rivets & welding

[john]

I am putting the finishing touches to my VIID plug at 1/60. By my calculations rivets would be about 0.25mm dia at this scale ie virtually invisible. However, I think that this is a case of getting it to look right not be right and 0.5 mm rivets look better.

I have experimented with cyano-acrilic gel blobbed on but I cannot get the drop size small enough. So I then tried drilling 0.5 mm holes in an overhead projector acrylic sheet and using this as a mask for auto body filler. The results are good but its a huge amount of work to get the holes clean enough.

Has anybody out there got any tips on how to achieve this level of detail?

John SC 2560

[JWLaRue]

Hi John,

When I built my

Hi John,

When I built my 1/48th scale Type VIIC, I decided to add the rivets as well. Nothing that I could find was able to give me the consistency and proper look of the type of rivets used on those boats.

....so I had some custom dry transfers made. I used an engineering book from the 40's to figure out size, shape, etc. and came up with something closer to 0.18mm and of a flattended round shape. Perfect for making from dry transfers.

After a lot of 'rivet counting', I had the rivet patterns made in three different patterns to match the prototype. (I'd have to look up the answer in my notebook to see what I used).

-Jeff

[tmsmalley]

Hi John -
Steve Reichmuth (who

Hi John -
Steve Reichmuth (who often posts on this board) is the expert on dry transfers but he told me about a place in San Francisco called "Pinks" that makes GREAT dry transfers. You make your own art, send it to them and they make the transfers. If you do a search on the "Old" message board you will find lots of advice from Steve on how to use this great service.

Go to Pinks website

Tim Smalley

[Guest]

Hi John -
Steve Reichmuth (who

Hi John -
Steve Reichmuth (who often posts on this board) is the expert on dry transfers but he told me about a place in San Francisco called "Pinks" that makes GREAT dry transfers. You make your own art, send it to them and they make the transfers. If you do a search on the "Old" message board you will find lots of advice from Steve on how to use this great service.

Go to Pinks website

Tim Smalley

Okay, now you guys have me intrigued. Are you saying that the transfers stood proud enough to show up when the hull is painted, or are the rivets effectively 'drawn' on?

Andy



Edited By Sub culture on 1050138806

[JWLaRue]

I have found that the

I have found that the dry transfer rivets provide a very realistic scale looking rivet....even after painting. (I use an airbrush)

The effect is much more subtle that the brass pin or drop-of-CA approach. To my eye, when I compare photos of the real boat to photos of my boat, the rivets look real....and the other approached look grossly oversized.

-Jeff

[Guest]

I have found that the

I have found that the dry transfer rivets provide a very realistic scale looking rivet....even after painting. (I use an airbrush)

The effect is much more subtle that the brass pin or drop-of-CA approach. To my eye, when I compare photos of the real boat to photos of my boat, the rivets look real....and the other approached look grossly oversized.

-Jeff

Fascinating, not a technique I've encountered before.

On my freestyle Nautilus, which is 4 foot in length, the rivets are about 1/8" diameter, hows that for grossly oversized!

Andy

[john]

Thanks for all this.

The

Thanks for all this.

The dry transfer approach was not one I had considered. I am working on the plug so if I cannot get a realistic 3D effect here I may try this approach on the model itself.

For the moment I spent the weekend fiddling around (trying to avoid mowing the lawn etc) and found that I could punch holes in masking tape using a small nail onto a chunk of perspex using a predrilled overhead projector sheet as a guide. This is relatively quick and by transferring the masking tape to the plug I can apply auto body filler quite successfully.

Provided that its rubbed down until they are almost invisible it seems to do the business.