SimonT - 1/35 SU-122

[Jim R]

Hi Simon
Well it's been a while but great to see this again.
Jim

[minitnkr]

A beautyiful piece of work. PaulE

[scottie3158]

Simon,
Great work as always.

[SimonT]

Rick, Jim, Paul, Scottie - ta one and all. Has been around for some time now so should really try and finish it off


the rack are progressing - looks like a couple have snapped at the change in direction from curve to the flat part at the top so will need a little tidying up

[Strenko J]

Well done Simon..really enjoying the scratchery.. what did you use for the rivets?

[SimonT]

Hi Joe - if you mean the ones on the rear etch grille they are lead foil punched with The Nutter punch set

[Strenko J]

Yes those were the ones.. I am working on an old Tiger I tank from Tamiya...(ughhh,,yes the old motorized version) and I’ve been adding some bling with photo etch and other scratch stuff.. still have to add some additional bolts in many places. I have been using plastruct octagon shaped rod and cutting them with The Chopper... very tedious but def gives it the better look.. going to try some foil to see which I like working with better.. thanks for the input

[SimonT]

Have one of the old tigers lurking in the stash somewhere

I sometimes use that hex rod for the 0.5mm
For larger sizes I have a couple of hex punch and dies sets

Is your build on here Joe?

[Strenko J]

Not yet...have not been able to make a lot of progress so I didn’t want to post anything yet

[Mini Me]

Those cradles are the "DOGS" Mr. T. What's the smallest hex punch and die set and who makes them?.....very curious about the possibility of using them in 1/87 scale if possible. Rick H.

[SimonT]

Hi Rick

the smallest hex punch I have is 0.5mm and that would be a US product by The Small Shop called The Nutter

It only works with their own Tri-Foil, a special soft lead foil sandwich. The foil is quite thin which makes it better suited to the smaller scales in general

0.5mm / 0.0196" equates to a bolt/rivet of 43.5mm / 1.72" in 1/87 which would be quite large

The Nutter set also comes with a round punch at 0.25mm / 0.0098" which equates to a bolt/rivet of 21.75mm / 0.85" in 1/87

When you get down to this size it doesn't really matter about it being round (you wouldn't be able to distinguish between round or hex) so you can use it to represent bolt heads or rivets

Conventional punch and die sets that can be used with any material you can get in them, but typically plastic card, don't go down this small

I have a UMM-USA hex - that only goes down to 0.8mm and the RP Toolz hex set which goes down to 0.7mm
UMM-USA round and RP Toolz round both go down to 0.5mm

I have not come across anything smaller than The Nutter 0.25mm round and doubt we ever will due to how fragile they would be

[Mini Me]

Thanks for the information Simon, I will look into it further as I am interested in producing rivets and bolt heads where needed in 1/87. I'm not a rivet counter but sometimes they are essential when scratch building or adding a modification to an existing model.
Cheers, Rick H.

[Tim Marlow]

I used to use cubes of 15thou plastic card when scratch building in 1/76.2 for model railways....but you have to cut your own plastic strip because nobody makes anything that fine. Anything smaller will probably dissolve away when you glue it on....

[Steve Jones]

Nice build update and details on the rivet punching Simon. Thanks for sharing

[SimonT]

No problem Rick

Tim - I use CA so they don’t dissolve

Cheers Steve