Scratch Building with Styrene - Tools & Techniques

[Music] hey all and welcome back to another tutorial my name is Luke and today I'll be taking you through some of the simple steps you can use to create a fantastic looking building to add life and purpose to your layout patience is the key when it comes to building structures especially scratch building so let's not waste any more time and get started with the tutorial whether you're building a fictional building or replicating an actual structure it's a great idea to have a photo as a reference even if you're not making that exact building that's in the photo it will help with placement of windows and other details to ensure that they are placed in appropriate positions I start by building a simple paper mock-up using some cardstock it doesn't have to be fancy it's simply used to get an idea of shape and size I also draw the position of doors and windows and basically make sure everything fits I ended up building two paper mock-ups the first one didn't look right in terms of width so it was simply a matter of cutting out some new walls and trying again all up the paper mock-up for a simple building like this only took about five minutes to build and I can use the final mock-up as a template later when cutting the styrene this is going to be a hito scale building so I went with a 1.5 millimeter evergreen clapboard sheet all of the walls will cut using the micrometer placated this is a fantastic and easy to use tool that makes light work of making precise cuts especially if cutting multiple section of the same length or width hence the name duplicate it it's very easy to use and it got a lot of attention whilst building this model a great feature when cutting styrene sheet is that you don't need to slice through the sheet completely when making a cut simply scoring a line along the top about half way through the sheet is all that's needed and then snap the piece along the scored line and it should break away nice and evenly as you can see by using the duplicated I have two wall sections that are exactly the same width and height don't worry if you don't have a tool like this because with careful measuring and cutting you can simply use a metal ruler and a sharp probably knife to make the same cuts when it comes to marking styrene I found a simple pencil works perfectly just be sure it's sharp and that's why you say mechanical pencil it's always got a sharp point for making precise markings anytime you're working with styrene having some fine grit sandpaper and some small jeweler's files is essential this sandpaper is 1200 grit and I also use a 600 grit sandpaper as well styrene turns very easily so using a very fine grit sandpaper will help avoid accidental over sanding it's possible to scratch build your own windows and doors however there are some fantastic commercial products available that look great TG trend groups sell a wide variety of windows and doors perfect for all sorts of buildings and that's what I chose to use for this building like any other plastic kit I remove the items I want from the sprue and tidy up the edges now after the wall construction the walls have a trim that runs around the bottom of the entire structure the easiest way of gluing parts like this is on a nice flat surface and on something that won't react with the plastic cement a piece of glass is perfect to ensure each piece is pressed flat I've taped all the pieces to the glass surface and apply a small amount of glue it takes about 15 or 20 minutes for the glue to get a strong hold the Tamiya extra thin cement does a great job of getting right into the joint giving a very strong and reliable bond only the two main walls get the trim along the vertical portion [Music] the window in door openings are cut into the walls these need to be very precise in order for the door to fit without any gaps showing using a digital caliper makes it very easy to get exact measurements I generally cut the openings ever so slightly smaller than required for example this door needs an opening of 10.3 millimeters but I'll measure and cut 10 millimeters and then carefully sand the rest away until it's a near perfect fit I do this for all the openings it's just a matter of taking your time and being patient because it's easy to make a mistake here measure twice cut once there is one small opening that we'll need to fabricate a door for and that's here I start by drawing a template on a piece of card and then I spray the card with a small amount of spray adhesive now when I cut the small pieces of styrene I can easily press them onto the card without having them slide all over the place and it's much easier to glue it all together in preparation for assembling the walls I cut out a base that the main walls will be glued to and it will give the entire building some structural integrity as well as making it much easier to ensure all the walls are glued together perfectly square just like I did with the wall trimmings I take the base to the glass surface and carefully line up each of the walls using a square once it's nice and straight and vertical I apply the plastic cement this process is repeated around the base until all the walls are glued together if it only glue the bottom edge of each wall and not up the side just yet to glue the sides and get a perfect joint I'm using some Bachmann adjustable magnetic clamps these walls are at a 90 degree angle so I press the clamp up against something that's perfectly 90 degrees and then tighten the bolt and now it's ready to use gently line the clamp up against the wall section and let the magnets do all the hard work lightly tapping the walls all that's needed to line them up and once it's perfectly aligned simply apply a small amount of plastic cement additional trimming was needed along the roof line due to the small notch here this was easily fixed with a small piece of styrene and the chocolate the roof pitch is thirty degrees which was very handy given the topic comes with a thirty and sixty degree angle guide the chop it is another tool that sees a lot of attention in my workshop ascend a wall was also added in the middle of the building to give it a little more integrity and I also cut a door with the idea of making an interior for this building later in the future now moving on to the roof I first measure and fit a roof using cardstock to get a good idea of size and I can also use it as a template once happy I measure and cut the roof using 0.04 inch corrugated siding from Evergreen the duplicated was used to cut the two sides of the roof the second piece only needed to have a very small slice of styrene trimmed which proved to be troublesome for the duplicated however by budding up a second piece of styrene I was able to secure the straight edge down without it leaning on an angle the roof is then glued to the roof guides that were cut to match the exact pitch of the roof and width of the building each piece was carefully measured and glued into position on one side first and then the second side was lined up and glued I designed the roof so it slides in and out of the building and could be removed to access the inside of the building later once it's been completed one of the most fiddly parts to build was the guttering made using 1.5 millimeter angled styrene and lightly sanded to give a rounded edge I very carefully lined it up along the bottom edge of the roof and systematically glued it on in small increments using a piece of cardstock as a guide to gauge the gap between the gutter and the roof once that was completed I added an additional piece of trim along the bottom edge in a similar fashion all of the exposed edges get covered up with more trimming the trim that's applied to the top of the corrugated roof is made with a 1 by 4 strip and 0.68 millimeter rod which is glued around the top edges of the roof including along the peak of the roof the veranda is made with the same corrugated roofing however there's less of an internal structure to ensure everything is straight and square so I needed to gently bend the roof material to make sure it was perfectly flat before gluing once the main structure of the veranda is made the same process of adding guttering and trimming to all the edges is applied its then placed in position so the posts can be measured and fitted using 1.5 millimeter square styrene extra detail is added to each post around the top by adding in strips one side at a time then trimming and repeating until all the edges of covered using a straight edge like this engineer square is very helpful to ensure each post is perfectly vertical additional angled supports are also added the sides of the veranda have a picket fence like details that I'm recreating with this corner punch also from my crema it's great for cutting out windows in styrene however I discovered it's also fantastic for making picket fence detail with a bunch of pieces prepared I draw a single straight line on a piece of paper and lightly spray the paper with 3m spray adhesive that's making it very easy to get precise placement of all those tiny pieces of styrene without having them go all over the place a backing plate that matches the shape of the veranda roof is glued onto the pieces of styrene and the excess is trimmed away before gluing them into position now we're almost ready to give everything a prime with the Vallejo primer at first I wash all the pieces in a mildly soapy water and rinse to remove dust and oil from my fingers once it's all dry we're now ready for the primer small pieces like the windows and doors can be fixed onto a piece of card using spray adhesive this will prevent them from flying away when being painted with the airbrush it's important that when airbrushing that the air being passed through the airbrush is completely dry and free from moisture one very easy way of ensuring this is to use a moisture trap like this one here the thing I like about this particular moisture trap design is that it acts like a handle on the airbrush making it very comfortable to use they also find even when using Vallejo air paints that have been thinned for airbrushing they still need a little more thinning do some testing on some paper to find out a paint to thinner ratio that will work for you I have my compressor set to 20 psi and I generally apply multiple thin coats until each piece is covered my color palette to this model consists of these colors the main structure was finished with a combination of Vallejo radome tan and Vallejo sand in a mixture of two-to-one on the final coat just watch out for any stray bits of dust and hair masking is a very important step in painting I like to use Tamiya 6 millimeter masking tape it's not too tacky and is very thin which is desirable when painting and masking I carefully cut the tape to the desired length with a very sharp hobby knife on the glass surface this ensures that I have a good clean edge and that the tape is perfectly is straight along the edge that I cut it there's no shortcut to this just take your time and double check all the areas of mask thoroughly before painting avoid applying one thick layer of paint so wet paint does it creep up underneath the tape I'll usually apply many very light coats of paint to build up the color and after about 30 minutes or so I'll remove the masking tape the TG Train Group windows can be purchased with a window glazing pack making it easy to add the clear glazing to each window with a small amount of tacky craft glue be careful if you decide to use super glue or CA glue to glue the glazing in place as it can cause the window to go foggy if you don't have the glazing pact you can also use old clear plastic packaging to achieve the same result like I did for the door the glazing pack also comes with window shades which look great and you can add detail to them if desired however I found I could get pretty good results by printing a blinds design onto some printer paper and cut that out for my window shades now it's just a matter of assembling all the pieces using the plastic cement just make sure the edges that will be in contact when gluing are free from paint to ensure a good solid bond and try to avoid using too much glue and having it ooze out the veranda portion of the model is only fixed into position using some super tack adhesive I may or may not want to make adjustments in the future and this will enable me to pull the veranda off with minimal damage if desired lastly on the model I'll add some small finishing touches to give it just a little more realism like this power box made with a few pieces of styrene not forgetting the conduit that runs up the wall also some down pipes for the drain adds another level of complexity to the finished model with a relatively small effort because I won't be adding an interior just yet I don't want to be able to see right through the model so I use some black paper cut to size that will be used as a few block inside the building [Music] now all we need to do is put the roof back on and we can call it a day in a future video we'll take a look at adding super detailed parts as well as lighting interiors and weathering the building if you liked the video and would like to help support the channel you might like to become a patron I had some perks for patreon supporters and you can find out more by checking out my patreon page Cheers and thanks for watching

Channel: Luke Towan

Views: 680,317

Keywords: Scratch building with styrene, how to scratch build models, scratch building, model buildings, realistic models, realistic scenery, luke towan, boulder creek railroad, building with styrene, model making, building model structures, model railway buildings, HO scale, N scale, model train building, micro mark, chop it, duplicate it, Bachmann adjustable clamps, airbrushing, masking, architectural building

Id: c3XHkRf2fvA

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 16 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/tocard2]

Not my favourite video from Luke, but a great one nonetheless! It's really cool seeing all of his specialized tools.