Steel Penguins braying

[zenrat]

Have you retained your fingertips?

[Steel Penguin]

Kit   sort of, ive got a length / chunk of wet and dry masking taped to a piece of laminate floor boarding    big enough for me at the mo. and runs no risk of the press smash shatter option of me, my luck and glass 

Zenrat  Just a bought at the moment,   

[zenrat]

I used to work as a building labourer and when we got to the bricklaying stage we'd unload truck loads of bricks by hand.
A pair of leather work gloves would last half a day before the fingertips wore through and then my fingerprints would go.

[PR19_Kit]

Kit   sort of, ive got a length / chunk of wet and dry masking taped to a piece of laminate floor boarding    big enough for me at the mo. and runs no risk of the press smash shatter option of me, my luck and glass 

Yes, breakage is always a risk with a mirror of course.   

I have a LARGE, 2.5 ft x 1.5 ft, oval mirror with multiple sheets of 320 grit wet and dry attached with double-sided tape for my big vacforms, and a smaller 9" square version for the smaller stuff. I've yet to find decent double-sided though, it always seems to lose its grip after a few models.

[Steel Penguin]

Zenrat,  when i was a much younger penguin, I helped my dad build half a house, so I am intimately familiar  with than little problem,    but it did wonders for my developing muscle tone, and also means that I have a dangerous level of knowledge when it comes to anything "buildy"   

Kit now that is something I hadn't thought of !  I may have to look round the charity shops on the weekend and see if I can get one, after all most of the oval wall hanging mirrors have a nice strong wooden back to support them        the wet and dry has a length of 2" masking tape holding it on, and ill just change it as it wears, masking tape is cheap and disposable,  and I can never get the backing off of double sided tape 

[NARSES2]

When I was still working I picked up a piece of A3 size metal steel plate that was very, very flat. I think, or at least was told, it was used as part of a test bench when checking the quality of milling work. There was still a fair amount of engineers blue on it back then. I got it when our Swinden Labs started to go all electronic.

I've also got an old bathroom mirror which I use as well, no where near as heavy either 

[Steel Penguin]

Narses  I think engineers blue may be as much of a menace to my-self as glass     I have heard wonderful tales of its misuse ,  black toilet seats,  black machine controls, black mug handles etcetc   and I think it may be harder to store, if I was utterly serious ( and had a spare table) id get another off cut of marble work surface like Mrs SP did for her leather working its roughly 24" by 18" and 1.5" thick    its wonderful for her to use her leather punches on, but I can only just lift it   

[Rheged]

Narses  I think engineers blue may be as much of a menace to my-self as glass     I have heard wonderful tales of its misuse ,  black toilet seats,  black machine controls, black mug handles etcetc   and I think it may be harder to store, if I was utterly serious ( and had a spare table) id get another off cut of marble work surface like Mrs SP did for her leather working its roughly 24" by 18" and 1.5" thick    its wonderful for her to use her leather punches on, but I can only just lift it 

Madame R has a 18 inch square by 1 inch thick lump of marble that gets used for pastry making.  I had considered its use for modelling, but A) enjoying the results of the pastry making and B) not wishing to cause domestic furore  I've left well alone.

[Hobbes]

I've got 2 flat objects that I use for sanding large model parts: an offcut from a stone floor tile (marble), and a glass plate made for placing a pan on. You can also get glass cutting boards (or could, at some point. It seemed a rather fad-prone materials choice for a cutting board).

[NARSES2]

Madame R has a 18 inch square by 1 inch thick lump of marble that gets used for pastry making.  I had considered its use for modelling, but A) enjoying the results of the pastry making and B) not wishing to cause domestic furore  I've left well alone.

Wise choice 

Marble stays quite cool doesn't it ? Whence its use in pastry making.

[Steel Penguin]

ive hit s bit of a problem, the sanding has left thin patches on one of the wing half's,  its not trough, but part of the surround has gone clear and the ends are still fairy thick.
im going to carefully go at the ends but any other suggestions? 

[PR19_Kit]

Eh? 

Any chance of a pic please? I don't quite understand what's happening.

[Steel Penguin]

sorry Kit, ill try to explain a little clearer, being not in possession of a photo storage place.

ive got one of the wing pieces cut out
as ive sanded it, I think ive put pressure unevenly on it, so sections of the excess plastic sheet, have sanded unevenly,  the wing root and tip still have thick plastic scrap attached, but the middle of the wing scrap ( where ive had my fingers) has sanded almost right through, having gone opaque - almost clear its so thin.  no damage to the part I want, just the bit that I need to sand away being uneven.
I think its learning curve,  making certain that I apply any pressure evenly across the part to be sanded.

[PR19_Kit]

Ah right, I get it now.

Yes, that's always a problem with vacforms, and the longer the bit you're sanding the worse it is. Aeroclub used to sell a pack of aluminium angle T sections with some thick double sided tape that helped sort that problem. It had a weird name which I can't remember now, but it should be easy to reproduce at your local friendly DIY store.

(Just remembered, it was called 'T-Al'. Told you it was weird..........)

Cut the ali Ts into 6" - 10" lengths and apply the double sided to the flat edge, then stick the vacform bit to the double sided. Then the angle forms a handle while you sand the surplus plastic away and it also holds it flat as well. 

[NARSES2]

Until Photobucket's mass blackmail attempt we had a handy set of drawings supplied by Kitnut on site. Alas no longer there