I'm stuck at home today so I decided to get out some kits I purchased and give them a try. One is an older Campbell Idaho Mine. It's wood and is semi-die-cut, but needs considerable help to get the windows and door etc out. I'm using a Brand new Xacto kit so the blade is sharp. Any tips for cutting these out. It's easy with the grain, but not so easy across it. 2nd question, a Bar Mills set of 3 company houses. These are laser cut so they practically fall apart. but I've never worked with the adhesive backed doors and windows etc. Any tips for this. Should I use a tweezers to keep my "S" scale fingers off the "N" scale adhesive and mess up the window material? Makes me yearn fo HO! I'm open to any sage advice other than switching to a bigger scale. Thanks, Dave
A spue cutter might work just fine if you are careful, use a magnifying glass with light, and just snip away at the edges until you get to the right place for the cut.
if I understand what a sprue cutter is, I don't think it will work, because these are door and window openings on the inner perimeters of walls, not on the edges. But maybe I misunderstand. Dave
Dave (Cruikshank), When cutting with the grain, it's very easy to split the thin wood used in N scale kits, using the thick x-acto blades. I have two suggestions: 1.) Cover the other side of the wood with masking tape to keep the wood from splitting. 2.) I use throw away surgical knives/scalpels which have blades much thinner than the X-acto blades, thus preventing the wood from wedging apart as much. With the plastic handles, you cannot use as much force when cutting (unlike the metal x-acto handle) so I use several lighter strokes. BTW..those thin scalpel blades work great for cutting out tight spaced wood laser-cut parts from their spruces. Tweezers and Optivisors are mandatory tools for lots of N-scale model work. If you're using Floquil paints, it can disolve the adhesive backing on the window parts (most good kit instructions state this)..so you might need to use the Floquil barrier first.
I generally use the section that has the base part of the window to work off of leaving those sections attached until I have added the glazing and trim on top. I also use a fine point set of tweezers (needle nosed) to handle and position all the glazing sections and sash and trim. Once everything is assembled I use a single edge razor blade to cut the small points where the window assembly is still attached to the wood sprue. A new single edge razor blade is a lot sharper and finer edged than the #11 exacto blade to cut these fine point attachments. For the wood parts that must be glued I recommend either staining or painting before gluing, which ever is your choice since the glue will sometimes interfere with stain or paint. I also recommend that you paint or stain both sides to control warping and apply some interior bracing on large areas to control warping if you weather or apply any type of additional paint or stain after assembly. Plus wood structures with large wall sections tend to be fragile sometimes and the bracing gives some strength when handling. The left over wood from the laser cut kits is a good source for interior bracing. To get the old weathered look to the laser kit above I first used a mixture of black shoe dye in 91% alcohol on both sides of the wood, 5 parts dye to 95 parts alcohol. Once thoroughly dry I dry brushed some white on the board sides. You can also use India ink in alcohol instead of shoe dye. The window trim was painted on the sprue before assembly as where all other parts such as doors, etc.
Exacto makes small saw blades that may help you. I know they do in the larger scales and wood is all scaleable so it may help. Just a thought.
