Model Trains and Things

There’s no doubt that styrene revolutionized model making and then people like Slaters and Evergreen came along and took styrene to a whole new level but the fundamentals of modeling with styrene have always stayed the same and here are five tips to help you understand the basics of model building with styrene.

1. Never accept that any corner on a sheet of styrene … even a brand-new sheet straight out of the package … is an exact 90 degrees. Always check to ensure that the corners are square before you start measuring and cutting. Use a machinists square to check one corner and use the square to mark a line along the true 90 degree axis.

2. Always measure cumulatively … so if you have to mark out the front and back of a building that’s say 60mm long measure 120mm from one edge of the styrene sheet and then go back and mark the 60mm point. Never measure 60mm, mark the point and then bring the ruler up and mark another 60mm from the first point. Errors in length will always creep in if you do.

3. Always use a very sharp pencil to mark measurement points … the thicker the tip of the pencil the greater the chance of errors creeping in and errors that occur when you’re measuring lengths, widths or height always seem to have a habit of compounding.

4. Don’t use a pencil to mark a cutting line … not only will the line be thick and that can lead to problems when tolerances are tight but a pencil line can easily be smudged. Instead use a metal scribing tool similar to the one you can see on the left hand side of the photo … then lick your finger and rub it over the line the line that was left by the scriber. When you do this you’ll see a very faint line turn into a clearly marked line that won’t smudge.

5. Never try to cut right through the styrene with one pass of the knife and don’t apply a lot of pressure to the knife at any stage in the cutting process. Instead you should make anywhere between 4 and six gentle passes with the knife … depending on the thickness of the styrene that you’re working … with and none of them should go right through the styrene. You want to score, not cut with those passes with the knife and then snap the styrene along those cut lines.

Regardless of what scale you model in finding the right mechanism for a particular prototype can be a hassle … unless of course you build the mechanism yourself. But let’s face it, building mechanisms, gear towers, working valve gear etc. is not for everyone and sometimes just building the body of the locomotive can be enough.

Then you’re left trying to source a suitable mechanism and that can be almost as difficult as building the thing yourself so it’s always good to come across a source for small, reliable mechanisms and just this morning I stumbled across L G Thek Brasswork.

If you’re scratchbuilding in N … or even Z … then you’ll want to take a look at the mechanisms he builds and just to wet your appetite here is a short video of a working Z Scale Shay that he has built.

He details the construction here