A newby's attempt at building a Micromodels Card kit.

[Mike Trice]

Just before Christmas @Terry created a topic giving the history of the Micromodels Card kits: Micromodels - Your workshop all in a cigar-box

I remember these from my youth, and have always had a soft spot for them, but to date had never built one.

A while back I purchased some kits from an Antique shop which included kit PG8 featuring a GNR
Atlantic and following @Terry 's post purchased a few more from ebay.

Fancying something low cost that I could play with over the Christmas break I decided to have a go at building something:


A search of the internet revealed very little information on actually building any of these models so there was little to go on. I thought it might be fun to open a topic on Western Thunder and encourage anyone with experience, or following a similar path to me, to add any wisdom to contribute.

As you can see I did not get very far with the Atlantic and came to the conclusion that it might be better to start with something simpler. A recent aquisition was set MIII which included three locos (including a LNER J50 0-6-0) and some wagons:


The general concensus is it is probably better to scan the purchased cards and print copies on thin card rather than destroy the originals. In the case of set MIII the original cards are 128mm x 88mm so they were scanned and the scanned images resized accordingly:


I then duplicated the image to provide 3 copies per A4 sheet of card. The resulting artwork was saved as a PDF file:


So full of enthusiasm but little practical experience I started cutting out pieces using a Swann Morton 10A scalpel. When required to score the surface of the card the scalpel was turned upside down and the back of the blade used.

For assembly I used a one of either School PVA glue or Titebond Moulding & Trim glue, mostly the latter. To hold items while the glue dried I used a couple of Engineer's squares and an offcut of steel bar:


With the kits have little or no tabs I also realised that it would be helpful to back up parts with some 1.6mm mounting board as shown here for the chassis:


The final chassis then had the white fold lines and markings painted out with a black Sharpie:


The footplate was cut out and scored:


Once folded up I decided to spread glue along the fold to try and strengthen it then set it aside to dry:


The body was cut out and scored. I decided that I would feel happier lining the sides with mounting board and started with the side tanks:


Once the glue had set the sides could be folded up and discovered just how bad my measuring for the liners were. I also did liners for the cab front and rear. Here they are folded up and waiting for the glue to dry using the squares again:


The body was folded up and glued and lots of issues appeared mainly due to my inaccuracies:


From the top it does not look too bad:


However putting it on the chassis it does have problems:


So that is as far as I have got at the moment. I have lots of ideas of how I can do things better which of course is where using scans rather than the originals pay off.

More to come.

 

[Mike Trice]

Attempt two. To get around my problem with inaccurate marking out I printed a copy of the kit on paper and glued it to the mounting card. Now I could cut out the reinforcing parts with ease. Note that I have gone for full length sides for this build:



Another change for this build was to include a tab on the chassis to make assembly easier:



A length of the strengthener was cut and glued to the chassis and the long sides glued at the same time and placed in the squares to set. The ends then had glue applied and the squares repositioned until set:



Finally the remaining side with tab can be glued down:

 

[Mike Trice]

This time for the main body I removed the fold down cab ends and rear bunker:


After scoring the tank fronts and tops were folded up to locate the side tank supports:


With the strengtheners fixed in place the tank tops and front could be glued to the strengtheners using my trusty squares and an offcut of steel:


Here both sides have been done. I had second thoughts regarding thickening the cab front and back and decided to use some offcuts of Cereal Packet card rather than the thicker mounting board. Note that the sides of the ends have been rebated to clear the side strengtheners:


The cab ends were then glued to one of the sides:

When dry the second side was wrapped around the cab ends and glued in place:


Compared to my first attempt this has come out much better and is probably easier to do:


The rear bunker was glued in place and the coal liner fitted. For the liner I remove the upright on one side so it did not cover the rear cab lookouts:

 

[Mike Trice]

For the boiler experience with the Atlantic taught me that just rolling and gluing the boiler barrel as designed did not give a good result. Instead I used a length of styrene tube as a core and wrapped the cladding around it. Using styrene did not seem to fit in with the ethos of these kits which tend to use card and wood so I made a core using 6mm dowel around which I wrapped spare card to bring it up to thickness:


After wrapping the main barrel it sort of dawned on me that I would need to extend it to include the smokebox (the kit features a separate smokebox). Further card was wrapped as can be seen in this out of focus shot:


The boiler wrapper could now be added:


The kit smokebox is designed as a single fold up piece:



I chose to separate the wrapper from the front/rear thus:


IT DID NOT FIT!!!!

Start again. This time I warpped the dowel for the full length of the boiler and smokebox and cut out another boiler wrapper allowing the smokebox to be applied afterwards:



And applied to the dowel core:


IT DID NOT FIT EITHER!!!!

This time I repeated the exercise using printer paper rather than card and managed to get something that I considered acceptable:

 

[Mike Trice]

The model can be enhanced further by touch in the raw card edges with paint:




Where the paint leaves a slightly matt finish I will give the whole model a spray with clear varnish.

 

[sagaguy]

Hi Mike,Try this one,i enhanced the colours in photoshop.

Ray.

 

[Mike Trice]

Thanks. I originally started building with a straight scan but realised I had to adjust the colours to more closely resemble the original kit, which I did. Printing on a colour printer will likely degrade the image further but not to the human eye. I like the fact you have pre-tinted the buffer beams which makes a lot of sense. I also have in the back of my mind, editing the scan, to produce a black livery LNER version.

If anyone fancies having a go at one of these builds download @sagaguy 's scan, trim to just the card (which can just be made out) and print at 128mm x 88mm. That is when you realise just how small these models are. OF course you could cheat and scale the print up!

 

[sagaguy]

These should print out at actual size.

Ray.

 

[Mike Trice]

Boiler glued to front of cab:



As can be seen the side tanks have warped (this seems to be when I use the school PVA):



Abusing a vernier to hold them while gluing:



View from below shows where the glue has been applied with a cocktail stick:



Other than dome and chimney most of the body is complete:

 

[Terry]

A search of the internet revealed very little information on actually building any of these models so there was little to go on.

Hello Mike. I don't think that any instructions were issued in relation to the railway models per se. Instructions were usually of a more general nature. The Modelcraft Micromodels kit of Stephenson's Rocket did have some instructions on the rear of the wrapper. I can post them here if you wish. Micromodels Ltd. did produce a 32 page booklet entitled 'Making Models In Card' which again was of a general nature. It contains four pages appertaining to the railway models, but does not detail the precise building of them. I can post a picture of the book cover if you would like to see it.

Terry

 

[Mike Trice]

Thanks @Terry. There are some very basic instructions on the back of the relevant wrapper and I do already have the booklet you mentioned. I am probably deviating from the original intentions slightly but I use the excuse it seems to be working for me.

 

[sagaguy]

Interesting forum here, Old, Old Micromodels - PaperModelers.com

Ray.

 

[sagaguy]

Would you like a loco shed as well?.Should keep you busy!.

Ray.

 

[sagaguy]

A couple went missing.I have the others as well.

 

[Mike Trice]

Thank you. Looks as if it should be simpler.

 

[Mike Trice]

I decided to remake the chassis (again). This time I cut the sideframes with excess, folded them back and glued them together, in an attempt to give the wheels a bit more strength:



Cut out and edges touched in with black and glued in place:



With all edges touched in on the chassis the body is finally attached:









And just to give an idea of size:

 

[JimG]

The wheels aren't quartered properly.

Ducking and running.

Jim.

 

[Mike Trice]

The wheels aren't quartered properly.

Ducking and running.

Jim.

Good spot.

 

[Mike Trice]

Flushed with success I decided to laminate up some coupling rod overlays for my incorrectly quartered wheels:

 

[Mike Trice]

An observation after trying to come up with some track to display the model on.

As designed the track gauge is far too wide coming out at 9mm. This appears to apply to the other railway models as well.