Monday, March 26, 2007

Armstrong Frames


armstrong frames
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
Apparently you should always start your day with the job that appeals least. That way the day will improve and you’ll feel better for getting the worst bits over first.

So it is with building kits. When I left the Armstrong the next job was to sort out the outside frames. Looking at the plan these are a bit deeper then those on the kit. Not a huge amount but enough for even me to notice. I thought that the solution would be to mark out the extra frame required on a bit of brass, cut it out with a fretsaw and solder the result to the model. This sounded like a whole load of no fun and since I had to move over to other things I left it.

After a deep breath I started on a sunny day with some relaxing music playing. More measurement shoed that the difference between the actual depth of the frames and what they should be was about 1mm. Now there is no way I’m going to cut anything that thin with a saw so another solution was needed.

In my wire pot I have, for some reason that escapes me, 0.9mm wire. I reasoned that if I soldered this on the depth of joint would take this up to 1mm at least. It was also pretty close to the thickness of the whitemetal casting.

The wire was tinned with normal solder and then chopped to length and soldered in with low-melt. A fair bit of cleaning up later along with a bit of squaring off using a small file and the job was done.

I know it’s not much but to my eyes the extra depth makes a bit of difference. Proper modellers would bin the frames and work from scratch but they are a nice shape and I’m not sure what I create would be any better than what is there.

No comments: