1/35 scale auto repair shop

[Junior]

Coke bottles - that would be great - thanks Dallas. Are there any 1/35 detail parts on this planet that your´e not aware of?

Anders

[Malachi Constant]

Yes!  And it's quite a job sorting out all the usable "civilian" goodies from the various artillery and infantry accessories offered in 1/35, so I really appreciate it when you guys chime in with the various other sources and suggestions.

Speaking of which, I will take the suggestion made by Frederic, "M" and a couple others and eventually create an index of all the links in this thread and the one on RR-L ... but first, a little more muddling and modeling! 

Cheers,
Dallas

[Junior]

"Quite a job" - that´s a big understatement! It´s a fantastic job your´e doing sorting out everything for us.

Much appreciated!

Anders

[pwranta193]

Yer both lunatics.

The very first non "white styrene" improvement I can remember making was turning clear plastic sprue in my old battery powered hand drill to make 1/35 bottles... coke bottles are harder to do obviously  , but modern water bottles and vodka are no brainers... polish and Future and they look very nice.  Getting two alike - weeellll - that takes longer...

I now keep all of my transparent sprue for this reason.  Keep it coming boys, I love watching you fill up the desk space. At this rate, I'll have the know how to make my 1:35th desk look as cluttered and unusable as my 1:1 version  

Paul

[Bexley]

Heh. I've made many, many Nuka Cola bottles that way. I tried making molds and casting them, so I could put a drop of clear resin in first, followed by caramel-colored resin, so that they would look like full bottles, with air in the top. But after about a hundred tries, I think I only got one to turn out right, so I ended up just painting on the soda color using a mix of Tamiya clears.

[Malachi Constant]

Alrighty!  Let's start our trashy little tutorial with a happy face and some "googly" or "wiggly" eyes as found in the craft store -- you can get a pack of assorted sizes for a buck or so, and they're handy when you need little dome shapes, domed lenses ... or trash can lids!

These little wiggly eyes used to be pressed together, but now they seem to heat-seal them.  Tried using a razor blade to slice them, but found that a little photo-etched saw worked much better.  I got an assortment of these from an ebay seller (search "DreamModel Photo Etched Saw) ... or you can find an assortment of other brands by searching "saw" on www.BnAModelWorld.com in Australia.  (Good place to see a fair selection; just placed my first order with them a few days ago -- so can't report on delivery time just yet!)



I put the little saw blade on a scrap of .040" styrene as shown in previous photo and turned the wiggly eye against that to get a good groove all the way around as shown above left -- then proceeded to cut through and sand the edges with a very fine sanding stick.

Originally, I was planning to use the domed portion for the can lid ... and that would make a handy, simpler solution for the smaller scales.  But, after I cut the wiggly eyes, I liked the bottom half better for a can lid ... and worked out the embossing pattern as shown above right.

For reference, I used 18mm wiggly eyes for my 1/35 scale can lids -- they're about 2' scale diameter.



Embossing the lids:  Used a circle cutter (found at craft store) to cut a disk of .010" styrene to fit inside the bottom part of the wiggly eye and used a paper punch to put hole in the center of that.  Used some rubber-tipped tweezers to hold that inside the wiggly eye lid ...



Then used a cheap mechanical pencil with .5mm lead to emboss the circle.  The plastic is quite sturdy on these little eyes, so you have to start lightly and work up with increasing pressure.  Also, found this works much better on a piece of cardboard (as found on back of a notepad) than a rubber mat -- you need some "give" in the material underneath to allow the embossing to work.  After the circle was done, I hand-drew the radial lines and traced over those repeatedly with increasing pressure until they looked okay from the opposite side.  The embossing changes the shape of the originally-flat lid to a nice little "pressed steel" dome as shown at far right.



The mysterious case of "invisible" trash cans!  Figured it would be easier to see what I was doing with the embossing if I could see thru the material being used, so I grabbed some of this stuff ... and it worked quite well in that regard.  If you want to make dented or dinged trash cans, you might want to try .005" styrene sheet, heavy foil, etc., as this material is hard to shape in that regard.



Height:  Made my cans about 30" scale height -- they come in lots of different sizes, and that just looked good to me!  Length of wrapper:  Should be Pi (3.14) x diameter of the tubing that you use inside (see below), plus a little extra to allow for overlap and gluing the edges (about 1mm will do).  Since I don't have a decimal ruler handy, I found it easiest to measure the diameter of my core tubing in millimeters, multiply that by 3.14 and determine the length needed ... then mark that with a metric ruler.

Emboss the horizontal lines:  Marked out the dimensions on the clear stock and taped that to a piece of Evergreen #2025 V-groove siding (.025" spacing).  Used the mechanical pencil to LIGHTLY emboss each line, then repeated each again with a little more pressure.  It takes a little practice to get the right amount for the desired effect, so it pays to practice embossing on a scrap piece before starting.

And, if somebody's repeating this exact process in 1/35 scale ... the top band is 1 groove below the top of the wrapper (red rectangle), second band is 1 groove below that ... then skip 3 grooves and make 2 more bands.  Bottom bands are 2 and 3 grooves above bottom edge.

Not sure how much you can put in a single post here ... so hang on a minute ...

[Malachi Constant]

Emboss the vertical lines:  Remove the tape and lay the clear stock over some Evergreen #2060 V-groove (.060" spacing), tape it ONLY in the CENTER as the material will curl as you emboss ... start by embossing the center vertical line and work out to one end, then the other.  (For an O scale version, seems like #2040 V-groove would be a good choice here.)



I tried doing a couple with just a little disk of styrene at the bottom ... but that tended to produce a funky, oval-ish shape toward the top.  I think you could overcome this by assembling the wrapper over a cylinder covered in wax-paper or some other non-stick coating, then sliding the wrapper off to mount on a bottom ... but I opted for a simpler compromise as shown below.



Found that by assembling the wrapper over a piece of styrene tubing that was roughly half the height of the can would produce a nice round shape.  For 1/35 scale, I used 5/8" tube.  For other size cans & wiggly eyes, be sure that the size of the tubing plus 2x the thickness of the wrapper material is a little less than the inside diameter of the lid.



Detailed bottom:  Just for kicks, I made one of them with a detailed bottom, so it could be displayed knocked-over.  Cut a disk of .040" styrene slightly smaller than the tubing and tacked that to the tubing with a glue stick (UHU, etc) -- let that set while embossing the wrapper, then glued the wrapper to the tubing and knocked off the little .040" spacer underneath ... then used a circle template to emboss some concentric circles on a piece of .005" styrene which was trimmed and glued in place where that spacer had been.



Handles:  These were made just by cutting a thin band of ordinary paper to about 1" scale width, then marking the desired bends and folding those with fine-tip tweezers.  Above left, you can see the false bottom that I added on top of the styrene tube ... figured that would reduce the amount of "detailed trash" that I have to produce!     And, at right, you can see that I still haven't decided on the final finish. 

Cheers,
Dallas

[eTraxx]

Dallas .. was Gobsmacked on RRL Forum .. and find myself still so. Man .. that's beyond cool. Not sure what that would be .. Hyper-Cool I suppose .. 

I was searching last night for pipe fittings (ended up ordering from Prastruct) but .. found this

135th Construction Battalion kit #CO 0102, Plumbing Fixtures

Thought it pretty cool

[Junior]

"Wiggly Eyes"..... who would turn those into trash cans except for you Dallas? Excellent job and as always well explained with good pictures. Great tutorial but it seems to be a lot more work than I thought on the other hand they turned out just perfect.

Cool link there Ed!

Anders

[DaKra]

I'm a big fan of making "something from nothing" using low tech and common materials.  Proof that clever thinking and skill will always trump high tech and funding.  Stuff like this is so inspiring, thanks for sharing your ideas Dallas!

Dave

[Malachi Constant]

Great tutorial but it seems to be a lot more work than I thought on the other hand they turned out just perfect.

Anders -- Gee, I hope the "excruciating detail" of the SBS didn't make it look harder than it is!    But, as you get into your 1/35 scale stuff, I think you'll find that each little detail has the possibility of becoming a project by itself.  Each one has the potential for super-detailing, fine variations in the coloring and such.  Working out the process of making the first trash can successfully took a while ... after that, making two more went very quickly!



Tonight I'm working on adding more dimension and depth to the stick-built walls using watercolor pencils -- literally "coloring in" some shadows, additional woodgrain, color variations and so forth, then blending those tones into the woodwork using a paint brush and some isopropyl alcohol ...

Did a bunch of practice stuff first (of course), then did this first round of coloring on the end wall ... stopped to shoot some photos and do some comparison and review before moving on.



After reviewing the previous round of interior shots, the coloring/tones on the wood walls seemed a bit "flat" to me ... just all sort of blended together.  So, I'm trying to create a little more depth & shadow here and some additional variations in the coloring ... plus some dirt/dust accumulating on the horizontal surfaces.

Not "finished" yet ... but if you compare the end wall (left side of photo) with the back wall, I think you can see a substantial difference.  The back wall (at right) hasn't received any of this treatment yet, and the wood tones all sort of blend together.  Going to study this a bit more and do some more work on the end wall, then do the longer back wall ...

PS -- Dave:  Don't worry!  All that "Cracker Barrel" crap on the wall is coming down!  I took it down to do this round of coloring, then put it back up again just to make the comparison more effective (for myself!) ... will be replacing that stuff with shelving, cardboard parts boxes, etc.

Cheers,
Dallas

[Junior]

Those shadows really made a difference - looking great! I used tons of pastel powders for my garage interior but as you said 1/35 scale is different everything shows so be careful with those. Oh yes, I have started on some details in this monster scale and spent about six hours on a rundown ladder. In 1/87 scale it would have been finished in about half an hour but lacking most of the details. A lot of fun it is and sometimes very rewarding - as you mentioned a model in itself.

Anders

[pwranta193]

Hey! No fair!

I just used Googly Eyes as the end piece on my little green motor - I was sure i was the only one who had come up with using those  - is there no such thing as an original idea anymore?

Nice looking little trash cans, Dallas - and the bottom detail is the kind of stuff that makes it work.

[Malachi Constant]

Nope!  All the original ideas are all used up. 

Can't remember when/where, but I picked up first pack of googly eyes years ago based on comments by yet another modeler on the useful shapes ... so it goes.

Cheers,
Dallas

[Malachi Constant]

Working on a little adjustable window screen to fill the space above the fan in the end wall.  This is the screen material that Dave provides with the little HO screen doors he makes ... looks even better in the larger scale.    Framed one side of each with .010 x .020" styrene to give it a little strength, then used matching strips of paper on the opposite side to keep the overall thickness reasonable.



Here's some more to add to the zillions of links ... DioArt makes a nice range of printed items for 1/35 scale, many of which are also suited for O scale. For example, the little minis in the pin-up set (aka playing cards) measure around 3x5 to 4x6" in 1/35 scale ... or about 4x6 to 5x7" in O scale. Posters are roughly 11x14 to 13x18" in 1/35 and 13x17 to 18x20" in O scale.

Recycling some old fruit and vegetable crates to sort and store auto parts seems reasonable, so I've got some of those labels too. The crates shown are actually Black Dog Mining O scale parts (item M004) available from www.pepper7.com

The DioArt web site leaves a bit to be desired in terms of photos, etc -- but the range is nicely illustrated on the BnA Model World site in Australia here:
http://www.bnamodelworld.com/military-section/diorama/scale-135/posters-signs?zenid=d0b4e1606dde17469735b563d757a7fc

(If that link doesn't work, go to BnAModelWorld.com and look for Posters & Signs in the 1/35 scale diorama items)

I got mine from Dave Reed Models in the US. Dave is an On30 railroader and 1/35 military modeler and a dealer for several lines. He also has some neat toolboxes from Inside the Armour:
http://www.insidethearmour.com/pages/addOnArmour.html
and a selection of neat accessories from Reality in Scale:
http://www.realityinscale.com/

So, I made my shopping list by browsing the BnA site (plus some calendar pages and clock faces that are coming soon), then sent Dave an email.  No website, but you can email Dave Reed Models: dave37167(at)hotmail.com

I got to know Dave thru the On30 stuff, and he's been helpful as I start to research 1/35 accessories -- thanks, Dave!



Test-fitting the window screen sections in place ... had to go back after this and use a felting needle to open up a few tiny squares that filled with paint.  Will paint the frames on these (aluminum or wood, haven't decided yet) then put them together with a tiny bit of hardware to make an "adjustable" window screen out of the two panels ...



Another shot showing the changes in the siding/framing using the watercolor pencils ...

Cheers,
Dallas