Landships II

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Rivets in 1/72 scale

Date: Oct 19, 2005

If there is ONE big snag with 1/72 scale, this is it - I grant you that.

There is an article on the subject on this site: http://www.landships.freeservers.com/rivets_howtodoit.htm

You will see that there are several methods...

Good luck to ya'
/PK

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Tim,

There is also the professional approach. My friend Jan Giesbers bought a British rivet machine for small scale, which punches rivets in plastic plate at exact distances and angles, but costs an arm and a leg. This machine was shared between Giesbers Models, MGM and ModellTRans Modellbau, but MGM will now buy one themselves, as the distance between the people sharing was impractical.

I made masters for MGM using the white glue method, but it has disadvantages. It takes a very steady hand and even then the rivets will not come out exactly the same. Repairing mistakes however is very simple: just wipe off the glue! I used the method on MGM's B�ssing A5P and Alvis-Straussler AC, but the method makes handling the masters very dangerous as they do not adhere to the plastic very well.

The same goes for the several methods using round pellets. If not properly glued (and many will only be fixed permanently to plastic if you use super glue!) they have a tendency to fall off. I remember the master of the MGM Schupo Sonderwagen Daimler DZVR which had the Micro-Realistixx pellets on it, and these came off when you took the master from the box. They had to be glued back on one by one.

A recent method I am trying out is a set of leather punch-and-dies. They have an half-round hole in their point, and when pressed on a thin plate of plastic on a soft underground should leave perfect halfround rivets. Somehow I haven't got the hang of it yet...

Mario

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Mario, that rivet-making machine sounds very interesting - could you post details, please? Even if it's too expensive, it would be interesting to see what it looks like and perhaps see what principles it operates by.

Meanwhile, I am working on a braille-scale scratchbuild, and have taken the hard route - drilling each rivet hole using a 0.3mm twist drill. I will then glue a piece of stretched sprue using liquid cement. I tried it using a piece of scrap, and made a row of 10 rivets. They can be trimmed off at the same height and look remarkably effective. Very crisp and sharp. Bloody tedious, though...

I got the spacing right by taking a piece of scrap styrene a couple of millimetres thick, and drilling two holes of equal depth the same distance apart as two rivets, and then inserting a pair of gramophone needles into the holes. Press the paired needles into plastic and you get two little holes to use as drill guides. However, you only need to move along by one rivet because as long as the trailing needle is in the preceding last hole, you know the next will always be exactly the right distance away to make a new mark.

Here's the site of a chap, Julio Pillet, who used the stretched-sprue method for a superb Mark 1 Gun Carrier in 1/35 scale:

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/7413/gcm1model.html

And the 6-inch howitzer he made to go with it:

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Roger,

As the machine 'migrates' a lot I'm not sure wether it is in town or not, but if it is I'l snap some pics and post them. It takes some experimenting, but the final results are exceptional!

Mario

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Hi Mario,

Is this the type of machine they use?

http://www.metalsmith.co.uk/rivet-embossing-tool.htm

Some other rivet embossing tools are here:

[url] http://www.geocities.com/budb3/arts/meth/rivdet.html[/url]

Bloody well wish I�d done some proper research into tools before starting�

Date: Oct 19, 2005

That's the T-ford version; they use the Ferrari!

You can adjust the angle, depth, distance & size of the rivets on that one, which makes it a tad more complicated (and thus expensive) than the one you show.

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Thanks a million guys, for your help. I am not sure yet which system I will use, But I am sure in this scale it will be a pain!!!!!!!!!

All the Best

Tim R,

Date: Oct 19, 2005

It will be monumentally tedious, Tim...

Mario, any idea of the brand? I'm very curious about this Ferrari of rivet embossing machines...

Meanwhile, I suspect Gabriele Zenoni has used the sprue method, judging by the different-coloured rivets on his superb Mk I master:

Perhaps someone here could ask him...?

Meanwhile, here's another method:

http://www.gundamworld.it/sognidigundam/tipstricks/rivets/tips_rivets01uk.html

And a detailed page on embossing the little buggers with various homemade and adapted tools:

http://www.largescaleplanes.com/tips/RatoMarczak/riveting_1/riveting_1.html

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Thanks my friend.

All the Best

Tim R.

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Roger,

I have no idea what brand it is. Jan picked it up on Trucks'n'Tracks I believe, or heard of it there. I'm not sure about the price either, but it was a three digit number in British Pounds I seem to remember...

Anyway, hope to find out the details this weekend.

Mario

Date: Oct 19, 2005

Mario Wens wrote:

I'm not sure about the price either, but it was a three digit number in British Pounds I seem to remember...

Aaargh!

Ah well...

Hello cheapness.

Hello tedium.

Date: Oct 20, 2005

Roger Todd wrote:

Aaargh!

Nurse, nurse! Glass of water for mr. Todd!

Date: Oct 22, 2005

Too damn right, especially as my latest cunning plan has failed dismally...

I started using stretched sprue to make my rivets using the immensely ennui-inducing drill-&-glue method, but was finding the thickness of the sprue very inconsistent (quelle surprise) so I ordered some 10 thou styrene rod, which arrived this morning (at 1/72 scale, that corresponds to a consistent 18-mm rivet head, which seemed right to me). Anyway, first, my smallest drill is slightly too big (at 0.3mm, against 0.25mm for the rod), and second, it looks too small for rivets!

So now I'm going to build a jig and use the blunt-needle-embossing-thin-plastic-card technique. Current tests involving a gramophone needle in a chuck with just the very tip protruding, so that any pressure can be applied without completely piercing the plastic, are very promising...

Date: Oct 24, 2005

I presume you need the rivets for the elephant tank

I dont know if this does the trick for 1/72 but in 1/35 for my rivets I pencil them in only the palstic card and them I scalpel them from some crappy ww2 kit I have or some spare part with rivets.

So you could buy the cheapest riveted 1/72 scale kit and take the rivets from that, although it would be tidious and long but the results that way will be the best. (C'est tres tres fatigue) (even in 1/35)

also have you tried that ingenious method mentioned on this site using water purifier parts?

Date: Oct 24, 2005

Guys,

The pics of the rivet machine will have to wait a few days, as presently it is in Germany with ModellTrans but due back this week.

Mario

Date: Oct 27, 2005

Rivets in 1/72 are a royal pain in the rump. I always use a Punch and Die set, the sub-miniature type from Waldron Model Products. A real big help though alittle expensive. Grandt line also produces plastic rivets and even nuts and bolts in smaller scales.

Date: Oct 29, 2005

That's interesting about Grandt, thanks Resindepot.

Here's a useful page from a railway modelling forum:

http://mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=23169&whichpage=1

The modelmaker has used the embossed-sheet technique and then glued the sheet to its backing:

Now, what has worried me about this technique (which I am currently using) is how to glue large (relatively, after all, I am working in braille scale!) sheets of styrene without dissolving parts with excessive glue.

However, the chap who built the railway car linked to says:

The �riveted� sides are sheets of .005� styrene embossed from behind. There are over 240 rivets per side, for all you rivet counters. These sheets are glued onto the sides of the beams with spray adhesive. I used contact cement on one side, and found it attacked the plastic in places, so I opted instead for the spray adhesive. No problems with that.

The spray adhesive I used is 3M photo mount adhesive. It�s what I had on hand. Their �#77� spray adhesive that I see in the home improvement stores supposedly holds even better. I don�t see any reason why this wouldn�t work on a cylindrical shape.

Looks pretty effective, n'est ce pas?

EDUARDO MAMORETTI · General

Hi, Tim, hope you�re O.K

My usual way for amking rivets is stamping them on a large plastic strap by using...an old SYLVAPEN rotule maker(SELECT NOT ANY LETTER BUT THE POINT). Then shave any rivet with a sharp blade, locate with a toothpick and fix it with triclorohetilene (be cautious, chemical product!You can get hundreds of rivets in few minutes.

Hope it would be useful

revans · Lieutenant

evileye �or easy way is to get hold of some risin rivits on decal film that goes under your paint work, try�http://www.archertransfers.com/�or is this cheating?

Rob

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