Useful Tips

  Preparation

Before you start any of our kits read through the instructions where you may find a Good Fairy . . . . . . . Voucher.                            The Etch Frets, familiarize yourself with these first and also the white metal castings.  Make sure that you handle the Etch Brass with care as the edges can be razor sharp.  Hover your mouse over the picture to see a description.

Before you start construction it is best to push out all the rivet detail before you remove anything from the etch. To push out rivet detail an ideal tool to use is the point of a compass resting on a suitable size piece of hardboard, rough side up.   A similar tool can be an old metal scribe (not too sharp).  Another alternative is the Handle Press Rivet Tool (the photograph is my trusted Leakey).  When you form the rivets, some distortion of the etch pieces will happen this straightens out quite easily if they have not been removed from the main etch structure.  Hover your mouse over the picture to see a description.

Soldering

In etch kit building; Tinning the backs of some of the small parts before removing from the etch can be an advantage.  When soldering the body and larger parts together always Tack them in strategic places first just to hold them together and test for Squareness.  Only when you are satisfied everything is true, should the parts be totally soldered together.  For really excellent results, a 24v DC Soldering iron is the tool for the job.  RS Components do the Weller range but you will need to find someone who has an account with this company.  An alternative and a real asset for fine detail work, would be to purchase a resistance soldering set, obviously these two items would increase the expenditure considerably but once purchased they are indispensable.  The most essential thing for soldering is to keep the model clean using a Fibre Brush and the typical ladies Emery nail file Boards.  To enable to the Solder To Run make sure that you use plenty of Flux.  Hover your mouse over the picture to see a description.

General Construction Hints

 Always try to build the model on a flat surface; a suitable sized piece of plate glass is ideal.  When folding the sole bars, you need to fold through 90˚ and over.  You may find it helpful to purchase our Device For A Vice to achieve this task.  As our models are to scale, in some cases depending on whether fine or course scale wheels are fitted, it may be necessary to remove some material from the inside edge of the chassis.  This is best achieved with a small grinding disk on a mini drill such as Dremel or Expo.  Take a bit off at a time presenting the wheel back to the model until clearance is achieved.  Although the instructions state to solder the body to the chassis, some modellers have informed us that they found it easier to solder the axle boxes to the chassis first. 

If soldering is not your forte some of the intricate parts including the axle boxes can be glued, once again the model must be kept clean otherwise bonding will not be achieved.  Quality super glues such as Loctite or Permabond may be used successfully.  Epoxy resins can also be used such as Araldite or Quick Set Bostick.

Finally always clean up as you go, there is nothing worse that trying to clean a model after construction when everything is inaccessible and covered in fine detail.

 The scrolling images on this site are provided by slide.com

Please feel free to use this link to browse their site. 

www.slide.com