Scratch building advice

[ModellerUK]

Hello, I am not sure I am in the right area of the site however I have a 1/72 Tornado Revell Kit which I bought from a member of here about a year ago and I am looking to get stuck into it, I would like to scratch build some of the details in the AV bays however I have never scratch built before, how is best to approach it (best materials/ techniques for correct shapes etc)

[Black Knight]

Basic scratch building materials;

Plastic card sheets in

10 thou = 0.25 mm

20 thou = 0.5 mm

30 thou = 0.75 mm

40 thou  = 1 mm

Clear plastic sheet [ can come from vac moulded packaging]

Aluminium foil [aka Tin foil] the thicker type on food trays

 

Plastic section in

Square; 1mm to 4mm

Rectangle; similar sizes

Hollow square tubing; similar sizes

Hollow rectangle tubing; similar sizes

Round tube; from 0.5mm up, also in brass

Round rod; similar

L. H, U & C sections in small [1mm x Y ] to medium sizes [6mm x Y]

 

Brass, copper, iron and lead wire in various thicknesses, not all types are needed

 

A couple of packets each of Slaters

Micro-rod mixed sizes

Plastic strip in mixed sizes

 

Various glues; from regular plastic to UV resin and two-part epoxy

Fillers; all sorts, but especially Milliput

A couple of small boxes to keep scrap in; don't throw away sprue sections. All plastic is very valuable to the scratch builder/detailer

Learn to heat stretch sprue too

 

With this lot you can tackle just about any scratch building detailing

A  bit of imagination is needed to convert a plastic section to a detail on the model

eg: I use deep U section to 'box' in some types of wheel bays, H section can be the floor and sides of a cockpit, Slaters strip glued to the fuselage makes the airframe internal ribbing, copper wire becomes wires or hydraulic pipes

 

Get lots and lots of pictures of what you want to depict. Don't try to copy it all, just a portion. Work slowly. Its a 3D Jigsaw without the instructions

 

hth

 

[Gorby]

Black Knight seems to have covered about 99%!

I would say, look at an item you need to copy and either mentally, or in sketch form, break it down into simpler constituent shapes.

It's perfectly OK to use household items if they look the part; as BK says, plastic packaging is often useful, but also things like paper-clips and fuse wire work well with the correct glue. I use sprue (either stretched or raw) quite a lot and my spares box, of all the bits of unused parts from previous kits, is a goldmine of useful bits. Just experiment, the beauty with scratch building is that it's cheap, so if the first try doesn't work, try again.

Just use your imagination and you will probably surprise yourself what you can do.