Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

hmmm. You guys have almost convinced me that what I want is a bandsaw not a scroll saw... Whatever I get needs to relatively small... I don't have a shop or a pick up to keep it in... So coarse blades for acrylic sheet eh? I would have chosen a really fine blade... I seem to remember using blades at...

Cool!! I think I'm gonna do it!!!
Dave

I'm thinking about getting a scroll saw to cut perspex upto 1cm thick and also heavy styrene sheet.
Does anyone have any experience in this area?
I was thinking about the ryobi one...
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_im ... page=3&c=y

Cheers
Dave

You need a pasta machine.... its a couple of rollers and crank.
You feed sculpy in one end and sheets of sculpy come out the other end...
If you feed the sculpy through a couple of times its ready for use...
You can also use the machine to make thin sheets of sculpy.
Daev

I use green stuff (kneadatite) and milliput. They are very different. Green stuff is a bit like chewing gum. Its quite stiff and rubbery to work with. It can be very sticky initally. If so letting it rest for 5 minutes before working with it can help. Use water to keep your tools wet. Its quite expe...

I think i know the things you mean... you can get disposable pie trays in safeway... they look ideal plus I won't have to wash the food off of them!
Dave

I think I want to try and do a 1/35 dino with rider... I tried to make one based on the old aurora Pterosaur ages ago, but it wasn't a great model and it was in the wrong pose... and I was rubbish at finishing things... I think these articles will give me the confidence to start on a scratch build. ...

I just finished up construction on my contest entry and I really wish I'd built and painted that in sub assemblies...I need to j shaped brushes ! But on the other hand engineering the sub assemblies the fit neatly together would have made the whole project a lot trickier. I usually work in sub assem...

Yeah, thats really cool!
My creative juices are overflowing.
Dave

I thought I still had this.... :-) http://david.coombes.home.mindspring.com/tie.htm In find working on multiple projects is counter productive... if I just make a single model I stay focused and get things finished... as soon as I have several models on the go progress goes out the window... My only...

Flat tamiya paints set up really fast... I've made models in a weekend.... Like the fine molds tie fighter... but then its matt black and grey.... no clear coats needed unless you weather it... On this model ( made in the middle of a warm dry nor cal summer ) http://www.spacemodelmania.com/models/co...

Dont the rc guys cover the foam with parcel tape?
http://www.jkaerotech.com/t52instr.htm#Wing%20covering
Looks ok from a distance!
Dave

A lot of the modern paints are of the 2 pack catalysed variety and can't be sprayed without proper filtration because they are poisonous so they are out for hobby use! That said you might be able to convince a body shop or a bike customizer in your area to paint them for you.... Without a food dehyd...

Model car guys often use a food dehydrator with the racks cut out for speeding up enamel paint drying.... I had one for a while when I was into the masochism of painting model cars..... I'm over that now! Here is something similar http://www.ninfinger.org/~sven/models/tools/dryer.html You have to be...

Hey I even own a hair dryer...its one of the most useful tools on my bench.....I use it to help paint dry and also to blow dust off models before painting them.... I eventually wussed out and glued the tip plates on... then I put a fillet of super glue down the inside and rounded the outer edge off ...

I needed to make a tapered pyramid shaped nose cone about half an inch long for my contest entry. A bit small to make from sheet plastic, a bit big to carve from solid. As usual I spent longer worrying about all the things that could go wrong than I actually did making it. I carved the piece from ba...

Yeah... thats exactly what I was thinking about....
I think I might wuss out and just glue the plates on though... its a tiny model. Maybe next time I'll try one of these!

I did think of making the wings from brass sheet too... but I'm not sure how I'd scribe the elevators....

Dave

Hello, Back at school we had a device for bending perspex. It was basically 2 fire bricks, with a hot wire between them. It would get a narrow area of the perspex hot enough that you could put a tight bend in it. Think menu holders in restaurants. I'm thinking I want to make my own one for working w...

If you have a big hole to fill quite often the best thing to do is to cut a piece of strene sheet to fit.... This is especially true of round holes... Its easy to take a piece of sprue and heat stretch or file it to make a tapered plug that you can then push through the hole till its a tight fit and...

A tempura / kids water color paint wash would do what you want. If you add a drop or two of washing up soap to the mix it works even better. Once its dry clean the residue off with a cotton bud. You might want to do this over a gloss coat and then add a flat coat once you've finished which sounds li...

He He He... Yeah I still keep a copy of truespace around.... I think mine is version 3. I think wings is a better modeller though.. and truespace doesn't have much in the way of texture mapping options ( you can't edit uvs directly ) but the renderer is pretty nice. Maybe exporting vrml files from w...

What you need is one of these.... http://www.rolanddga.com/products/3D/combo/mdx15/default.asp They used one of these to make the new Darth Vader helmet... its on the special features dvd... its a bit out of my price range right now... although my girlfriend has her own jewelry business so maybe I c...

Povray is a ray tracer and its very similar to renderman which the one used in a lot of movies. The input is script driven, so you basically have to type it all in by hand.. or write computer programs to generate it... //ok this is pseudo code.. it woudln't actually work in POV but you'll get the id...

This is made in wings in 8 minutes.... I used to use Nendo, so it all come flooding back :-) The version of nendo I had didn't have materials though and wings does.... :-) http://david.coombes.home.mindspring.com/fighter.htm Max is hard to learn... you can get a free version of max called gmax and y...

Ooohhhh... its nice!!
Dave

NICE. I remember playing with Nendo when that came out and it was very nice... plugs right into pov ray too by the looks of things... I'm gonna give this a try tonight... Its about time I retired my copy of Truespace... but I'm not quite ready to let go of vrml yet.... I put GMAX on my pc too but I ...

There is a reason why the cops use chalk pastel dust for collecting finger prints... so if you are dusting a model with pastels watch out!
Dave