Now I have started building locos there seem to be more questions than answers !
I am looking for alternatives to using brass paint on the Chris Ward Growlers for the spectacle glasses - I don't think my hand is steady enough to do the painting.
I went to Boyes (a local store chain) and in the ladies jewelery section (don't ask !) I found some small brass closed rings of about 5 mm diameter and these will fit nicely on the loco.
However I wonder if someone has a better method than this - I have a distant recollection of "eyelets" but can't remember where I picked this up from and what the method was.
If I use the brass rings I have another question : These will need to be glued onto the loco body and by then the body will have been painted. Is it possible to get a good fix with superglue onto the painted body or should the paint be removed where the spectacle glasses will fit ?
As ever, any comments would be helpful
Bob
They sound ideal. I'd just go for superglue.
Have you tried 'Glue and glaze'? It is a Deluxe Materials product which looks like PVA but you sort of build it up in the window and it dries clear. Ideal for cab windows.
John W
Squires have "Amati" and "Mantua" brass rings in their catalogue in a range of diameters. The names crop up on model boat web sites too.
It was an 009 Society member who mentioned this. Unfortunately I forget who, but he was on the 009 Society stand at the Glasgow MR exhibition. He recommended rubbing the rings gently on some wet & dry paper to flatten off the face.
However your plan presupposes you can place and glue the rings in place more accurately than you apply paint. ;D With paint, if you go "over the line" a bit you can touch up, but gluing a ring in place is a bit more permanent.
For painting the spectacle places you might try "semi dry brushing" them, just skimming the raised detail. The Games Workshop sells small flat brushes (Small Dry Brush) and I'm very fond of mine. Dabbing or dragging the flat of the brush over the raised detail should do the job. You want less paint on it than a normally loaded brush (e.g. wipe off on a piece of tissue) but not as dry as for true dry brushing.
There are also tiny spatula shaped foam "brushes" for modellers on the market that should work in a similar way, but I've never tried them (except the sort that come with Snopake correction fluid).
For porthole type spectacles I use wire wound round a screwdriver shaft of suitable diameter, of which I cut single windings. This will not give you a rectangular brass section as in an etch but it is near enough to do the job for me. Even though it's no brass!
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Soldering the join isn't necessary unless your model is of all soldered construction. I glue it on after painting. I use wire from all possible sources. Some of it came from an old piece of telephone cable that was ripped out of the house when we went wireless. It needs to be soft and pliable - phoshor bronze or brass is too hard to bend.
The wire is wound round a suitable pin or even a round section pencil, then taken off and cut with a scalpel. I coax the ring shape into a flat plane by gently pressing it in a vice.
The glass panes are punchings from a clear plastic sheet.
I have started using these small brass rings as you describe. They go on top of the paintwork. It's just a bit fiddly dispensing the superglue in very small amounts from the end of a pin. The glue does not show at normal viewing distances
Thanks all - comments much appreciated.
I think I will go with the brass rings option as it looks nice and simple
Bob
Or, it might be slightly easier to fix the spectacles if you imagine that it's a sweltering hot day and the windows are (wholly or partly) open. Then you only need to fix the ring at two points - either top / bottom or each side, depending on whether they're vertically or horizontally pivoted.
Like Ted, I've used a hole-punch both for the specs and the holes they sit in, which gives a perfect match size-wise - though of course if you do that you don't have any clearance for a ring in between. So I 'gilded' the edge of the glass, but I admit it doesn't look as smart as a proper brass frame!
David.
Ted,
how do you prevent the punch from causing the clear plastic to go white with the punching action?
I think it depends on the plastic you use. Are you using clear styrene? I always use clear plastic from blister packages or what they use as stiffening in packaged new shirts - at least over here they're packaged like that. This doesn't craze like clear polystyrene. It's far more resilient.
I use home made brass wire rings in the same way that Ted has described. For "standard" spectacle glasses, or around the same size as the spectacles in an Airfix/Dapol Pug, I wind the wire around the blunt end of a needle file. Anything similar and of the desired diameter will do.
Where we differ is that (so far) I have created the "glass" simply by creating a "skin" from neat Matte Medium or PVA (I use Berol Marvin Medium except I have found it difficult to source recently and my stock is getting quite low!). Simple to do: Stick the wire ring on and make sure the aperture is clean inside. Get a small dollop of PVA on the pointed end of a cocktail stick and gently rotate the stick with the glue on it in the hole, going around the rim and drawing the glue gently towards the centre. As soon as a skin has formed, withdraw the cocktail stick. The spectacle glass will be white and opaque at this stage. Leave overnight and by the next morning it will have dried to a clear transparent texture. Suggest a bit of initial practice on holes punched in a scrap piece of plastic to gauge the correct amount of glue to load onto the cocktail stick. The result is obviously not as neat as a perfectly fitted piece of clear glass or plastic, but is quick and easy to do, and for me, it stands quite close inspection in 4mm scale. I learned the hard way that this method is NOT suitable however for square or triangular etc spectacles! I hope the attached photo of my Fowler lookalike diesel shows the spectacles OK. The lining by the way is paper strip, discussed elsewhere.
Mick
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I have a piece written and ready for publishing in my Letter From Llanmynach series detailing all the methods I've used for spectacle glasses. It's not due to appear until later in the year though. Meanwhile, I agree with all that's been written so far and the various methods of making the bezel are all good. Ever since I built my VoR loco in 1980 I've usually modelled open spectacle glasses. Circular ones are cut and then filed to a slight interference fit in the aperture. I then place a small drop of clear varnish in the aperture and fit the glass. The interference fit is enough to hold the glass until the varnish dries. Krystal Kleer or a similar clear PVA is excellent for modelling closed glasses although it's a little more suitable for circular rather than square apertures. I've included a photo of Cackler which shows an example of open glasses (both front and back in this case) fitted in the way described above. A refinement would be to paint the edges with brass or gold paint which I considered but never got around to! Even better would have been to paint the aperture hole black, which would have disguised its thickness! Ah well. C'est la vie...
{That reminds me that my (Chivers) Cackler _still_ needs to be completed!}
My spectacle glasses are vari-focal and correct astigmatism - I don't think Ted's process would do. (Shame - it would put my optician out of business :) )
Mick,
Deluxe materials make a PVA like material for making windows which I've used on all my locos and some building windows. I can't remember the exact name of the stuff something like 'glue and glaze'. It comes with a tiny nozzle which makes applying the stuff a doddle. I was very sceptical but it works like a dream.
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I've looked for a good picture of it but it's see through... ;D
John W