Large Scale Central

Old tip .

Tools and Tips
#1

No , I am not referring to my workbench (it’s not as tidy as an old tip) .

But I am referring to a cure for those of us not scared of looking to our feminine side .

I was just sat here , doing that boring but essential job of removing casting flash from white metal bits , and not being one to waste time daydreaming , I was thinking----see , smart old bugger doing two things at once----of the number of times I have done this , and thanked my late Father for teaching me practical , as opposed to theoretical smartass engineering .

If you have partaken of this chore , you may have noted with some irritation that the tweeny file that you are using gets clogged , and if you are born daft , you carry on and gouge lines in the metal making a worse mess than when you started . Oh , come on , admit it .

So , as I said , sat sitting here I was struck by the fact that I had never seen this tip (not my bench) before and thought , as you do ,

“stap me , I know some chaps who would be really chuffed to know this if they don’t already”

If you do know and have read this far , tee hee , anyway , to our feminine side . Talcum powder or if you are coarse and crude , babies bum powder , is generally freely available from any handy bathroom cabinet and has the advantage of smelling nice----I’ll wager nicer than you----as long as you are-

  1. Furtive

  2. Ready to explain to your favourite female why you suddenly smell nice

  3. Ready to run like stink if you do not fulfil (2) above

Simply steal a small amount of this delicate fragrancy (about a small aspirin bottle at a time won’t be noticed) .

Tip a little pile of it on your bench (switch the fan off first otherwise retribution will swiftly follow from the previous owner of said fragrance) .

Finally , take your little file , and flatten the pile of powder , then press the working face (of the file , idiot) into it .

Magic . You may now file without clogging the file . Well , after all , it works on babies’ bums and ladies armpits . Carry on cleaning the file with a wire brush as usual (liar) every so oft , you will be amazed at how clean it is , none of those shiny scabs dotted around ready to scar your masterpiece .

Apart from the other problems outlined above , there is the risk that you may get odd looks , or even unexpected offers , next time you present your model to an admiring crowd .

Ain’t modelling fun , Huh , Huh?

Michael the pure smelling .

PS DO NOT USE second hand talc , it rots things . Well , you know where it’s been , don’t you ?

#2

This I gotta try.

#3

On the other hand…a file brush comes in handy.

#4

Ross , a file brush will not remove whitemetal scrapings from a swiss file .

I also mentioned that you still have to brush the file .

Mike

#5

Yea, white metal will clog a fine file, and a wire bush doesn’t get all the white metal bits out of the file. I sat and picked the bits out of my file with an Exacto knife before. Next time I will have to try the baby powder trick.

#6

I’ve heard that beeswax works too…

I use a rotary wire brush to clean up files…

Greg

#7

Greg , if you use talc , you don’t need a rotary wire brush . They tend to blunt modern files anyway .

Mike

#8

Why, when someone offers a good tip to save trouble or just make things a bit easier, does another person always jump in to pooh-pooh the idea, or just alter it in some way. Ego? You decide …

#9

Andrew , I have no idea why people pooh pooh ideas , but I have to confess to being a target of such misplaced criticism on more than one occasion on this and other sites covering not only railways but military modelling , road vehicle modelling , figure modelling and so on .

I found that the validity of the advice makes little difference , though I invariably check very carefully before going into print . I will not claim to never having been wrong , but unwarranted criticism is a little frustrating when it demeans the value of the advice . I do not object to jocular references to any advice , we all like a little fun . Well , most of us . But (as usual) I can tell you a story about advice being pooh poohed as you put it , making the recipient of the advice look a right bloody fool when it was ignored .

Way back when Pontius was a pilot , we were testing an experimental blind runway approach system .

All was going well until one day , the trials crew reported that they lost the beam below (say) 200ft. Next day all was well , and the next . Then the crew reported loss of beam at 350ft . All of the tests we carried out on the ground showed that (as usual) the aircrew were idiots . Next day , all ok , the day after , loss of beam at 400ft .

So we were gathered in Air Traffic pontificating (as you do) and starting to accuse all and sundry when a small voice from an equally small (and very pretty) member of the WRAF working in ATC said

“Excuse me sir , I think I may know something” or words to that effect . Several baleful looks made the poor girl go crimson , but her boss , a decent type , asked her to explain .

“Well” she said , “each day this happened , it was raining”

More baleful looks , and a scientific wallah says “I should stick to talking to aeroplanes if I were you”, but a couple of us had a thought , obviously the rain was affecting the signal , but why the change of height ?

Rather than detain you longer , I shall divulge the secret . The grass in between the equipment and the approach , when wet , was bouncing the signal , and as it grew , so did the altitude at which the stupid aircrew lost the signal . We were able to prove it , and the ground crew found another daily task , mowing the airfield .

Several senior engineers and scientists admitted to feeling rather small for ignoring the helpful young lady----she did not know why , but knew when and that put us on to it .

So , next time your feeling important …

Mike

PS That particular equipment did not make it into service , but not because of the rain .