Hi All,
I've had no experience at all with photo etch and have three questions regarding the brass in Dragons Sherman MkIII:
1. What's the best way to bend it (aside from carefully) with no etch-mate or similar tool?
2 will I have to anneal it?
3. what's the best way to do this (and what temperature to do it at). Do you put it in the oven at gas mark 7 for 40 minutes? threaten it with a hairdryer? Barbeque it? or what?
Thanks for your help in advance.
Tom

Tom

My advice, if you don't own an etchmate, would be to use a pair of flat nosed pliers without serrations on the jaws (if you can find any), You will need a pair with a fairly broad nose and a fine nosed pair. Most important is that they close with little or no gap - that brass is not very thick.

As for annealing, no, you don't need to anneal the brass unless you intend to curve it. Annealing takes the springiness out of the brass and makes it stay bent.

I usually hold the piece in a gas flame for a few seconds until it glows red, then turn it over and do the other end, I use my pliers to hold the brass. You will find that some brass is better than others - some need several sessions in the flame before they give in.

What part of the world are you in ?

Hope this helps

Rob

Rob,
Thanks for the advice.
I'm in Middlesbrough, NE England, and at the moment it's sunny, which makes a change
Tom

As Rob says a flat nose pliers or even a steel door hinge will do. Curve the headlight guards around a paintbrush handle.




I can't remember if the kit has pe light guards to curve but if it does then yes anneal the fret




Heat it til it glows red (Even a candle will do) then quench it in water, you can let it cool naturally, but this way saves burnt fingers

Hi

As you are in the UK and sounds like you don't want to commit to spending a lot on a hold and fold, you may want to get a pair of brass faced pliers from this guy. They attend a lot of IPMS shows which is where I picked mine up.

Not bad for £2.50. Has quite a few items. I also brought several self holding tweezers which are invaluable, well I think so.Again keenly priced.

The pliers are quite a way down the page.

http://www.little-cars.co.uk/pricelst.htm

Alan

If you can't locate the smooth jaw pliers, then before getting my Etchmate i got by with two razor blades on a hard surface. Use one blade to pin down the brass and one to bend (the blade pinning down the piece provides the straight edge along which the bend is formed). For more complicated shapes, this can be tough. Good luck with your project.


Dave

This may be of some help.

Aber´s own "how to "

Easy steps to soldering. I found this perfect .. and eased a lot of steps when assembling PE
Soldering Basics
By John Robinson

One other thing to note...when it comes to annealing, be careful with smaller pieces...if they are held in a flame too long they can actually incinerate before you can react and pull them out...very disconcerting the first time this happens from personal experience but definitely makes you a quick learner for the next time.

Take a look around for a metal caliper. I've been borrowing my dad's, and it's great for small and medium sized PE parts.
The one I use looks like similar to this:


I did a quick search and found this, looks even better, assuming the depth of jaws is longer.


Of course these metal calipers cost more than a few single-edge razor blades (I think these kind of metal calipers usually cost around 20-25€), but I think it's quite useful.
And hey, they can also be used for making accurate measurements in your modeling projects!

I got by for years with a pair of needle nose smooth jaw pliers, available at the hardware store. Also a pair of wide tip tweezers from the drug store worked great for small bends. I bent light guards over a chopstick! You can do 99% of PE bending on the cheap with a little resourcefulness.

Steel ruler, razor blade and a hard surface. A good selection of pliers is also handy.

If you know anyone who works in the medical field, see if you can get some non-serrated hemostats -- tools used ot clamp off blood vessels in surgery. They have a locking mechanism and their clamping section is pretty small. I find these useful for holding smaller parts when ready to bend. They are fantastic for holding PE parts in order to file away the small nub where it was attached to the fret.

My last PE crazy job was using most of the Lion Roar update set for the DML 8.8cm Flak 36 trailers. I only used my hemostats, needle nose pliers. I didn't once need to use my Hold and Fold. I found it quicker using my hand tools. It was a monstrously huge job -- took two solid weeks of devoted modelling time to finish the two trailers -- but I felt the result was worth it. It built up my confidence.

Roy is definitely right - you need to practice and gain confidence. I bought the Tamiya SdKfz 232 and the Eduard set, just to get to practice (via eBay I was able to pick up both kit and PE very cheaply). I've still got a long way to go to have any sort of PE ability, but buying an inexpensive kit and experimenting to see what works for you is what I would recommend. Even the simple things like getting comfortable with what type of glue you want to use and how you want to apply it are things that you'll just need to play around with (I still use too much glue and the excess mars whatever result I was able to obtain during bending). Being willing to experiment (i.e., not fearing wrecking an expensive kit) is another reason that I would recommend buying something cheap that you're not so stressed about the outcome. Good luck.


Dave