Ships plans - that's me

[brooker]

I have always had a liking for ships, warships and submarines and I have a private collection of roughly 5,000 paper plans, all catalogued, from some of the more recent Russian Warships of the 1990's in 1/100 scale, back to WW2 including a 1/100 set of SMS Bismark (19 pages in Polish) and to the first records of ships and ships plans, these plans collected from ex Communist Block magazines A4 and A3 - and - historic shipbuilding magazines, The Engineer, Engineering and others from about 1850 up to around 1920 in A3 sizes, when plans ceased to be printed in them, cataloguing the improvement and changes to ships and shipping over that period of time and before and quite a large collection of lithographs from these, above shipbuilding magazines - prior to the invention and use of the camera.

One of my favourites was a Roller ship, which I once built a large model of, and the Bessemer, which was a real cracker, but again, a failure - an English Channel Steamer, of I think, the 1880's, however, most of the plans I have collected, are as rare as the ships which they illustrate and which have been forgotten, in the main, by the passage of time.

I have also built a few large detail scale warship models, roughly 2 feet to 6 feet in length out of card and paper for R/C, although I've not bothered playing with them, beyond the build of each and I have them in my home, as I write this note.

The plans which I have, probably no longer exist, in many cases and the ships, especially over the period from the changeover from sail to steam, are in many cases most unusual and of course during the US Civil War, I have many of those, my favourite being the "Spyuten Dyuvil - 1865" which was a spar torpedo boat and which I once made a model of.

Richard

[Murdo]

Hi Richard,

I saw the reply in another post. I'm very much into scratch building (but my skills aren't great) and I'm very intrigued by the card building methods you've mentioned and would love to hear more about it.

[bootneck]

Hi Richard,

that must be an impressive collection of plans indeed! I have a tiny collection, mostly taken from british shipbuilding publications, such as: "Syren and Shipping", "Shipbuilding Record" and "Shipbuilder & Marine Engine Builder". They date mostly around the 1960's and I find the pull-out plans to be fascinating and very useful for my modelling.

It would be nice if we could see some photo's of your models.

Mike

[Murdo]

Hi Richard,

that must be an impressive collection of plans indeed! I have a tiny collection, mostly taken from british shipbuilding publications, such as: "Syren and Shipping", "Shipbuilding Record" and "Shipbuilder & Marine Engine Builder". They date mostly around the 1960's and I find the pull-out plans to be fascinating and very useful for my modelling.

It would be nice if we could see some photo's of your models.

Mike

Yes please!

[brooker]

I've set myself a task in making photo's of my 1/8 Pocher car collection and I will add pix of my warships to that, as I find the time OK.

At the moment, I'm running around like a hairy goat or a headless chicken, so once I get past the raft of issues presently, I'll get into it.

In 1984, I was married, unemployed and had been for a year or so and I needed something to do to bring back my confidence and propel me into getting a job, in a shortage of work period in West Australia , by increasing my belief in myself and my capabilities and the model ships club I belonged to, well its members, looked down on me and my circumstances and eventually one wit suggested I made my ship models from cardboard, which I eventually did using plans I had researched and collected from the archives of a main library here - real fascinating ships plans - so I made large R/C models of ships that no one had seen before - and when there was a public display, all of the shoppers came to admire my models which cost me relatively nothing to build and ignored all of the r/c plastic kit models which the other members had spent thousands of A$ on and my models were especially as good as, if not better than, their top and best modeller could produce. lol. From rags to riches.

At the time, I had arranged for the club and the modellers to get TV and newspaper coverage, without having been able to let them know, whilst, at the same time, they had an extraordinary meeting, to which I was not invited and got me booted out of their model ship club - a lifetime ban - for making models which cheapened their hobby - so when I rang up to cancel Newspaper and TV appearances for the club - and told my story, I got my models and all of the live TV and Newspaper press coverage instead which went down like a lead balloon - the model ship club declined to comment.

Building models in card and paper can come at a price. OK, if you are wealthy enough to be able to build in plastic, keep with it, just to stay in with the like modellers who grace these pages - if you want to be a firebrand and be different, then by all means follow my lead, at least your money will remain in your bank for longer and you will be able to spend it on other things or the missus and your hobby costs, with cardboard, would be negligible - almost laughable - and for my money how hobbies should be........£20 to build anything, in whatever scale you want, but the bigger the better and which no one else has or will ever get - that's me.

Since then, up until, well about 14 years ago, all I ever built was warships, however, I moved from plans into Polish and Russian card kits, which are prepared digitally and which come with all parts flat - you have to construct them into the shapes that they are meant to be and they go together very accurately - unlike some plastic kits - however, the Polish and Russian card kits are made of thin card and the detail is printed on the kit in 2D, so when I assembled a kit, naturally it had to be much more robust, and in 3D, not only because of our climate which bends thin card like a banana, but also because each ship must have detail which stands out when i painted it and that it would retain its shape and be capable of putting in the water and chugging around via electric motors and R/C without taking on water, or sinking or becoming destroyed by the water on it or in it.

Now I've come full circle and I'm starting to build in plastic, for the first time in my life since I was a kid 60 years ago (69 now) because I no longer have the ability to complete any ship model i might start - I take time off and can't drag myself back to completing a ship model which is a great shame - probably the anti depressant tablets I take - which is a greater shame.

Yes, I have huge paper collections of ships, warships, submarines, aircraft, tanks, armoured cars, cars, racing cars (well not so many) armoured trains, buildings and most other things and I've moved from paper to digital now, so storage is no longer a problem, with hard drives.

I guess I am a hoarder and as luck would have it, so is my present partner, except she is far worse than me - she even has a container full of (junk) stuff she one day hopes to have here - some hopes, at this rate.

Richard

[ShipbuilderMN]

I have about 4,000 paper plans in old technical journals such as The Motor Ship, Shipbuilding & Shipping Record, Shipbuilder & Marine Engine Builder, Shipbuilder and The Shipping World. All merchant ships though, as I have very little interest in warships. Do not have the money, space, time or patience to build kits, but have completed 268 miniatures since I started counting in October 1992, and goodness know how many in the 30 years before that.

I now keep a very low profile, as I am fed up with being asked to build models for people. In fact I haven't built anything for months now, but remain interested in the subject! Spent over 30 years at sea - Merchant Navy - of course!

Bob

[whitestar12chris]

Hi Richard your most welcome on here, a model is a model no matter what its made of. Id be interested to know what submarine plans you have, as im trying to get more and more examples built. I know i will have to resort to scratch building at some point, especially for a lot of the earlier types up to WW2.

Bob i loved seeing your builds on here, dont get disheartened, a simple NO should suffice.

All the best Chris

[brooker]

I have about 4,000 paper plans in old technical journals such as The Motor Ship, Shipbuilding & Shipping Record, Shipbuilder & Marine Engine Builder, Shipbuilder and The Shipping World. All merchant ships though, as I have very little interest in warships. Do not have the money, space, time or patience to build kits, but have completed 268 miniatures since I started counting in October 1992, and goodness know how many in the 30 years before that.

I now keep a very low profile, as I am fed up with being asked to build models for people. In fact I haven't built anything for months now, but remain interested in the subject! Spent over 30 years at sea - Merchant Navy - of course!

Bob

Hi Bob,

A like soul - I have loads of early merchant ships, paddle ships and of course the work boats that get grimy and dirty and often are forgotten in the scheme of things - I do have some plans from The Motor Ship if that was a book, but the rest I'm not familiar with - I got loads of merchant ship prints from the Engineer and Engineering and also a French publication, before libraries here stopped photocopying, because it was decided that photocopying deteriorated the print and paper of each page and each page is generally A3 - I particularly like the Trunk type merchant ship, The Trunkby, if my memory serves me correctly, which I have awesome plans for and the old Clyde Puffers, my first large model in card, I completed in 1984 and I still have that, though in a dilapidated state now.

As I mentioned earlier, I gave up model ship building about 5 years ago after many attempts to complete a model ,but which I eventually put in the rubbish bin and presently I'm in a state of limbo - I don't build models for other people and if someone wants one built, I'm inclined to let them do the slog, or not, as the case might be.

Richard

[brooker]

Hi Richard your most welcome on here, a model is a model no matter what its made of. Id be interested to know what submarine plans you have, as im trying to get more and more examples built. I know i will have to resort to scratch building at some point, especially for a lot of the earlier types up to WW2.

Bob i loved seeing your builds on here, dont get disheartened, a simple NO should suffice.

All the best Chris

Hi Chris,

I have lots of the early submarines, up to WW2, I think I've catalogued them and will see if I can turn up a directory, I'm pretty sure I have some large scale plans too, but will have to check. I also built a model of Jules Verne's Nautilus, the Hollywood movie model, which I have plans of - my model is about 2 feet long and detailed to each rivet - here with me, now.

What sort of scale do you build at and out of what?

Card kits, well I have digital prints of some submarines there as well, including the more recent subs including the Kursk which sank, if my memory serves me correctly.

Richard

[bootneck]

Hi Richard,

I am of a similar mind when it comes to building the models, I get great pleasure in the research and then the building but I haven't much success (interest?) in finishing! Most of my builds are left on the shelves at 80-90% completed stage, then I move onto another. Perhaps you could just do that, for the activity and motivation, and not worry about finishing anything - it's your model and you're not on any deadline or have to show it finished. Perhaps you could start a new one and take some photos of the start-up and building stages; that way we might all learn some techniques or ideas as you go along? That would certainly interest me and there would be no pressure on you.

Mike

[brooker]

Hi Richard,

I am of a similar mind when it comes to building the models, I get great pleasure in the research and then the building but I haven't much success (interest?) in finishing! Most of my builds are left on the shelves at 80-90% completed stage, then I move onto another. Perhaps you could just do that, for the activity and motivation, and not worry about finishing anything - it's your model and you're not on any deadline or have to show it finished. Perhaps you could start a new one and take some photos of the start-up and building stages; that way we might all learn some techniques or ideas as you go along? That would certainly interest me and there would be no pressure on you.

Mike

Hi Mike,

I have large completed card warships which I can separate at the waterline which will show my building technique and which I can clarify further, if required - the waterline or boot strap is the easiest place to hide the join, in what otherwise looks like a solid hull, especially if I make the hull an R/C model and seal the halves with silicon rubber......charging the internal batteries via a concealed charging point on the upper hull somewhere in the superstructure.

If I can locate the book I wrote on shipbuilding a card model, but never published, everything is explained clearly there and if you build a model - I think I used the US Dynamite Cruiser plans as my construction base - I'm more than happy to provide that book as a freebie to anyone who wants to use it as a guide, to building their own card models.

Richard

[bootneck]

Two sets of plans which I have been looking for are the LSL Sir Lancelot class (later RFA Sir Lancelot) and Europic Ferry.

Mike

[Guba]

I've been looking for USS Dixie class destroyer tender plans. If anyone has any...

Brooker, it's great if you could post some pictures of your models, they sound very interesting. I'm one of those which never built a card model, not sure about my prowess in delving into that realm.

[brooker]

Hi,

I order my catalog of ships plans by date.

So if you want me to look for plans, to see if I have any, then you will have to provide me with a date when your ship was built or when it was in service, as I don't have a clue what I've got now - it has been 20 years since I last looked at any of my folders of ships plans or my large scale plans (all indexed) which are in a large metal box in my undercover garage, which resembles a metal coffin and much has happened in my life over those years for me to forget more than I can remember.

Whist I have a large private collection of plans, I have by no means anything like the numbers of ships - or for that matter plans of those ships, which were issued or built, beyond that which was made public, so the more obscure the ship, the less likely that plans will be available for it..........if you find side view pix and birds eye view pix, of reasonable clarity, you might have to prepare your own plans set for the ship which you most want to build.

Richard

[brooker]

I've been looking for USS Dixie class destroyer tender plans. If anyone has any... Guba, see above:

Brooker, it's great if you could post some pictures of your models, they sound very interesting. I'm one of those which never built a card model, not sure about my prowess in delving into that realm........

Lol, I've never built plastic kits and I'm 69 now, except one or two about 60 years ago and I have the same feelings now, which you display - and I don't have any idea now, even, of how to apply the plastic glue, to join parts together, without creating a mess, or what is the best type of plastic glue to use - in a tube or in a bottle, or superglue, or how to clean up plastic flash when the part is taken off the sprue, or even if its possible to clean up joints after plastic glueing - before painting, without destroying the paint finish there - or how - any ideas please - I sympathize wih you - I understand exactly how you are feeling - me too - but I've bought the plastic kits and I have to assemble at least some of them !! Help !!

I guess I like big ship models, they are easy to see as I build them, they are easy to construct, although the challenge to make some of the parts can be a challenge, (Oh and I never sand anything because it fluffs and spoils the paint finish, everything must go together accurately) they look great as either static models, or on the water as R/C models, of any size which suits you and you can be sure that there won't be anything like them on the pond (or in your home as a static model) where you do your R/C sailing (or anywhere else in the World - you have built a one off) and all of the public's attention will be on your R/C model ships (or tanks, or vehicles, or aircraft) because they are different and cheap to make. Not lost on the public, is the point that each of them, could produce a model, just like yours, out of cardboard and paper, for no more than £20 tops and who wants a hobby which competes with the maximum size you can build it, in pre-formed parts, a duplicate of other models just like yours, by modellers better or worse at building that same model, as you, over and over, against your cost of living, the mechanics of your car, your lifestyle and probably your wife and what she wants from you, anyway?

Electric motors - from wrecked car's windscreen wiper motors, small motorcycle batteries for 12 volt power for extended sailing and speed controls from wire lengths which used to heat instead - probably have to use a modern equivalent now, speed controllers rated at 12 volts DC - what's not to like?

One gives you ten, I bet your wife or partner, hates your plastic models with a passion, because of what you spend on them, which you do not spend on her, or in your home - or what could be spent elsewhere - which you have to still save for - and while you are with your plastic hobby, you are not with her and they are in competition with her, for your money and your feelings - at least card kits don't take away from the family purse or the household budget, quite the same as plastic kits do and whilst she might not like them, at least you are with her, when time off together counts and she is not affected by the plastic glue smells, or the plastic paint smells for that matter, either - not like when you work with paper condensed card - not the corrugated stuff!!

My last wife ordered a council skip, once she booted me out of our home and so I understand, took great pleasure putting my completed ship models in the skip and stomping on them, after all, the room I rented, back then, was too small for me to keep my card models in, too, after our marriage breakup.

I used to make the parts for my card models in the lounge, whilst I, my wife and our family watched TV together - all I had was a 1 inch thick chipboard cutting board over both of the arms of my chair and I could happily cut my card parts out and assemble them with PVA glue - without affecting my wife or kids at all - my wife then, was a chronic athsmatic and any dust or plastic glue smell would have set her off into spasms, easily. I was into warships, roller ships and large scale early armoured cars and tanks of WW1 vintage, from plans and paper kits - enlarged.

Each part needs no more than the amount of glue you find on the back of a wetted postage stamp and the bonding time is practically instantaneous, or could be held together with fingers, clothes pegs, or pins, until it is dry. I edge to edge, glued parts, so there was no unsightly lump underneath from a tab. Any new modelling medium is challenging, but it is easy to waste loads of cardboard, getting it right, when the cost of a sheet of thin white card is about 20NP and thicker 1/8" card to cut out and glue behind, depending on the complexity of the shape, perhaps 50NP for a 6 x 4 sheet and PVA glue is not much and cheaper, the more you buy - can't say that about plastic kit models !!

Do the rough cutting out work with a pair of scissors beforehand, leaving the fine work later for the sharp modelling knife and a MAUN safety ruler, when you are sitting down with your family and watching TV.

Don't try to cut through the thicknesses of card in one stroke, but take several fine cuts, because one cut, cuts, often lead to the lack of control of the knife and the possibility of slipping and causing injury to yourself, or your surrounds. Patience is a vertue.

I had a box of parts to cut out on the left side and another on the right of my chair for assembled and completed parts which were in their raw cardboard state (not varnished or painted) and an empty white shopping bag on the right to put my scrap waste in (as I'm left handed) - there was no mess afterwards, so the lounge remained clean and unblemished as it was before and after each evening TV session - I seem to recall my wife used to crochet, at the same time, because that was her thing. We shared our time and our love together, with our family.

I needed to have a strong light behind me, so that I could easily see what I was doing and not work in the shade or strain my eyes, but apart from that, everything was easy peasy.

The trick to waterproofing completed parts is to varnish them inside and out, prior to painting. When the varnish dried after say 24 to 48 hours, the card resembled plastic in strength, then it can be painted - even stronger parts can be made using fibreglass resin which you mix in a mix of hardener and resin and have to brush on before the resin starts to set - then you have a really strong fibreglass hull, for example, with the cardboard ensconced within it, like carbon fibre matting - the resin flows into the pores of the card in its wet state and sets - but varnish is just as good and the pong from fibreglass is terrible and has to be done outside and on a windless and dust free day.

You can use Shellac, instead, if you can get it - it is mixed with Methalated Spirits (that's an outside job too - talk about pong) and kept in a large sealed jar - really good stuff to paint onto a completed ships raw card hull, or after painting, over the paint, to make it look like a work boat, with a dirty and unwashed/stained hull - simple as blinking.

Card has no grain, so it is easy to bend in any direction and complex shapes can be moulded quite easily - by the same token - you can put thicker parts under a tap for a moment or two, just to wet the paper condensed card and break down the resistance and then bend it into complex shapes, inside the thin card you have previously prepared and set aside to dry, held in place with clothes pegs or pins - however a much more easy option is to use layers of thin card, glued and laid inside complex or round shapes to build up the thicknesses that way, for a much more realisitc result and to remain in external scale.

When I edge join 2 parts together, I cut a strip of thin card and glue that to the inside of one side of the card, then lightly glue the other side and edge and bring the 2 edges together, held by the outside strip which overlays both sides of the edge join - then it is an easy task to insert strips of wetted card, only as much wet glue as you would find on the back of a postage stamp, inside the object, say a round funnel, until I've built up the internal round strength to a thickness of say 1/8" - the outside funnel is at the scale size and the outside skin is the surface on which you put thin peices of card or PVA rivets, which show when you paint that part, after varnishing, just like the real ship had.

Waterproofing a varnished or shellaced hull is easy enough. Run a bath of water and push the lower hull down into it and see if any leaks appear on the inside of the hull. Mark those spots, turn the hull over and PVA glue those places again, set the hull aside to dry. Re-varnish inside and out and when dry, try again - when no leaks appear, you are done. Bit hard to do in Aussie, because we don't have baths, only showers.

Installing motors and the shafts into the hull, is best done from the inside - just drill a hole or holes through the hull where the prop shaft(s) come out, putting a card gasket around the hole in the hull, around the shaft and apply PVA glue and water test for leakage, as above, when the varnish is dry - it is easy enough to build up electric engine bases in card, inside the hull to hold the motor(s) in place and pierce holes through the formers which form the external hull shape, to the back hull of your model boat, as you can see from my static model hull construction - when I post pix.

I'll explain the preparation of the keel and formers later on and how to install the rudder tube, during the basic keel preparation - if my book remains hard to find.

Since building models of any type is down to you and what you try and what you learn from your experiences, it is pretty much a new learning curve for you and the quality you produce and which you are happy with.

I think Vic Smeed wrote a book on cardboard ship modelling, but I never read it and his method is probably much different to mine.

Richard.

Edited February 27, 2016 by brooker

[Guba]

Hi,

I order my catalog of ships plans by date.

So if you want me to look for plans, to see if I have any, then you will have to provide me with a date when your ship was built or when it was in service, as I don't have a clue what I've got now - it has been 20 years since I last looked at any of my folders of ships plans or my large scale plans (all indexed) which are in a large metal box in my undercover garage, which resembles a metal coffin and much has happened in my life over those years for me to forget more than I can remember.

Richard

Hi Richard, the Dixie class was in service since 1939 (38?) to 1993. I served aboard the Prairie, seems I can find all the other tenders except this class. If it's not too much trouble for you...

And a question, does the varnish warp the cardboard at all?

Thanks,

Joe

Edited February 27, 2016 by Guba

[bootneck]

Hi,

I order my catalog of ships plans by date.

Hi Richard,

Sir Lancelot - 1964.

Europic Ferry 1968

cheers

Mike

[brooker]

Hi Richard, the Dixie class was in service since 1939 (38?) to 1993. I served aboard the Prairie, seems I can find all the other tenders except this class. If it's not too much trouble for you...

And a question, does the varnish warp the cardboard at all?

Thanks,

Joe

Hi Joe,

I don't have Dixie Class in my plans collection and to be honest I wish I did, as I have never seen a class like that before, however you can find heaps of info and pix and possibly plans here: https://www.google.com.au/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=y7_SVpeyIImH8Qf684iYCA&gws_rd=ssl#q=tender+uss+dixie

I build my hull and superstructures followng the same format - 1/4" to 1/2" keels and cross sections (frames), I sheet the outside of the hull with thin card and then I use 1/8" card on the inside, to strengthen the hull internally, in between each of the cross sections and the keel, bearing in mind I build the lower structure upside down on a building board, with the keel perfectly straight, centered on a centre line, drawn there first. Removal of the hull is pretty simple by just working a bread knife between the hull and the chipboard working base, then, after internal sheeting, I use the lower hull as the structure to build the upper hull on, so everything tallies, as I progress.

When I varnish the card, before painting, the hull is very robust and I can actually stand on the upturned hull centreline - I weighted 18 stone, last time I did that - without the structure collapsing at all - strong and light - so the hull cannot bend, prior to varnishing.

I have uploaded 189 photos to photobucket, of my Pocher cars, HMS Tracker pix, which my father served on in WW2, all to be posted here, as I slowly progress with it - with pix of each of my card warships, which range from about 2.5 feet for SMS Sachsen and Jules Verne's Nautilus, up to 6 feet long for SMS Bismarck at 1/200 scale - the German spelling - and I think you are in for a treat, pix wise, please excuse any dust you see in the pix, I huffed and puffed and tried to get as much off as I could between pix - but there was a limit to what I could eventually achieve, still you will get the idea of what is possible and these ships, I built over about 6 years, not instant....lol and I love ironclads say 1850 to 1910, the more weird looking, the better.

Richard

[brooker]

Hi Richard,

Sir Lancelot - 1964.

Europic Ferry 1968

cheers

Mike

Hi Mike,

You can find pix and blurb for Europic Ferry here: https://www.google.com.au/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=mMbSVuLJOoOH8Qf934i4Cw&gws_rd=ssl#q=ferry+europicand Sir Lancelot Ferry here: https://www.google.com.au/?gfe_rd=cr&ei=mMbSVuLJOoOH8Qf934i4Cw&gws_rd=ssl#q=ferry+Sir+Lancelot+-+1964 that was the easy part, which I'm told, sank in the Falklands War.

Unfortunately, I don't have any plans or card kits of either of the ships you have requested, or The Dixie class above, just checked...

If you can find a birds eye view and side view in photo's it might be possible to prepare plans......

Richard

[brooker]

To Guba - or anyone else - Help!!

Lol, I've never built plastic kits and I'm 69 now, except one or two about 60 years ago and I have the same feelings now, which you display - and I don't have any idea now, even, of how to apply the plastic glue, to join parts together, without creating a mess, or what is the best type of plastic glue to use - in a tube or in a bottle, or superglue, or how to clean up plastic flash when the part is taken off the sprue, or even if its possible to clean up joints after plastic glueing - before painting, without destroying the paint finish there - or how - any ideas please - I sympathize wih you - I understand exactly how you are feeling - me too - but I've bought the plastic kits and I have to assemble at least some of them !! Help !!

Richard

[bootneck]

Hi Richard,

yes, I had already googled those sites many times. For your information, Sir Lancelot was not sunk during the Falklands war, although she did receive a bomb hit that did not detonate. Her sister ship, Sir Galahad, was scuttled after being bombed and severely damaged at Bluff Cove.

Mike

[ShipbuilderMN]

After the Falklands, Sir Lancelot was purchased by a friend of mine, painted yellow and renamed Lowland Lancer. Carried passengers as well as cargo.

Here is an image of the vessel. She has since been sold!

Bob

http://www.rfanostalgia.org/gallery3/var/resizes/RFA%20AMPHIBIOUS/LSL/lancelot/lancercapetown.jpg?m=1436876344

[Guba]

Richard, many thanks for looking, I appreciate it very much.

For plastic glue, I prefer liquid. The bottles usually come with their own applicator brush, but many times I find the brush gives too much glue. Don't be afraid to use a small paint brush for glue application. I sand or file my parts so there is no visible parting line on the part from the two mold halves. Once the parts look good and test fit in their proper positions, I will add the glue to the side which will not show when displayed and let capillary attraction draw the glue into the joint. The parts set up quickly, but need a full 24 hours to cure.

When the mold opens with the sprue full of parts, the sprue will stick to either the moving part of the mold or the stationary side of the mold, depending on how it was designed. Small pins then push the sprue out away from the mold to release the sprue from the mold, when they retract the sprue falls off the mold and is collected for packaging. These ejector pins are replaced from time to time and may not be exactly machined to look as the part. The parts may have small circle shaped indentations or protrusions. It's all good if they don't show on the outside, but sometimes they do and they need to be addressed before assembly, either filed off or filled in and sanded. Most of the modern new molds don't show these pin marks on the outside of the part as they were designed properly. But there are some molds where they cut corners on making the mold.

Sink holes in parts are another anomaly of plastic injection molding. They are a result of not filling in the mold properly during the manufacturing process. Sink holes will look like a dimple in the part where it is thickest. Dimples need to be filled in too if they distort the look too much.

Many people will paint sub-assemblies before final assembly. But you will have to clean away the paint where the glue joints are for final assembly.

Hopefully, others will chime in with their experiences.

[brooker]

Wow Guba,

Thanks very much - what sort of Filler?

Hopefully, others will chime in with their experiences.

Thanks,

Richard

[whitestar12chris]

Richard if you let us know what model you are building its likely youll find a WIP (work in progress thread on here) to help, giving you hints and tips on construction.

All the best Chris