Thursday 11 September 2014

Back to business...

And so, back to modelmaking.
As I work on slot car master, railway wagons and model aircraft patterns I am always looking at these etchings. I have them in a wee pot and have had for years, since I squeezed them onto a fret for my last Riva model. Indeed, I had to cut the Aquarama Special badge from the side of these.  I decided it was long overdue to make the pumps up.

They are for a Gilbarco petrol pump, one that still stands near where I used to live.

Here are bits in place on and with a Perspex body cut and shaped to take them.

I opted for the early pattern digital dial face.  This is in a recess cut into the Perspex, with the sides of the recess rebuilt to shape with styrene strips.
On the left is the etching for the front of the casing.  It was, of course, thin and flat being an etching so I had to make it round edged to give it some bulk.  This was done over a piece of brass shaped to fit "inside" the face section, allowing a piece of aluminium to round it over the brass.
You can see the brass piece that the etch was pushed over and the basic untrimmed etch on the left.

Here, the louvres have been added from slips of styrene strip, scraped to a triangular section, four each side of the casing.  Above it is an etched escutcheon for...erm...something!

And here's the whole box o' tricks with the front pump casing added, but not yet fixed, as the dial has to be painted yet.

The front piece has been glazed with thin clear styrene.  The gap 'twixt that and the dial is pleasing.
The extra visible at the bottom will be trimmed off before the assembly begins and a rod for fixing added into the Perspex.
I am planning on doing two of these.  One for petrol, one for DERV (diesel) and then maybe a different pattern for Paraffin (researches to be completed).

2 comments:

  1. This is exquisite. It looks quite small and fiddly and yet you have put in so much detail and in a very skilled way- the many different techniques you have brought to bear are an education in themselves!

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  2. Thanks, Iain. Very kind. I should have mentioned that that the Perspex is two layers of different thickness to get me the right sized body for the pump and that they are glued together with Plastruct Solvent Weld, which, unlike Mek Pak, etc. will glue acrylic sheet, abs and styrene, all from the same bottle. Time was we used to use chloroform for Perspex! I should also have said, perhaps, that this is in 7mm scale.

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