When I were a lad several Airfix steam engines passed across my modelling board. Penniless as I was, I hoped to increase my stud of model locomotives on the cheap by building then so they could be pushed around by one of the motorised ones. This meant the wheels would have to rotate and this is where it all went wrong.
Building plastic valve hear isn't easy. On one hand it all had to fit and stay together. On the other the joints have to remain mobile. For a cack-handed youth and a tube of plastic glue this wasn't a likely outcome. I could make strong joints that were immobile as easily as I could fog the cockpit glazing on a Spitfire.
I particularly remember a Schools Class. All the joints were lubricated with petroleum jelly before assembly and still the things wouldn't move. So I approached the waggly bits on the beam engine with trepidation. A static model wasn't of any interest, they had to move.
Luckily I also approached the job with a plastic glue that was controllable. Revel Contacta comes with a nice long, thin metal spout. This allows precision placement of tiny quantities of adhesive. In this instance, liquid glue wouldn't be the right stuff as capillary action gets it into all the wrong places. The pivots were also greased, this time with molybdenum grease which is a much better colour for this job being dark grey.
Result - I managed to make the joins and apart from one they all work and even that one was quickly released and re-made properly. Obviously patience helps - the young Phil would consider speed to be of the essence and not let things dry and harden as he should. It just shows that even for stupid people, age does bring with it some wisdom !
1 comment:
I remember having the same problem with an Airfix 9F I built with my dad. he main coupling rods were easy enough, but when it came to the kmore complex clanky bits everything went solid.
I stick to dummy diseasels, much easier. Dummy freelance diseasels are easier still.
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