Dan Vadas

Thanks for dropping in again guys . "It might be possible with a bit of trickery to make the model work on air." Michael, none of my models are "powered" by anything more than my hand or fingers. I'm not about to start now . Electric (battery) power would be the only option I would consider, but I'm way past the stage of installing anything like that. The sandboxes and safety valves on top of the boilers. These have domed tops which came out well thanks in part to the preparation work I did. The rounded part of the extra card infill was first cut almost to shape with a scalpel (right) before final sanding with a sanding stick (left) : At a quick glance the ends of the tabs on the skins looked straight - they weren't : The boxes fitted to the two boiler sections : This next piece - the compressor - took me two full days to make. There are 28 separate sections in the fins alone : A jig made alignment a little easier : The glued fin section before any final finishing : Some of the fins were very slightly larger or smaller than others (I'm talking 0.2mm at worst) but the differences were noticeable so I cut and filed them all to the same size : It still needed a bit of cleaning up with a tapered piece of wood : The finished compressor : The start of thousands of 0.8mm rivets : Danny

Take a look at THESE Pitt Artist Pens. I use them in my paper modeling and find them quite good. No bleeding whatsoever and they come in a large range of colours that can be "adjusted" to a certain degree by using one colour over another. Also come in various sizes of nib from extra-fine to Brush size, but only in a limited range of colours for some sizes. Danny

Next job was the two boilers. It only took me a day and a half to make them both, and the finished result was really good - some of the best pieces I've ever made . Once again I added extra card strips to prevent any crushing - it's a lot easier to crush a beer can barehanded than to do the same to these : Once the frames were finished I rolled and glued the skins. These were then slipped over the frames from one end and glued to them : The front of the boiler has a domed end. I sanded the shape into some extra card pieces before skinning it : I just had to take a couple of pics of my overall progress. The boilers and firebox are only sitting in place, it's a lot easier to add all the extras to them in smaller units : Danny

Hopefully I can remember how to take one on my old camera - it's been about 10 years since I last did . The firebox. There were laser-cut support frames for this and the boilers. I added some extra 10mm wide strips that just touch inside the sides to prevent any crushing, and also to stabilise the whole unit : The cabin end has a rolled edge. I filled in the rounded part to give me something to work to : Filling in that edge really helped a lot to make a nice even roll without any "wobbles". The lighting makes it look a bit uneven in the pics - in reality it's turned out close to perfect . I glued each tab one at a time to give me time to push it into place properly : The slots between four of the tabs wasn't drawn correctly, and I finished up with gaps in them when I glued it up. I filled the gaps with some scrap paper. They are nearly impossible to pick with the naked eye : The skin was a beautiful fit, no adjustment necessary : The ash box was a rather fiddly thing to glue up, but I'm more than happy with the result : I glued some tapered card around the inside of the edges to stop any bowing while gluing the ash box to the fire box : The result was pretty good : Danny

Getting the crank mechanisms to actually work took some thought, as the kit makes no provision for this - it's simply all glued together. I made every joint moveable (too many actually - the valve control mechanism is separate from the drive cranks and didn't really need doing) by punching and pinning every one. Most joints are held together with paper "nuts" which are the only parts of the joints that are glued. Here is the slide for the upper shaft which also needs to pivot : Some close-ups of all the right-hand side crank mechanisms : With everything now in place the crank movement has really improved. It will get close to perfect once the drive wheels actually touch down - at the moment they are in mid-air as they don't have a flange like the other wheels. I've started making the boilers. More progress updates will follow as I have something to show. Cheers, Danny

Welcome to my build Gary. Paper modelling has it's own challenges, the solutions to some of which I've been fortunate to pick up from other MSW members and others from European Paper modellers. The medium is huge over there, probably as big as wood or plastic modelling . In the words of Bachmann Turner Overdrive - "You ain't seen nuthin' yet" . The crank pins are dealt with in similar fashion to the axles, using 2.0mm brass tubing and 1.6mm styrene rod which I heated with a small soldering iron to mushroom the end. It was then cleaned up and filed as flat as possible with a diamond-coated needle file : Once the axles were all installed I made some "hubcaps" from scrap paper. In my opinion they look better than the bare axle, which is actually the "correct" way on the original : The crank pins are also covered, I punched out some 0.5mm paper and glued them to the back of the printed parts to give them enough clearance : Danny

Good luck with that model Caroline, it looks a reasonably "easy" one to try as a first loco (if any are actually easy ). I think you'll find the Modelik kit to be quite a good one, detailing is nice and the instruction diagrams are understandable. It seems you've avoided a kit with a couple of thousand rivets, instead you have a couple of hundred louvres to cut . Take a look through THESE PICS of a finished model of one. They may come in useful for your build. P.S. A laser-cut Rail set is also available, makes a nice "stand" for the loco. Cheers, Danny

Thank you all for the Likes and comments. These are one thing that is keeping me going with this build - another is that I'm thoroughly enjoying it . The two compressed air tanks. The ends are slightly domed. I cut some scrap paper roughly to shape to prevent any crushing later. The skin is only glued along it's edge : I've fitted all the main wheels and finished the brake mechanism for them. The brake shoes needed a little sanding to bed them in properly : To hold the wheels into the tube axles I mushroomed the ends of some tight fitting styrene rod with a small soldering iron and filed them as flat as possible : The drive axle needs to be a solid fit as the two wheels have to turn in synchronisation. The crank pins are offset by 90 degrees from each other so that one wheel is vertical while the other is horizontal. This keeps the drive going without any stopping. To make sure they don't slip on the axle I made a keyway for each and also used CA glue to hold them to the axle : Danny

Ken - fire up a paper model ????? I don't think that will end well . I'm going backwards in the following posts to show some of the construction involved in the earlier post of my progress. Quite a bit of work in building the two steam cylinders. I had a few re-does with these, as I didn't understand the basic principles of how they actually worked. Thanks to a couple of other build logs, Stephan and Lothar on German Paper Modelling sites, I eventually got them together the right way up and also WORKING . In these next pics I've cut apart one of my early failures. I actually managed to save every part and rebuilt the little section : The shaft should have gone right through the piece. I had added a paper roll to glue the legs to - wrong : Sometimes a single-edged razor blade works better than a scalpel for cutting parts off as it's about half the thickness : Some of the parts for the end plates etc : How I keep multiple pieces aligned on an otherwise difficult part : These two little pieces were very difficult to roll due to the cutouts in the middle. They turned out quite well : Some finished sub-sections : Lots of laser-cut bolt heads and how I cut them off the sheet : These name plaques turned out really well. They are laser-engraved, the gold colour was applied with a Pitt Pen : The finished cylinders. I'll put the name plaques on near the end of the build : Danny

OK Phil, let's try these for starters 1. I'm assuming you're using an acid-free PVA white glue, aka Craft Glue. Use a nice thick one - the more water content the glue has the more warping you will get. 2. Use as little glue as possible to still get a good bond. Too much glue will ...... you get the picture . 3. Use an appropriate applicator. I usually use a squeeze bottle - one with a 2mm tip for large parts like bulkheads or decks, and a much smaller 0.6mm needle-tip one for smaller parts. You could also use a paintbrush for large areas - put the glue into a small container like a plastic medicine cup or similar item and brush it on. 4. Work quickly. You don't need to cover the entire area with glue, small areas without glue won't matter, but you need to get the pieces together before the glue dries too much. If it does, apply another thin layer over it. 5. On very large things like decks - don't attempt to do too much at once. You may need to do it in two or more sections. I usually align it all and tape down the "finish" end to my work surface. Then I tape a couple of "stops" to each side and the end of the surface so it is easily re-aligned accurately later. Now I run a bead of glue down the "start" end while keeping the "finish" end aligned in the stops, press it down and let it dry enough so it won't shift. Now lift the "finish" end and start applying glue at the "start" end, pressing it down with a flat piece of wood about 20mm behind the glue as you go. When it's all done press the entire deck down with your flat timber and - this is important - bend the piece gently (ends down, middle up) to "pre-stress" the part. Now slip it under a sheet of glass on a flat surface and let it dry THOROUGHLY (over-night). I hope this helps a bit. The main point is - don't use too much glue. Cheers, Danny

I'll post an answer to that in my next one later today Phil, I'm in a bit of a hurry at the moment and wanted to show an update on my loco. Here's where I'm up to at the moment, details of how I got there will follow a bit later : Danny

No worries Peter, always glad to help out someone trying to do the right thing. To become a member of the Nautical Research Guild (NRG) you can go to the bottom of any page and click on the NRG Home Page link in "Helpful Links" and go from there - on their home page is a button on the right-hand side to Join or Renew Membership. Or you could just click on THIS LINK (which does the same thing ). Cheers, Danny

Hi Peter, You said it - "we are all human". Your build log was in the "Wooden Ships" Index, you hadn't added "RADIO" to the title so I didn't know that it needed to go into the R/C Index. I've edited the title of your log for you and updated the R/C Index. The other log by NMBROOK has been deleted, he did it himself. He has had some kind of issue with this forum and is no longer a member. His other build logs and posts are still there, just hidden from the general membership as he has been Banned by this forum. This is normal forum policy - we don't delete the content of Banned members in case the issue is resolved at a later date and the member is restored. In that case all his/her topics and posts are then "Un-Hidden". Have a good day. Cheers, Danny

I've fitted the axles to the frame. At this stage they are all a tight fit except the Driving wheel one which can turn freely. The wheels will be glued to this axle so that both sides will turn together, and the others will freewheel on the axles - at least that's the plan so far, we'll see how things work out : I've also fitted the crank pins to the wheels and filed out the centres with a small diamond-coated round file. These things work really well on paper : I'm leaving the wheels aside for the time being - I've ordered some 2.5mm styrene rod which I'll use to "rivet" the wheels to the axles. Meanwhile I fitted all the brake suspension using the springs I made earlier. I had a drama with the swing-arm brackets, the clear coating on all of them let go when I started working on them so they needed a re-do which consisted of scraping off the coating and re-gluing them - much better : The springs and swing-arms fitted : Finally for this stage I made up the two main cranks : Danny

Yep, the Olfa isn't much good at all. It's the first one I bought and found the same sloppiness - I'm glad I managed to snap it . I don't know if you noticed the pic of the new one I bought, but the arm adjusting lock isn't a screw but a plastic sliding wedge (there's another on the back for the "large circle extension") which does a good job of locking the arm without any freeplay. The whole unit is also a bit thicker than the Olfa, which takes a lot of flex out of it - and it hasn't snapped yet either . Danny