pva down the rear between the roof and gutter using a syringe and blunted hypodermic needle.

The Hopper is a cube of balsa wood filed to fit around the guttering.

The downspout is a piece of insulated copper wire with joints/brackets made by winding a thin wire around the pipe twice to represent the flanges. This is twizzled together at the rear and poked through holes to secure it to the building.  There's a bit of adjusting to do with the height of the pipe, the bottom of the spout will eventually vanish into a water barrel.

The photography is a bit cruel and unforgiving to my modelling efforts, but there's quite a bit to do yet, and anyway it ain't Pendon. Once it's in situ on the layout, it'll be just fine.

Card building techniques

Most of my modelling is done with various thicknesses of reclaimed card. I find that the nicest thin card comes from tissues boxes or cereal packets. I do buy some card, 240gsm  hard black card is just right for roofing slates and window frames, and around 200gsm white card for general use. Amazon ( Yes I know they are the spawn of the devil but needs must) is cheapest by far.

I used to use corrugated card from boxes, but I have moved on to Daler board for more substantial structures and foam board for the basic carcasses of buildings. You do have to pay for some things.

You can make your own self adhesive paper and card by using a product called 'banner tape'.

This is a very thin double sided tape used by the people who make those vinyl signs and banners, they use it to stick the folded over edges together before stitching or welding.

The tape itself has a very thin tissue core with extremely strong adhesive on both sides. It sticks firmly to almost anything and is very inexpensive - Don't buy the stuff stationary stores sell, search Amazon  for tissue tape or banner tape. A fiver or so buys a 50metre roll, maybe if there is a company near you who makes vinyl signs, they can be persuaded to part with a roll or two even cheaper - they use it by the furlong.

The only material I have found it doesn't stick well to is it's own backing paper and certain soapy plastics, which is handy as I use a cheap (pound shop) chopping board as a cutting board for slicing up the tape for very thin strips. You can stick a strip of tape down to the board, slice off a narrow sliver, then peel the sliver off the board easily leaving the rest of the tape for another day.

A good investment is a colour laser printer, there are some really good deals to be found where you buy two sets of toner and get the printer for free. Inkjets are just too expensive to run. Most laser printers will handle card up to 240 gsm easily. You can also print onto thin plasticard including transparent. Overhead projector film is a good source of transparent material which can be printed upon.

The photo shows some narrow gauge coach sides laser printed onto 200gsm cardstock with the banner tape already applied to the rear of one side ready to be stuck down onto the thin balsa sheet (which could easily be card or styrene sheet). Once it's stuck down, I`ll nip out the window openings with a scalpel then cut around the outside.

Notice the hairdresser's scissors, they are great for fine work with card and paper and not expensive.

This is an old photo of part of our club layout under construction. The coaches are constructed in the same manner as the bogie coach above, flat sides and ends, but from normal viewing distance they are fairly convincing.
The loco is a Smallbrook Studios 'Iris'
The signal box is an early effort of mine and is made almost entirely from laminated card.

Acrylic Paints

For my model buildings, I mainly use acrylic paints. No nasty smell, water based, they clean up easily and mix together well, drying with a  slight satiny sheen when applied thick, but matt when watered down or airbrushed.

The cheap stuff in tubes is perfectly adequate for modelling buildings and weathering and you can often find really good bargains in Lidl stores when they have one of their 'arty' special offer days.

A good source of very cheap acrylic paints are 'tester pots' 75ml for less than a couple of quid  in DIYs stores. Solid black and white are not normally available in testers but Wickes 'Licorice' is a nice - not quite black, not really grey -  whilst 'Powder grey' is near enough white to not matter.

As we all know, once acrylic paint has dried, it becomes fairly waterproof (at least it doesn't wash off with water). My little tip for keeping small amounts of paint moist for a few days is to make a small palette from an Altoids tin as in the photograph. A folded up tissue in the bottom, moistened with tap water is enough to keep the paint from drying, beer bottle tops act as containers for the paint and a bottle top for the clean water. When it all gets too grunged up, you throw it away and make a new one.
Don't forget to label the lid "This Way Up"

You can buy fancy artists versions of these ready made, they are twelve quid! My method is more or less free and you get to eat mints and drink some beer.

The (unfinished) cottages are Das on foamboard with black card tiled roofs. More on these at a later date.

Modelling on a budget.

I wouldn't describe myself as a particularly good modeller, Rather than striving to get picture perfect detail and dimensions I prefer a more relaxed approach. As a result I think some of my models have a slightly 'cartoonish' look about them, which I like. I model mainly  in 7mm scale.

Now, I wouldn't say that I am a tightwad, but I do like to save a penny or two here and there. I'm not really a buy it and plonk it down on the layout type of guy, in fact the real pleasure I get from railway modelling is fiddling around for hours with bits of card and glue, creating something from next to nothing.

My modelling ethic is to use recycled or very low cost materials: card from tissue and cereal boxes, plastic from containers etc. Of course, some stuff you just have to buy, but a bit of amateur sleuthing on the interwebs often gets you the best prices.

So, contained in this blog are some of my modelling techniques and money saving ideas.

Read on dear viewer.