Hey everyone. I’ve started working on my first wood/craftsman kit, the Muir Models’ “Appalachian Coal Mine.” My issue is with cutting the wood. I asked someone before, and they said you can use an X-acto knife, which is what I’ve been doing, with so-so results. It works, but is very slow and annoying, and is really really hard to get consistent, exact lengths.
Is there anything out there that works better, like a modeler’s saw or something? Or something like a paper cutter where you can cut multiple pieces at once?
Also, do you guys have any suggestions on working with Walthers Goo? I’m using it to glue the wood together, and it works great, but its so messy and gooey!!! Haha. Its just hard to get only the amount you need for each piece. Also, it dis-enables you from building the kit on a template, lol. I learned the hard way. Got my first of 3 bents glued together, but it didn’t seem to want to let go of the paper template/instruction sheet! hahaha
Oh yeah; whats good for painting/weathering wood? i’m assuming I’m going tohave to use some stain. Should I stain the pieces before I begin, or can I do it after its assembled?
I’ve used a dremel, xacto knife and razor saw to cut the material on a wood kit I’m building.
LOL @ Goo…use small amounts to “tack” the pieces in place. Then come back and glue the pieces together.
As for staining…hardware store stain will work fine. I’d stain the parts before assembly, as the stain won’t penetrate any glue that gets on the material.
I use the NWSL Chopper. With a little thought, you might be able to use ideas from this product and make your own. Using Google, search the 'Net for NWSL chopper.
If you’re going to stain the wood in a kit, it’s best to stain it all before you build. Glue oozing out of joints won’t accept the stain, and you will be left with lots of clean wood.
As mentioned, the NWSL Chopper is great for cutting stripwood. You can also use single edged razor blades that it uses by themselves.
I’ve always used Elmers’ white glue to assemble the many structures I’ve done. Yellow carpenters’ glue is a bit better, is slightly more tacky. Joints have to be held or clamped together for a short while. It spreads easily with a toothpick. I only use contact cement when I have to fasten metal to wood and such.
Cover your plans and templates with waxed paper so the glue won’t stick to them.
For smaller stock (<1/8"), an X-acto knife with a beveled/chisel tip works great. For stock > than 1/8", I like using the X-acto razor saw and miter box. However, I still keep a fine file handy if I need to square an edge.
Not wanting to hijack Greg’s thread, I have a question for those of you who have the NWSL Chopper. Is there any way to adjust the angle of the cutting edge on the arm? I have the Chopper II and it slices wood like butter. However, the cut edge left on the wood is NOT perpendicular to the rest of the piece. Any suggestions? Thanks.
You can cut slightly longer and set the True Sander to the proper dimension and then sand the ends. Maybe a little involved depending on the project but this is a Craftsman project. Read, could require quite a few steps and patitience. What ever works.
This is very good advice and over the years I have basically come to adopt these same techniques. I have also used Ambroid cement when I wanted the joints to dry a little faster. When I have needed a rapid set I have used various super glues with accelerators. I have always wondered if faster setting glues will eventually break down. So far I have not experienced this. I have models that I built in the 50’s using Ambroid that are still holding up well. When I scratch built my wood sawmill I first drew the plans and then put down wax paper and pinned the wood and glued it over the plan just the way I use to build model airplanes kits. I used all of the above techniques while building my sawmill. If they stopped making wax paper I would probably quit scratch building wood structures.
Another essential tool is the NWSL True Sander. This is the only way to make two or more pieces of material the exact length. I scratch build a lot of wooden structures and rolling stock and I couldn’t do without this tool.
I used to have a true sander (IIRC, it was a metal sanding block, and two pieces of overlapped manosite, plus some straightedge hardware) - the problem was (I always seem to have these kinds of problems), after a short while the sanding block wore a groove in the edge of the mansonite, and that tru-sander wasn’t remotely true after. I gather others do NOT have this problem, and so I wonder what I was doing wrong, and what everyone else is doing right.
I’ll join in on the Ambroid bandwagon–I used it extensively very early in my modelmaking with wood kits, and they’re still holding together just fine, even after almost forty years. Another thought would be regular contact cement–not the stuff that comes in the tube, but the cement that comes in the bottle with a brush. That way you have much more control over the amount that goes on the parts. Just let them set for about fifteen minutes, and then join them and you have a very sturdy joint.
But I still swear by Ambroid wood glue. I don’t think it would have stayed around as long as it has if it didn’t REALLY work.
I’m no expert but I have learned this with Muir and Campbel kits.
Stain first. I use artist acrilics and water. It produces that variety that real boards ave. If you are going to paint, that can be done in stages.
I built a version of the chopper. I like to build tools, but buying one would make better sence.
I use brown colored carpenters glue. You still need to clean up the ooze as you go, but the little specks of glue do not show.
I build over good old fashioned wax paper. Everything else has been a problem.
I still love building these kits, though they take a long time. I have been working on Campbell’s coal station for over a month. Lets see some pics when you are done.
As already mentioned a NWSL ‘chopper’ works well for mass producing parts.
Are you using a ‘fresh’ x-acto blade? Even a slightly dull blade will mangle strip wood instead of slicing it. If you use a chopper, change the razor blade frequently. You get much nicer cuts.
thanks for all of the replies guys! This has been a learning experience so far, to say the least, although I am happy with my progress. Tonight I finished the 3rd main bent for under the tipple. Next I need to add the stairs and walkway, which should take a while, and then the 4th bent. It seems that once I get the 4th bent finished, that the stairs are going to be the only time-consuming thing left.
I think my main problem was that I was trying to cut through these 5/32" pieces with an x-acto, lol
I actually bought a mini-hacksaw today, and I’ve really been liking it. It was only a couple dollars, and it cuts through quick enough.
Peter, did you mix all the colors together when you stained?
I am a relatively recent convert to the wooden craftsman kit clan and I can say that it is currently the part of the hobby that I like the best. I have been very fortunate to attend clinics by some of the best in the industry.
Brett at Sierra West is one of the very best at staining and ageing wood, so look at his site for some inspiration and ideas.
The key really is in the preparation before assembly. Even models made from milled sheet siding can have most of the stain/ paint, texture and weathering and even sign addition before assembly. In most cases it is much easier to do this type of work on flat things.
Here is a JL Innovative kit I worked on last year.
For glue, I really like to use Titebond Carpenters glue and if I can find it, Titebond trim and molding glue. It has a nice tack and sets up reasonably quickly.
Anyway, it is a very rewarding part of the hobby and one that can provide hours of enjoyment.
Oh, and I use a NWSL Chopper II as well, I think it is a great tool.
I did not mix stains. Rather, I went back over the stained board with a different stain after it had dried. When you put stain on a cloth, each time you pull a new board through the cloth, the color gets lighter. If you do the board again with a different stain you get a slightly different effect. I did this randomly using up to four stains on one board. I then would randomly choose boards when I did my board by board gluing. The theory is that individual boards weather differently over time. This process may seem tedious but it really did go quickly. Of course this can be overdone. I have tried staining with alcohol and shoe dye because I like the effect that I have seen that the experts can get. I like this method but, I can’t seem to get the same effect. Everyone will have a different preference on this. I have a tendency to exaggerate the individual difference of each board. It helps to take a lot of pictures of weathered structures. When I am traveling by car I look at the weathering on every wood structure I pass. I also like rusty things.
And don’t overlook at combining the angle pieces. I’ve done that to get some angles that weren’t possible with just one. As to cutting multiple pieces at once, I’ve done 2 or 3 depending on the size of the stock just by placing them side-by side and keeping them tight to the back lip of the cutting surface.
As to getting perpendicular cuts, a couple of things. Is the blade in correctly and not tilted at an angle? It is possible to get the blade tilted (I know because I did it). A second and less likely problem is that the arm itself is bent. Something I have found is that the Chopper will not give perpendicular cuts on thicker pieces of plastic stock. Never had a problem with wood, though.
As I’ve mentioned here in the Forum, I’ve been working in O scale (again) since ‘93. After a disastrous T-bone car accident (I was the victim) in ‘95, my landlord died owing a GI loan, and the lovely loan people evicted everyone in the building, so I had to apply for “Housing.” I now live in a tiny 1-bedroom Gov’t subsidized apartment, with my workshop in what used to be the pantry closet off the kitchen end of the main room. Stalled on the gondola-mounted snowplow that was my first new O scale project, I decided to build a 36’ flatcar of styrene, scoring and snapping my own sills, etc., back at my old apartment. Getting all the underframe longitudinal members the same length was a definite hassle, but it worked out okay after a lot of fiddlin’.
I new home(!) is2-1/2 blocks from the LHS and I discovered he had a beautiful big display of Evergreen Scale Models styrene strips and sheets, including O scale dimensional “lumber” and some O scale Car Siding–everything I would need for building a raft of Old-time cars to go on the 40 pairs of archbar trucks and a like number of Kadee couplers I’d stockpiled. I spotted a Dobson Miter-Rite in a Micro-Mark ad in MR, checked to see if the LHS had one, and when they didn’t, ordered one from MM. Many years ago I’d had a friend who owned an old-fashioned miter saw with the saw suspended from the top, a far greater device than our old miter boxes for making perfectly square cuts and I longed for a similar device for modeling.
The Miter-Rite uses a similar overhead mechanism, made of “space-age plastic,” to hold a common hobby saw (I’ve replaced the blade several times with X-acto saws), and with good adjustment and light cutting pressures, it makes “4-square” cuts. The single problem with it was that the table was too short for most of my uses, but of course, being a model railroader, I felt perfectly oka
