Scratchbuilding a J11 . Adivce needed

The domes at least are available from Alan Gibson.

Hope this helps.

-- Enzo

I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.

Make up a large clod of material and turn it free hand on a simple lathe. You may find it useful to cut out a (negative) 2D profile pattern to hold against the turning to check the profile. You'll need a fly cutter to cut the base out, or some very careful filing.

I'd probably just select metal (brass) and turn that, rather than trying to make up a large solid clod of plasticard.

If doing it in plasticard, it might be easiest to make the base of the flare onto the dome out of a disc of flat material, set into the fly-cut base, then build up a little microstrip to make the approximate flare shape, and finish with a file.

If you now say is "if only I had a lathe", dig around the articles in the website in my signature.

Thick clod of material, and gently sand away whilst spinning it. A drill would do to spin it, if the door were mounted onto a spiggot. (Wear a mask as dust will get everywhere).

Boiler - wrap a tube around circular formers. Rivets - either tiny specs glued into position, or drill holes for every rivet and poke micro-rod through.

However, I'd not bother with plasticard for most of it. Its got to be easier to cut it from nickel silver sheet and tube and solder most of it together.

Len

In Plastikard, get a tubular former just a bit undersize for the diameter of the boiler and start wrapping a strip of 10 thou, whose width is the length of the boiler, round it, applying Mek as you go. Keep rolling the 10 thou round and round till the thickness builds up to that required for the diameter of the boiler. Watch out that you don't stick the inner layer of the 10 thou to your former. You might be safer wrapping a bit of paper round the former first so that the 10 thou can only stick to the paper at worst, When finished, sand off the end of the card to disguise it a bit and put that to the bottom of the boiler.

With this method, go easy on the MEK. If you dollop it on, it will take for ever and a day to dry out and you run a severe danger of the

On the other hand, make a visit to your local DIY warehouse and see if there is any plastic pipe which is the diameter of your boiler. A bit of that pipe will make your life a lot easier - the only difficulty being to find how to acquire a bit a few inches long without having to buy a complete length :-)

Jim.

I always thought (but I've never tried) the method was to wrap plasticard around a former, secure it somehow and then submerge in hot (boiling?) water for a time. The idea is that when the plasticard cools it retains the shape of the former.

Andrew

Andrew,

That certainly is a good method for the heavier gauges of Plastikard which are not so easy to bend or form. But the 10 thou material is very easy to bend and if the Plastikard is welded with MEK (not too much) and is three or four layers think, then you do get a very strong item which will retain its shape.

I've used this method for doing things like coach roofs where you build the roof up from three or four layers of 10 thou over a former of the correct shape. I could also do it by taking a piece of 30 thou or 40 thou material and strapping it to the former and dunking it in hot water, but the layering method with 10 thou can give just as good results and might be the best way of doing it if the size of your object is bigger than your wife/mother's biggest cooking pot :-)

Another way of heating the Plastikard is to hold it in front of a radiant heater to soften it, but that can be a bit of a lottery since it is easy to over-heat it. I do remember an article by Colin Binnie in Model Railways in the 70s when he did over-heat Plastikard and vacuum form shapes. Basically he built an air-proof box with a male former inside and a sheet of Plastikard stretched over the top, and he used a simple vacuum pump attached to the base of the box. He heated the Plastikard until it started to go very soft then he pulled the vacuum pump and the soft sheet was drawn down to wrap round the mould.

Jim.