brooker

Hi Tom, I've been building in card and paper for the past 25 odd years and I've made a lot of posts regarding my techniques for building models in card, including increasing the size of the model with a photocopier, doing enlargements in black and white and building the external detail on, before painting, how to strengthen the structure so that it is much stronger as this would stop the completed model from twisting or bending in climates like those here in Aussie, how to build wheels that run true when you spin them and lots more besides, including the method of glueing your work sheets to thin card - Bristol Board (or thinner) or thin white card which comes in 6' x 4' sheets if my memory serves me best, tools to cut the card and how and to bend it, especially thicker card without creasing it - and a way of doing your card model building with your family, while watching TV, if you are so inclined, without war being declared. I recently wrote about building a WW1 tank in card using a Polish or Russian card kit as the basis for it and you should be able to find it in these forums by looking for posts under my name, also examples of my card warship models for r/c - pix - some of my r/c warship models are 6 feet in length and entirely built by hand, by me. I also have loads of digital paper models of cars and racing cars, including the one you have, although I'm not interested in building any for the time being, if ever. brooker

I don't know anything about the issues you raise, but if it helps, I have 18 Pocher built model cars which have lost their shine, before I got any of them and I've bought "the treatment Model Wax. The Final Detail." from Treatment Products Ltd, Chicago, IL which is supposed to restore plastic and paint colours to as new - bought it on line via eBay - and although I've not tried the stuff yet, it is supposed to be the Bees Knees when it comes to colours restoration. Brooker

Deleted - this is not a home shopping site.

I have a large home by Aussie standards and I like big built models, but I am running out of places to put my models to display them, so I think I would like an even bigger home next time, just to be able to do that - at least I won't need the swimming pool or spa - so that might work? Brooker

Me too - if it is the next oncoming train, it would probably knock some much needed sense into me - getting older is not much fun, my partner is losing her marbles and forgets more than me, I've suggested I buy some marbles and pour them back in through her ear, but so far, no success - it pays to be quick on my feet sometimes - lol Brooker

Speaking for myself, I would recommend you buy a Russian or Polish paper kit of your WW1 tank which will come in 1/24 scale or bigger. The kit is in book form and you have to mould the parts to the shape required, nevertheless the detail on each part of the kit is awesome and you can strengthen the thin card parts internally, after you have cut them out, using the outside card skin as a template. You don't have to stay at the kit size either. You can enlarge the kit on a photocopier to a much larger scale if you want - I photocopy in black and white, however, you do 5 copies of the final enlargement, keep one as a master, use the other 4 as building sheets, for stuff ups and until you get the hang of the card construction bit which is dead easy. For complex shapes in thicker backing card, lightly wet under a tap and bend around a form, then set aside to dry - the name of the game is to not get any creases - use a sharp bench edge for a straight edge (after lightly scoring), or a broom handle for round shapes, etc. Use clothes pegs or pins to hold pieces in place until the glue has dried. Use PVA glue and pre glue the thin card you are going to stick your photocopy to, then pour some PVA glue on the back of the photocopy and brush it over the back side on a clean flat surface, (you can remove PVA spills with a wet cloth afterwards) so that it is covered with a thin coating of glue, be careful not to tear the photocopy while doing that, then lay the glued photocopy side onto the preglued thin card, starting from one side and using a tea towel or flannel, to carefully lay the rest of the photocopy onto the card, easing out creases and bubbles - then set aside to dry for at least 24 hours, before using - possibly under a bed. Lightly score bend lines, using a ruler and your hobby knife (a Stanley Trimmer or a scalpel type of hobby knife which you hold like a biro and a MAUN metal safety ruler), then bend. Cut off tabs and edge join parts - you don't get unsightly lumps under the skin then. Use a cutting board and never cut card on a wooden table or anywhere where you might leave cut marks, as they don't rub off - have a good light behind you, so that you don't strain your eyes - I use a wood sheet, cut to length and about 12 inches wide which sits over the arms of my chair, so I can watch TV with my family - a shopping bag on one side, for the parts to be cut and a shopping bag on the other side for waste - so no mess and no unpleasant smells either and no being banned to outside or worse. Use PVA glue - you only need as much wet glue on both surfaces to be joined as you would find on the back of a postage stamp, before you paste it to an envelope, so you won't need much glue. Boxes and small items on the external hull, build up solid in card, paint and then glue in place - after the model has been painted with water based paint. Doors and protrusions on the hull can be replicated using thin card cut to shape and stuck on the appropriate place. Rivets, droplets of PVA glue applied through a hypodermic syringe (including needle), which you can buy from the chemists - a bit of practice and it is easy to get a uniform shaped rivet. Join marks, of plating, can easily be inscribed by lightly scoring the lines with a hobby knife - however always use a ruler - otherwise a freehand straight line, will always be wobbly and spoil the final effect and remember, you cannot sand card, because it goes fluffy and spoils the final finish, so use your, above, spare work sheets to get each part right. Painting, take the kit to your local paint stockist and get a sample tin of water based paint made up using their computer to get the colour right - then just paint over the completed model, to get the previous laid on detail, to jump out at you. If you want to make your tank look used and war torn - use a light coating of Shellac on the outside, after the paint has dried, otherwise use clear varnish to build strength into all of the card parts, as the final job, inside and out and to also waterproof your model so it will last for years - probably longer than you remain alive. If you use up all of your work sheets, take your master set and use them to photocopy more, never use your master sheets. If you have an r/c tank in say 1/15 scale, it might be possible to use the lower hull, with motors and tracks, etc, to dummy up a working model of your WW1 tank......which you have photocopy enlarged to that scale.....make sure you get the width and length accurate in comparison with your r/c lower tank hull. I've posted pix of my card warship models which are in some cases up to 6 feet long and for r/c in this forum - just look for Brooker to find them and get an idea of what can be done. Brooker

Hi, Thanks for the great detail pix - I bought a completed Bandai model of the Pendle Princess from an auction in England and then had it packaged and sent to me by airmail in Australia, probably by road, air, train and road to me in Western Australia and the combined shaking caused the glue joints to break and disassemble most of the fragile glue points of my model, so now I have to put it back together without any idea previously, of where, or how to begin. Your pix, will help me put it back together as it once was and like Kallisti, above - there is now light at the end of "my" tunnel. Brooker

Hi, I've probably got "Web" Plans of many HMS warships (in A3 size sheets) and other technical drawings in various scales from a variety of sources and in several different languages, but if you can "read" ships plans and work out the construction yourself, then they are easy enough to scratch build - in past years I enlarged Russian and Polish paper kits, (or built at scale 1/200), which come flat and in book format, to the scales I wanted to build in and then it was a relatively simple process to build my models in card and paper for r/c, although any other medium could be used instead, like plastic sheet, using the patterns, or whatever - I have posted pix of all of my warship models on this forum, earlier - to give you some idea of what I used to achieve. Look for posts by Brooker - me. I'm sad to say I've lost my desire to build anything much these days, either in card or plastic - I've bought all of the large scale plastic kits I've ever wanted to build and I seem to have lost all motivation to even make a start - anyone know how to beat that? ......sigh........which is my problem and unrelated here. If you have a wants list of which ships you are looking for and the date of construction (like HMS Warspite - built 1913) I will know which Warspite you want, for example. I don't mind doing a photocopy of any A4 or A3 plans I have, since they will be far more accurate than a photo and posting it/them to you, if you don't mind covering my photocopy and airmail postage costs from Australia, provided they are for your own use and not for commercial gain. I do have a collection of large scale plans of 1/200 and 1/100 ships and warships, probably not available any more - however, I would rather you bought plans at this scale locally and only look on me as a last resort, as I probably won't be cheap. Brooker

Hi, I'm in Australia - I bought a Bandai plastic, built model, of the Pedle Princess from an auction sale in the UK, but when my completed model arrived, the shaking by truck, airplane, rail and delivery to me had unstuck a lot of the model and now I don't have any idea how to reassemble all of the parts which have fallen off!! If anyone has the building instructions of the Pendle Princess and can send me PDF copies - I'd really appreciate that. Help!! Richard

Oh, Weak wllied person that I am, I lasted 30 minutes before my desire got the better of me and I went and bought a 1/200 HMS Nelson model kit for myself and now I'm feeling much better and I won't buy any more kits after this one.......Um.......so I just promised my partner, after this kit...a small fib perhaps (she is very adept at fibbing), when it arrives and she says - you know what (*****), at least I'll have an excuse of sorts - right!!!! Richard (smile)

Very nice - I just had a look on eBay and there are heaps of refined pieces which you can add to your model, as long as you have deep enough pockets - wood decks, guns, railings and so on. Cost of one of these 1/200 HMS Nelson models here is A$400.00 - I've just promised my partner, I won't buy any more kits, until I've completed my backlog, which should keep me going for the forseeable future, however I do have a 1/200 kit by Ichimo of IJN Yamato, so will have to be happy I've got that, instead. Richard

I'm the bloke above with the suggestions of card models upper hull armour made from card kits, however, I have all of the R/C Heng Long 1/15 or 1/16 tanks with the exception of the Chinese one and also an R/C Tamiya King Tiger and a Tamiya M4 Sherman. Richard

If you put metal tracks on, the speed of your Tiger will become very slow and put more strain on the gears and gearbox of your Heng Long tank Richard

Bit like me - past it in everything - except ? Richard

Hi Modeltech & Gary, I'm not particularly interested in cars either, probably why my Pocher cars are out in the open and collecting invisible dust. It is ridiculous really, my home is cleaned weekly by paid staff and yet the models still aquire dust - it's not as if we live in our own muck, because we don't. I suppose the problem comes down to the fragility of my model ships and Pocher cars - I have decreed that they must not be touched because of their fragility, so I guess I'm to blame for not doing my bit and dusting them. Yes, some of my Pocher cars are indeed very rare. They cost an arm and a leg to buy, several years ago when the exchange rates between the A$ and the Euro were much better - who knows if the Poms leave the EU in Brexit, perhaps all but 3 of the other EU members will leave too (as reported in today's papers) and we will see a better financial standing for the A$ one again. I intend to polish up my Pocher's and generally improve their looks, but like everything else, it is a matter of when, rather than how? Richard

lol, What gets me, is not that my father joined up at 11 or 12, but that his parents let him - and why? Man overboard - when you think about it, the man was dead within 2 minutes of falling into the Arctic freezingly cold sea, especially since no ships following behind were allowed to stop, because of the ever present threat of submarine attack on a stationary vessel, a sitting duck. It was customary in war, for certain Naval and other forces Military Police to be armed at all times. On an aircraft carrier, certainly so. I remember that it was commonplace to see Military Police armed on some of the RAF stations after the war, that my father and us, as a family lived on - at RAF Watton, they flew Lancaster Bombers and I used to lay at the end of the runway and watch these huge noisy aircraft landing or taking off and I saw the first Canberra's flying - early jets back then were unusual - early 1950's.

My father blagged his way into the RAF as a "Halton Apprentice" at 11 or 12 - from the RAF he was "volunteered" into the Navy and served on HMS Tracker whose photo's I show above, then he was "volunteered" back into the RAF, afterwards, presumably and continued his career in the RAF until he retired - sorry they were in some cases upside down or sideways - photobucket did that - he has been dead for 15 years or so, so I suppose it is too late to decommission him, but he retired from the RAF in his mid 50's with a golden handshake, bearing in mind his true age, whatever that was was never in question. Richard

Hi Russ, Sorry I did not reply to you - it is easy enough to enlarge a paper kit on a photocopier, just divide the scale of the kit into whatever scale you want to build at and enter that calculation into a photocopier and enlarge. If the enlargement is much bigger than you intended, the next best thing is to take each A4 page and enlarge it from A4 to A3 in black and white, then take that A3 enlargement home and cut and mount the parts on A4 pages until all of the parts have been transferred, then take that load of A4 pages back to the photocopier and enlarge it again, from A4 to A3 and so on, until you can't enlarge it any more, without having straight join lines on the decks, where you have to join sheets together - then knock out 5 copies at that scale. 4 copies are building sheets and the 5th is your Master kit plan. Mark this master and put it aside and use it to knock out more building sheets, but never use it in the construction of your model. Either lay glue over thin card with a paintbrush and carefully lower the building sheet onto it, moving bubbles out with a soft towel, or paint PVA glue over the building sheet and use a soft towel to move bubbles out as you lay it in place. As the glue dries, the paper building sheet will shrink, so bubbles that appear afterwards don't need to be bothered about. If you look at my pix of my car warship models, you can see how I constructed the hulls, without any filler, using the card kit - I separate the hulls at the waterline, so that I have an upper and lower hull. I draw a straight line on my building board (a thin sheet of chipboard cut to size), then draw a straight line down the center. The outside of your hull is the scale size and the skin and since I paint all of my parts with Acrylic paint, I make sure, first that all of the detail printed on the hull, is replaced with thin card strips, or squares, or strips or thin plastic tube, as required, or rivets applied with a hypo syringe loaded with PVA glue, before I paint - varnishing as a last resort when everything is finished and good to go. I build the keel in two layers, overlapping the join, so that when glued together and held down with household bricks until dry, the keel does not break in two at the overlapping join, having first removed the waste material from the spine of the keel, for later R/c and the cross formers and allowed dovetails or joints within each cross section and keel, so that the respective parts lock together with PVA glue and then I glue the lower keel upside down on the straight line I have drawn on my building board and glue the assembled keel and cross sections to that center line - when dry I sheet the outside hull with thin card - I just lay it on over as much area as I can, until the external hull is sheeted, then I use a breadknife to carefully remove the hull from the chipboard building board and then I sheet internally with 1/8 card, cut to fit between the cross sections fromt the front to the back, checking for warpage as I go along. More later, if required - Richard

I posted pix of all of my card warship models on another thread, under ships up to WW1 - my card warship models, all for R/C range in length from 2.5 feet SMS Sachsen and D'Antrecasteaux up to 6 feet long for SMS Bismarck (The German spelling) also I like my ships to have railings, which are probably a bit off scale and crew, which are not. I would like to say I'm still building card warships, but I'd be fibbing - the last warship model I completed was over 12 years ago and everything I've tried since, ended up in the bin, which is why I'm trying plastic kits which as you know are pre-formed and I don't have to do that and only need parts to be stuck together, how hard can that be? I collect digital card kits and goodness knows what else - because I simply don't have room for layers of card kits stacked around the walls gathering dust, with the thought that I can print out whatever I want to build, on my coloured printer and enlarge it, if need be and then build "it" at the scale of my choosing......sigh..no time, I'm retired and not busy and yet every day seems full of things I find myself doing, including time on the internet instead. Mike I might have a digital kit of the Kirov Class Battleship in 1/200 scale, I might have plans in 1/200 scale as well - have a look at my card kits to get an idea of what is possible, come back to me, if you want me to look further? Hi Francis - good luck with your 1/200th HMS ABDIEL - me, I much prefer building in compressed card and paper, as it is much easier than the route you are taking, but if the end justifies the means, then that is all that matters. Richard

Wow, that's easy - looks like Polyfilla might have the same result, as long as it remains stuck to the plastic, once it has dried out. Dave: Whilst I don't have a plan for Northfield, I might have a plan from a book I got on English Coasters of that period, by Lambert, if my memory serves me correctly - perhaps a plan of a similar coaster, with the same superstructure and hull lines, if that would be of any help? Richard

I bought a Nichimo IJN Yamato at 1/200 scale about 30 years ago and started building it during the winter weather, here in Aussie, so I had the gas fire on, to keep warm. I had my Yamato in front of the fire, but not too close and it was progressing well, however, the next morning when I got up and began working on my model, I discovered to my horror, that the heat from the gas fire had melted the left side of the model, the side facing the gas fire and it resembled a wax candle which had melted on one side. Sometime later, I smashed the upper structure up in a fit of fury and frustration, the lower hull was GRP, then I had an attack of the heebie jeebies and stuck all of the parts back together and I eventually swapped it for a camera (a film one) as the bloke who did the trade, wanted the hull for a Yamamato model of his own. Sometime over the last 3 years, I purchased another Nichimo IJN Yamato at 1/200 scale, (since my efforts in trying to build one in card, came to nowt, in the scheme of things and ended up in the rubbish bin), just like the first one, however, this one so far remains in its box and I have not yet considered building it....I was thinking it might be fun to make it R/C, since I have a swimming pool and I could float it on that - hope springs eternal, me thinks. At some stage, I traded for a Type VII submarine which came in pre-formed GRP, it was huge, about 6 feet long and way past anything I had previously and totally beyond my limited skills, card being my thing, so I sold it or traded it for something else - in hindsight, a Dremell tool would probably have saved the day - but I didn't know that then. Richard.

Thanks Guba, My own building technique, tried and tested over time. Each ship is unique, they are the only ships, built my way, that exist at the scales I built them in - SMS Sachsen & D'Antrecasteaux are the smallest at roughly 2.5 feet and The Bismarck is the longest at 6 feet roughly. The dust is provided free, unfortunately. Richard

Thanks Chris, At the time, they were a labour of love. Anything can easily be built in card, once the building technology is understood - each of these models cost no more than £5 to £20 - from plan to built and each one can be floated and played with by R/C on the water, or in the case of Jules Verne's Nautilus, under the water, if it is floated with negative bouyancy, so that the diving planes push it under, but the lack of power brings it back to the surface, once they have been varnished inside and out and checked for leaks and that fixed.. I used to build Tanks & AFV's in card, but regrettably, I don't seem to have kept any. Richard

I think the fella, in Italy, got fed up with the final details in the engine bay - lol - something for me to do one day, I expect. Richard

Here are some pix of my K76 Bugatti Type 50T 1933