Some notes on kit building....

[galaxy]

Some Notes on kit building:

 

I built some kits as a kid, but haven't in years.  I bought an Atlas water tower that was plastic and cheap. I put it together with thick CA, which I read here was easier to use, allowed more time for positioning before drying. That went well. Even hand painting it with acrylic paints went well.

Recently Chip Space mouse was bemoaning a resin kit he bought. I bought a kit for $5 at the LHS clearance sale. It is a grocery transfer warehouse, just what I was looking for.  An "industry" that isn't huge and takes up a lot of space on my 3x5 HO layout, with a few small center spurs for yard and industry. Here are some things I learned:

• 1) If the North window is the ventilation window behind you, and directly opposite is the South window with A/C used to circulate and cool the space, do not sit with the CA open between you and the blowing A/C. People have talked about getting high off stuff like that, I never did. Drunk a time or two, yes, high, no. Now I have. Not my cup of tea. Same goes quintuple for Dulcote. Whew! If you can't alter the placement in front of you, put them beside you, not between a blower and you.
• 2) No matter how well you think you have wiped off the nozzle to the CA, it will glue itself together overnight. No manner of prying will work. However, screwing off the entire top works. Use a toothpick (tp) to administer the glue, as in oiling a steamer. Do not use glue on the steamer! Carefully place the tp on an angle in the neck of the bottle whiloe not in use. One will knock it in or it will slide in. Guaranteed. After the third one has slipped in, one may find the sprue nippers the right size to fit into the neck to extract them. Until there are at least 3 tps in there, this will not work. I tried. Be sure to thoroughly wipe off the nippers.
• 3) Resin kits are not beveled, mitered or notched for placements of parts like plastic is. This can be frustrating. If you mark the placement with a pencil, be sure it is a sharp one! While sanding may be a part of plastic kits as well, resin can require more sanding, or at least seemingly so. Some cutting with your serrated razor saw may also be required. There will be lots of ‘scraplings'. If your open tool box filled with all your tools and parts for MRR is sitting directly below you near the table, do not swipe the scraplings directly off the table! Beside heck from a spouse perhaps, It will take more time to clean out the tool box than to get the vac or a wet rag to wipe up the scraplings!
• 4) Most people know CA will stick to everything but what its supposed to. I saved to buy a Campbell model rt-angle hobby clamp with glue tracks to put kits together. The CA, no mater how small an amount, will glue the parts to the clamp, and not the parts to each other! The nifty little Zona hobby square is great for perfect alignment in the clamp. The shape edges of that thing work double duty to scrape at resin, plastic or x-acto-cut styrene raised edges better than a file.
• 5) The foundation of a building should be glued to the floor top side up to bottom side down (sitting upright). I successfully glued bottom side up to bottom side down. Fortunately it was right away, but the thick CA that allows ‘more time for positioning before dying' sticks to you, the parts you wipe off and the paper towel used to wipe it off. Then it takes forever for the remainder to dry. I suppose only I might have really noticed the difference. If you stick a pencil into the vent of said a/c, and hang the ‘quick drying' foundation on the pencil to dry faster, it will amazingly stick to the plastic a/c vent. And the curtain edge. And not dry any faster (meaning overnight lol.).
• 6) The loading dock does not match up (level) with the platform of the building. I checked the dock against a box car and found it to be about the right height. A dock plate will help. Cutting the dock down to the level of the building platform will leave it to low to the boxcar.  I must now use a few planks of my scale lumber 2 x 6s to make some ramps. If I could only find where I put the scale lumber.....
• 7) The building was already painted in the kit. I may have changed it some, but at this point I'm glad I left it.
• 8) In case you are wondering, there are no pics of it. Yet. It is not done yet after 4 ½ days. I do have a Kodak digital camera. I bought it at Wally world day after TG. ‘Inexpensively'...ie: in my disability budget. Some odd years ago. Kodak kindly sends and updates my software. It is now at a point where it does not seem to work well with my camera. I am awaiting an e-mail stating they ‘don't support that model anymore' and ‘see our complete new selection at ABC XYZ stores'. I also won't use photobucket if they are going to merge with that my space thing or what ever. While Forums like this work well, I think uncontrolled blogging sites or whatever they are or are called do a disservice to web. People are finding that out. I am surprised that MRR doesn't have a photo place to store for our posted pics only for the forum. Bergie? Leaders? Maybe when I get it built and get a new camera. I am thinking of one of those little flash cameras that plug right into USB port onto computer. Hmmm.