Today I picked up a couple of Sylvan resin vehicle kits. Do I need a specific product to clean the resin parts before assembly or good old soap and water work just fine?I have learnt the small parts are delicate while cleaning off the flash.
Any other tips are appreciated.
Warm water in a gentle dishwashing liquid (e.g. Ivory) will do the trick to remove the releasing agent from the exterior of the resin. I then rinse it off in distilled water and let it air dry.
Sylvan are great kits and will yield you a very nice model.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Goo-Gone could help, just apply and scrub parts under warm water, as well as the dish-soap and water. Sylvan used to make a product to clean the mold release from their models but I'm not sure if they still do. I'd recommend washing parts prior to building and again afterwards. Medium viscosity CA is my go-to when doing resin kits. Also, plenty of sanding tools, sanding sticks, paper, including emery boards from the store used to prepare finger or toe nails for polish. I recommend a primer coat of paint before painting as well.
Lastly, but not leastly, take your time. Do every step on the slow side, and if it gets to be to much or frustrating, put the pieces in the boxe, or a box, set aside and come back another time.
Alvie
Sylvan suggests use of their proprietary cleaner for resin, but in the past, also noted that lacquer thinner would work, too...it did, but I wouldn't recommend it for small detail parts unless you can dip the parts into the thinner quickly, then into soapy water immediately, followed by a thorough rinse. Otherwise, it will deform small details, such as window frames, and the muntin & mullion insets even moreso.This caboose was built from a Sylvan kit...
...but when I backdated my layout, I gave it to a friend, who offered me, in return, this plastic car from TrueLine Trains (now part of Atlas)...
...and a couple more from Sylvan...
This one's also somewhat too modern for my layout's era, but it's one of my favourites, as these cars were seen very regularly in my hometown...
...(and I also have quite a few MDC, ConCor and Bowser covered hoppers, all too modern, but examples of some of the first mass produced versions...one of the benefits of freelancing.)
This is a resin kit from Speedwitch Media...
This one's from Wright Trak...
I also have a few from Westerfield, including two of these CNR gondolas, which I painted in the pre-WWII black scheme...
This one was free, from a friend, and it's marketed as a CPR car...
...but since I already had quite a few CPR Fowler boxcars, I made it into a homeroad (EG&E) MoW car, simply by adding some Tichy windows...
The car shown above was originally ten bucks, but if I were to also take a Westerfield kit for an open hopper, I could have the pair for $9.00. I hemmed and hawed about it, as the car represented a fairly old prototype which would be unlikely to show-up in Canada, even in the late '30s.A good friend, who was with me at the time, had already been offered a very good deal on a brass CNR 4-8-4 ($150.00 - it had some minor damage but also a custom paint job by a very well-respected professional painter. Nervous that my dithering might ruin his potential "steal", he whipped out his credit card with a very definite "We'll take 'em!"
I ended-up with both cars, but was going to build the hopper for my friend, and repair and re-paint his "new" locomotive - the original paint was in a very '60's/70's vein, and to be honest, wasn't all that attractive, although it was probably consider prototypical at the time.When I began building the hopper, I immediately ran into difficulties while attempting to remove flash from the parts, with finely-cast portions more-or-less disintegrating, even though I'm not at all klutzy with such items. I ended-up fabricating some of the broken parts from styrene, and was disappointed that the instructions warned the modeller to not drill holes for mounting the grabirons, but rather to cut wire to length and surface-mount them with ca...totally foreign to how I would normally add such details. I opted to mount them properly, but after snapping-off a couple of the ladder stiles, I had to accede to the instructions. Because my friend does occasionally have hand tremors, he wasn't interested when I told him of the car's fragility, so it continues to visit Canada on my layout...
I can't seem to find a photo of any of my friend's numerous CNR Northerns, but the bargain one looks pretty-darn good with the new paint job, and the repaired damage is no longer visible.
Wayne
doctorwayneThe car ... was originally ten bucks, but if I were to also take a Westerfield kit for an open hopper, I could have the pair for $9.00. I hemmed and hawed about it, as the car represented a fairly old prototype which would be unlikely to show-up in Canada, even in the late '30s. A good friend, who was with me at the time, had already been offered a very good deal on a brass CNR 4-8-4 ($150.00 - it had some minor damage but also a custom paint job by a very well-respected professional painter. Nervous that my dithering might ruin his potential "steal", he whipped out his credit card with a very definite "We'll take 'em!" I ended-up with both cars ....
So there's the secret: pick your friends - or at least your train-show buddies -- veeerrrryyy carefully. Nicely played Wayne.
Dave Nelson