wonwinglo
SMF Supporter
- Joined
- Apr 18, 2004
- Messages
- 6,754
- Points
- 113
- First Name
- Barry
Greyhead has given us some excellent examples of what can be made with litho plate on his Parnall Elf biplane,for those not familiar with this material a few notes and ideas for its use here-
Basically a printing plate which has a surface coating on one side for offset litho work,the thin metal sheets are discarded once the printing jobs have been done,however a friendly word with your local jobbing printer usually brings results and gives you enough supplies to last quite a a while.
Various thicknesses have been seen but they are all suitable for modelling in some shape or form,the interesting thing is the sheer strength of this material and the way it can be worked into tricky shapes,obviously a little practise will be required at first but well worth a bit of experimenting,for cowlings it can take on two forms,either fixed in place or better still made to be removable,you can crimp the edges and even use tiny rivets as well,gentle beating with a ball pane hammer held against a sand bag can yield some interesting shapes with double curves etc.
Strips of the material make first class canopy frames which can be glued and tacked into place,also windshields can benefit from strips cemented or epoxied around the edges,the scope is endless.
The job of cladding a complete model will be dealt with some other time,does anyone remember the beautiful Focke Wulf 190 which had a similar finish at the model engineer exhibition some years ago ?
Basically a printing plate which has a surface coating on one side for offset litho work,the thin metal sheets are discarded once the printing jobs have been done,however a friendly word with your local jobbing printer usually brings results and gives you enough supplies to last quite a a while.
Various thicknesses have been seen but they are all suitable for modelling in some shape or form,the interesting thing is the sheer strength of this material and the way it can be worked into tricky shapes,obviously a little practise will be required at first but well worth a bit of experimenting,for cowlings it can take on two forms,either fixed in place or better still made to be removable,you can crimp the edges and even use tiny rivets as well,gentle beating with a ball pane hammer held against a sand bag can yield some interesting shapes with double curves etc.
Strips of the material make first class canopy frames which can be glued and tacked into place,also windshields can benefit from strips cemented or epoxied around the edges,the scope is endless.
The job of cladding a complete model will be dealt with some other time,does anyone remember the beautiful Focke Wulf 190 which had a similar finish at the model engineer exhibition some years ago ?
