HO scale dip net

[Bill Gill]

The dip net tucked into the gear loaded on the back of the HO Woody http://www.finescalerr.com/smf/index.php?topic=2495.0 employed materials that might be useful for other projects.

The net frame, a piece of 0.008 phosphor bronze wire, was lightly sanded and then bent around a drill bit to form the mouth of the net. The tail ends were bent and cut to form the handle. The circular mouth was gently squeezed to give the frame a slight oval shape. The wire is oversized for HO, but it was the smallest I had.  This is justified by relating that the salesman convinced the buyer a sturdy frame was necessary in case he caught one of the legendary large Vermont 'gold' fish. The frame was painted with a pale gray acrylic modeling paint into which a pinpoint sized dot of signpainter's aluminum powder was mixed for the look of oxidized aluminum tube.

A piece of very fine mesh (don't know the number) silk screening fabric was cut a little larger than the perimeter of the frame for the netting. It was colored with a Sakura Pigma Micron pen http://www.sakuraofamerica.com/Pen-Archival which is both waterproof and lightfast. ("Permanent" on a marker only means it is waterproof. Most, even expensive designer/artist markers, are not lightfast). The Micron pen dyed the fabric rather than filling the mesh with pigment and binder.

The fabric was loosely sewn to the frame at 5 equally spaced points using a piece of human hair which was dyed with the Micron pen. A hand strap was cut out of a narrow strip of drafting Mylar film and glued in a loop at the end of the handle. The tails of the loop and the handle were  wrapped with a length of blackened hair to look like a net handle. The cut edge of the fabric was bonded together with tiny dots of thin CA to prevent unraveling. The hair wraps were saturated with thin CA to seal and adhere them to the frame.

[Ray Dunakin]

Most, even expensive designer/artist markers, are not lightfast).

That's why I cringe a little whenever I read of people using markers to color and/or weather structures, trestles, etc on a model railroad.

[Bill Gill]

Ray, once upon a time I worked in exhibits in a large museum, not that I had a clue what to do before that, but one thing became obvious: Stuff on display, whether inside or outside took a beating from artificial lighting, weather, visitors and accidents.
When I work on models for the NEB&W at RPI and even my own tiny layout that only has had a few visitors ever, everything tends to be overbuilt and 'bomb-proof'. more than absolute fidelity to a prototype, there is always the realization that this model is going to be picked up, and probably banged up. That includes fading and other deterioration from light, heat, moisture, critters, etc.
I once did a watercolor using professional gouache pigments and mixed a delightful gray-violet that matched an unusual old barn color only to discover a year later that the violet was not lightfast and the color changed to a dull gray. Since then I often flinch when some modelers talk about the materials they use on models they have invested much time and emotional effort on.

[finescalerr]

Bill, have you ever found an antidote for wood that yellows over time? If you stain basswood, for example, with an India ink/alcohol wash or with a commercial weathering wash like SilverWood, eventually the wood yellows and your beautiful silver/gray wood looks brown. So far none of us has a solution to that problem. -- Russ

[Design-HSB]

Wood lives, works and keeps changing, so it can be very difficult to preserve. Only colors with pigments that are fade a way not. So much great art works of old masters are our only survived because they had nothing else like natural products. So what good is modern chemistry if it is not permanent. Industrial paints have fortunately still lasting pigments and those painted by myself models are partly already over 30 years old and have lost none of their color. Just what I had unfortunately painted with different colors or pins no longer exist actually.

[Hydrostat]

Since then I often flinch when some modelers talk about the materials they use on models they have invested much time and emotional effort on.

Unless permanence in change is part of ones modeling.

It's very interesting to read about your approach. I like the details getting recognizable at a second look ... when I first saw your car I thought 'okay, another HO scale car, well done but surely with it's typical shortcomings', but you seem to push the borders a bit  .

Volker

[Bill Gill]

Russ, The short answer to your question is, no.
UV light and/or oxidation darkens most woods over time. A UV resistant finished applied thick enough to afford some protection would negate the weathered look you're striving for with ink/alcohol or Silver Wood. There is some question too that Silver Wood by itself might have a long term chemical reaction that darkens some wood as well. Plus I have read, but no personal experience, that Silver Wood fades over time, so perhaps (?) there is a double effect here, as the wood naturally darkens from oxidation and UV, the gray of the Silver Wood may simultaneously be fading, making the brown tones more prominent. This is speculation, however. Additionally, someplace I have an old (1960s) museum study about using different brands of India ink for labeling artifacts. Typically a small white spot of colored shellac was painted on an inconspicuous place on an artifact and the I.D. number written with India ink, then coated with clear shellac. This supposedly is reversible. However, the study showed two problems: some "India" inks were iron based not carbon and they became corrosive over time. They also faded. That said, I have some 50 year old balsa that's mostly been in a cardboard box and it hasn't darkened at all. As an experiment for a flatcar load of new lumber for the NEB&W I used a piece of maple because it was very light and had no visible grain. That load is about 2 years old and is under fluorescent lights when people are at the layout. So far it hasn't darkened perceptibly.

Helmut, Yes some old masters art has survived, but often with drastic changes in color due to exposure to all kinds of conditions over time. The restoration of the Sistine Chapel comes to mind as one noteworthy example. Periodically treasured paintings have been restored, old yellowed natural varnishes removed and in some cases replaced with modern acrylic formulas not prone to yellowing, perhaps. (I have seen one or two statements that the floor finish formerly known as "Future" may yellow over a long time period of exposure to UV light.)

Volker, Thank you, I am glad you like the Woody and all its gear. Making little vignettes that reveal a story or perhaps record a bit of personal family history is one thing I enjoy about modeling above permanence or prototypical accuracy. But I am very slow and after the time spent creating a model, I don't want it to disintegrate too quickly. I worry that because of these predilections, my skill level and the small scale, my models very often are characterizations more than they should be.

Yes, I admit an acquired bias toward trying to make things relatively permanent. That isn't always the goal of the person who created a model or other work. The exhibit things I worked on at the museum were almost always short term installations, perhaps a year or two at most. The artifacts on display, however, were taken care of by the curatorial dept. with an attitude that an artifact could best be "exhibited" sealed in an argon filled stainless steel case in a vibration proof room at 50 degrees (F) and constant relative humidity. You my infer from that that we had some interesting discussions.