Tuesday, June 26, 2007, 07:19 PM
Charlie is a higly respected modeler. He understands modeling in paper and has a feel for the history. When he asked if we would make a special texture for him, we had to say yes. here some pix he sent of the nearly finished scratch built model.
Thanks Charlie.
Thom
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Friday, June 22, 2007, 03:20 PM
I'm working on the warehouse in HO. It has some very small folds that might frustrate some folks, so heres a hint on small folds. In general try to make you folds as sharp as possible. This requires a good streight edge to use as a break. Not everyone scores their kits from the front or with a blade. This is a personel preferance as each technique has possitive and negitive side effects. For instance a score with a dull blade can be uneven and cause delaminated paper at sharp corners. My brother prefers to score from the back by crushing the fold line with a sharp point brnisher. I've never used that but I have to admit his results are great. Some who use a blade on the front accidently cut all the way through the paper. Not a disaster but deffinatly an inconvienance. In short, how ever you chose to score do it carefully. then use a streight edge to evenly support one side of the folded paper as you fold.
For very small folds it is VERY important that you fold before you cut out the piece. Small folds will tend to go soft unless you leave a quarter of an inch or so of extra paper to add support durring folding. After you have made the fold you can reflatten the part and finish the cut out then refold it. Trying to fold paper les that a quarter of an inch is almost impossible. For this and other reasons I always recomend that details be added to wals before they are cut from a sheet. Always think about leaving enough support paper untill the last steps of construction.
Wile we engineer supports for the inside of buildings it is also a good practice to use scrap paper to reinforce larger flat areas but adding an extra layer of thickness from the back. If you want more relief from a detail feel free to double up its thickness before you cut it out. This can work well for window and door frames.
thats it for today. I'll keep it coming as I think of them.
Thom
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Thursday, June 21, 2007, 10:07 PM - Tips
Promised tip
Thursday, June 21, 2007, 07:07 PM Well, I promised a tip so here it is. While taking a break from some animation work I decided to build an HO kit. I'm not a master builder like my brother but then who is? It's likely that a lot of people who build our kits have different levels of skill. I decided to build a warehouse. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with how its going.
Here's the tip. Don't try to finish in one sitting. It's not possible anyway. I recommend that you complete one major section - then walk away. Its the old "work slowly" tip that’s in the directions at least twice. I'm finding that I need to follow my own advice. The temptation is to keep going. Each assembly is very satisfying, but your focus can get soft if you try to do too much in one sitting, so relax & enjoy the process. Work slooowwwwwllllyyy. Make crisp folds and clean cuts. So far I have only built the two truck bays and I took this opportunity to write the blog to get me to stop. Card modeling in HO is a challenge. Being patient is also a challenge.
I'll post pix as i go.
Thom
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Thursday, June 21, 2007, 03:49 PM
Sorry I haven't been updating but it's busy time here at clever models. We just signed on to do the "Craftsman structure show" in Ma. on Nov 2nd and 3rd. This show is all structure kits, no trains. I have to say that I'm excited to see what the responce will be to our kits. We plan to have the O scale Gorre & Dephited engine house on display as well as an HO scale diorama that will have a few new kits on it. This just hit me. Perhapps we'll give one away as a prize or somthing.
This will also be the farthest we have traveled for a show. Just under 1000 mi from Chitown. The show is in Mansfielf, Ma. Thats about 35 mi south of Boston so I hope to see you east coast folks at our table.
As usual the web site is way out of sync with what we actually have available. Right now only a select group of stores have the whole list in catalog form. Sorry we still cant offer a catalog to the public. we are hoping that you will be able to see our kits at the Walthers web site soon. They are going to distribute our products but I don't know which ones at this time. I'll let you know as soon as i know.
Another interesting kit we have coming very soon. As you may know, I have a paper "critter" and "steeple cab" I've been playing with. Well, Ive done several variations on them including a On30 version. At that size it's pretty small. Soooo...I'm going to put out a 1/24th scale display model and ofcourse it will fit some power truck or other, yet to be decided. Sometimes I have too much fun.
I really want to get back to doing more tips and tricks. I promise I'll put up a little tutorial in a few days. Probably having to do with creating extra dimension or somthing.
later
Thom
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Thursday, June 7, 2007, 10:14 AM
I just got the tests back from the laser cuter. It's pretty exciting for me because I always wanted to have some pre cut parts. The windows are a knock out and the cost is within the range I thought it would be. (though not what I hoped it would be) The shingles might need a bit of work. I think a thicker paper might be in order. The costs are about what I expected. The cost of laser cutting the shingles and windows is more then the retail price of most of our kits. Wile most letters we've recieved have been possitive we have gotten a couple where people said "how could we charge $100 for a paper kit" Would people rather cut their own shingles to save $20? Please let me know. We are close to going into production.
Thom
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