Late 1940's French Street Scene 1/35. Scratch built buildings, MB figures and Tamiya car .

[Neil Merryweather]

Looking great John

[JR]

Top notch joinery/masonry as usual Dzohn.

Thanks Paul .:thumb2:

From the looks of that "crowd" you will have your hands full with the Fig. painting JR......that bird in the back clutching her bag sort of reminds me of Matron :tongue-out3:

Oh doesn't she just Rick , well will have to watch out when I paint !

Great stuff…Crabtree, Madam Edith, a potential Matron precursor, even a Chuck berry impersonator on the right with the white hair….what’s not to like :tongue-out3:

Thanks Tim. Yes quite a crowd, the guy sitting , I assume you meant him , needed a hat, so trying to make a berry using filler, might have to rethink and use some Miliput.

All looking good John. I reckon there are more figures in this dio than I've done on the last 5 years. It going to be a winner.
Jim

Certainly more than I would like Jim , but I've done big groups before like the Pak gun in the factory.



Once you get into it it's not too bad, there's plenty of figures to allow for improvement as you paint ( Says he now )

Blimey John that really is a crowd! You will be an expert at painting figures by the end of this project!
Very exciting!

Either that Neil or to be found muttering in a corner ! Mind you plenty of choice for colours , should be fun , and not a hint of 4BO.:smiling3::nerd:

That is a lot of of figures!!! Good link with them John!!!

ATB.

Andrew

Thanks Andrew, actually looking fwd to doing them after all this building.

Brilliant John. By the time these are finished I will be coming to you for figure painting tips.:smiling3: .
John.

Thanks John, don't be in a rush just yet ! :smiling2:

[JR]

JR.......that is looking the "Bomb"!! keep it coming Sir!! :thumb2: :thumb2: :thumb2:

Cheers Rick .

Looking great John

Thanks Neil :smiling3:

[Mark1]

Looks like another superb dio in the making :thumb2:

[JR]

Gluing plastic strip , I use a gloss tile as a base, this makes the removal of the item a little easier.
My normal glue is Tamiya Thin, have also used Deluxe fast setting . I've noticed the butt joints come apart , now I know there not a large surface area but is this because the surfaces are unclean or is the glue at fault . I don't know if plastic glue has a shelf life ?

When I make the windows as in the photos the film is glued into the supporting sections, the only glue I use to fix the frame sections as I go is Contacta and Deluxe materials canopy glue. This is always good and holds well .

One of the reasons for using timber for the shop fronts is the failure of the joints when using plastic strip .Any ideas on the plastic strip would be helpful .

[JR]

Looks like another superb dio in the making :thumb2:

Thanks Mark appreciate your looking in .

[Tim Marlow]

Gluing plastic strip , I use a gloss tile as a base, this makes the removal of the item a little easier.
My normal glue is Tamiya Thin, have also used Deluxe fast setting . I've noticed the butt joints come apart , now I know there not a large surface area but is this because the surfaces are unclean or is the glue at fault . I don't know if plastic glue has a shelf life ?

When I make the windows as in the photos the film is glued into the supporting sections, the only glue I use to fix the frame sections as I go is Contacta and Deluxe materials canopy glue. This is always good and holds well .

One of the reasons for using timber for the shop fronts is the failure of the joints when using plastic strip .Any ideas on the plastic strip would be helpful .

Plastic glue, especially something like Tamiya extra thin (TET), shouldn’t have a shelf life as long as it is kept closed and airtight. The only thing that can happen in storage is for the solvent to evaporate.

This butt joint issue with thin type plastic glues like TET stems from the fact that the join it makes is a welded joint, not a glued joint. Welds join parts using the properties of the two materials being joined, but glues intersperse a third component that is locked into the surface of the two joined parts.

TET works by melting the two adjoining surfaces and allowing them to merge when solidifying again, just like welding steel. Glues (like Contacta) have the same solvent component, which melts the plastic, but they also have a filler component. This makes them able to fill joint gaps more successfully. The join in that case is mostly made by the filler component being bonded to the surface of both parts being assembled.

Plastic strip butt joints are usually weak by their very nature. You cannot put much pressure on the mating surfaces to make them merge more successfully when solidifying under solvent welding by TET because they will distort. The surface area is small, as you say, so a glue, such as Contacta won’t help much either. Wood and PVA are better at this type of joint because the PVA soaks well into the fibres of the wood exponentially increasing the surface area of the join.

The best bet if you want to go down the plastic route is to use a “hotter”, ie more aggressive, solvent to do the welding so the join is more easily made. In the modelling field the most aggressive plastic weld solvent I have is Daywat Poly, which is a chemical called Butanone. It is sold for making fine scale model railway track from ABS plastic components by a company called C and L finescale. Found here….

https://www.clfinescale.co.uk/online-store/Butanone-p135264765

I don’t use it much these days, my bottle is still labelled Daywat Poly and must be thirty years old, but it is very useful for “difficult” joints when required. Needs a bit or care though because it will melt kit plastic far quicker than either TET or the MekPak equivalent EVA liquid glue.

[JR]

Thanks Tim, was hoping you would pick this up .
I'll show you the other glues later, just getting up !

[JR]

Plastic glue, especially something like Tamiya extra thin (TET), shouldn’t have a shelf life as long as it is kept closed and airtight. The only thing that can happen in storage is for the solvent to evaporate.

This butt joint issue with thin type plastic glues like TET stems from the fact that the join it makes is a welded joint, not a glued joint. Welds join parts using the properties of the two materials being joined, but glues intersperse a third component that is locked into the surface of the two joined parts.

TET works by melting the two adjoining surfaces and allowing them to merge when solidifying again, just like welding steel. Glues (like Contacta) have the same solvent component, which melts the plastic, but they also have a filler component. This makes them able to fill joint gaps more successfully. The join in that case is mostly made by the filler component being bonded to the surface of both parts being assembled.

Plastic strip butt joints are usually weak by their very nature. You cannot put much pressure on the mating surfaces to make them merge more successfully when solidifying under solvent welding by TET because they will distort. The surface area is small, as you say, so a glue, such as Contacta won’t help much either. Wood and PVA are better at this type of joint because the PVA soaks well into the fibres of the wood exponentially increasing the surface area of the join.

The best bet if you want to go down the plastic route is to use a “hotter”, ie more aggressive, solvent to do the welding so the join is more easily made. In the modelling field the most aggressive plastic weld solvent I have is Daywat Poly, which is a chemical called Butanone. It is sold for making fine scale model railway track from ABS plastic components by a company called C and L finescale. Found here….

https://www.clfinescale.co.uk/online-store/Butanone-p135264765

I don’t use it much these days, my bottle is still labelled Daywat Poly and must be thirty years old, but it is very useful for “difficult” joints when required. Needs a bit or care though because it will melt kit plastic far quicker than either TET or the MekPak equivalent EVA liquid glue.

Morning Tim, was hoping you would see the post.

these are the glues I use.


above the normal run of the mill .


above the glues used for film , and when fixing plastic strip onto the film. Always works.


is this the glue that would be better suited to thew plastic strip ?


my normal go to glue for resin , pe etc.


lastly my perfect wood glues.


John.

[Tim Marlow]

Blimey John, you’ve bought the glue shop LOL…..
The EMA might work better than TET, it’s a little hotter, but also a lot easier to use with a fine brush. Old paint brushes are great for that, by the way, it cleans the paint out in very short order….
A lot of those are probably quite similar really. TET, EMA, and Contacta would cover the vast majority of build requirements..
Wood glue, I just use Resin W, which I’m sure you are aware of from your previous life……
I use Formula 560 for canopies, but that’s only ‘cos the LHS had it on the shelf. It’s a bit like PVA, but holds a bit better.
Two part epoxy can be useful, by the way.……always worth having some in.

This is the Daywat I mentioned….


I think it’s probably older than some of the guys on here, and definitely hotter LOL…...it’s really just repackaged Butan-2-one industrial solvent.

[Jim R]

That building, John, is looking superb.

[JR]

Blimey John, you’ve bought the glue shop LOL…..
The EMA might work better than TET, it’s a little hotter, but also a lot easier to use with a fine brush. Old paint brushes are great for that, by the way, it cleans the paint out in very short order….
A lot of those are probably quite similar really. TET, EMA, and Contacta would cover the vast majority of build requirements..
Wood glue, I just use Resin W, which I’m sure you are aware of from your previous life……
I use Formula 560 for canopies, but that’s only ‘cos the LHS had it on the shelf. It’s a bit like PVA, but holds a bit better.
Two part epoxy can be useful, by the way.……always worth having some in.

This is the Daywat I mentioned….
[ATTACH]456732[/ATTACH]

I think it’s probably older than some of the guys on here, and definitely hotter LOL…...it’s really just repackaged Butan-2-one industrial solvent.

Thanks Tim , will try the EMA next time .
As for PVA I use the Deluxe version when I want a quick fast action.For normal work the D3 from Toolstation is perfect and a lot cheaper than a water proof D4 .

That building, John, is looking superb.

Thanks Jim, I've just put the cafe sign up , goes on three sides so the whole thing is lying on its back .

[JR]

Tonight I glued up the door to the shop front on the right hand side . Need to finish the glazing bars tomorrow when the Mullion has fully dried . Hopefully the long advertising board above the cafe will have glued well by the morning .
I've put two uprights at the rear of the building to give some support . With this dry I can they work on the roof. Still have the shutter's to fit on the right hand side and on the other cafe building 3 balconies. They are going to be fun as very thin plastic strip , so out with the EMA adhesive !

[stillp]

John, have you tried using a thick gap-filling CA for those butt joints?
Pete

[scottie3158]

John,
My apologies mate I have missed quite a bit. Just had a catch up and all looks suitably good with the building and figures as one would expect.