As I occasionally do, I was building two rockets.
The partial kit from Ebay had just the printed upper wrap, corrugated wrap, decals and instructions.
I had a single corrugated wrap and thought I'd make another one for the second build.
I drew up the lower wrap, the one that will get the corrugations.I couldn't find corrugated sheets anywhere! But, I did find this embossing board at Hobby Lobby. Retail was $19.99, but I had a 40% off coupon.
A bit expensive for a "one-off" but I could also use it on the embossed wraps in the Semroc Saturn 1B I recently bought. One of the wraps wasn't well defined.
I lightly taped the printed sheet in place. The ridges are spaced at 1/8" intervals, too wide for this size model.
A "bone" folder embossing tool is drawn down the long lines.
After the first set of 1/8" lines were finished, the sheet was slid over 1/16" centered between the ridges I just made.
The second set of embossed lines gave me ridges spaced at 1/16".
To see what it would look like, the embossed sheet was sprayed with silver paint and rolled around the body tube.
I didn't like the results so the idea was scrapped! The ridge depths weren't consistent. Oh well, you never know until you try!
The second Little Joe II will just have a smooth silver surface.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteLike they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I vaguely remember a forum post about someone making his own corrugated wrap using cardstock and windex, along with a two part form press.
I did a search on Hobbylinc for corrugated styrene sheets. Here are the results:
https://www.hobbylinc.com/cgi-bin/s8.cgi?str_s=corrugated+styrene+sheets
These are used by model train enthusiasts to build the buildings and landscapes accompanying their train layouts. Fascinating assortment of items, like vacuform brick sheets, tiles, fencing, clapboards, hollow tile, stucco, you get the idea. Also Apogee has a generic set of corrugated vacu-form wraps in three sizes for larger models. Probably too late for you now, but something for the future. I built an Enerjet Athena clone using some of the Apogee wraps. Cheers.
Hi BAR, I should have mentioned, I went to a hobby store and looked at the Plastruct and Evergreen plastic sheets. None of the sheets had a tight enough spacing of the raised corrugation.
DeleteI remember seeing a geared embossing tool at Hobby Lobby last year. It was like a ribbed clothes wringer. I should have bought it, it could also be used for streamers.
Actually, your wrap looks great. I am impressed with how you got the two applications of embossing perfectly aligned to each other. A good eye and a steady hand!
ReplyDeleteOne would assume that all that embossing would shrink the width of the wrap. Did you notice if the wrap did not completely fit around the tube after embossing?
And speaking of corrugated styrene sheets, I found some potentially good material over the weekend: Plastruct PS47 1/16" Clapboard Siding. Evergreen makes an equivalent pattern but theirs is embossed on one side and flat on the other, which makes it thicker and harder to bend. The Plastruct sheet is embossed on both sides, therefore thinner and easier to bend around a body tube.
Hi Lonnie,
DeleteIt didn't shrink the wrap, even if it came up short the gap would be covered by the vertical tunnel.
The plastic sheeting I saw at the hobby store weren't the right corrugated line spacing. Colonial Hobby in Orlando had most all the stuff I saw online.
Looks decent to me in the photo.
ReplyDeleteThanks David,
DeleteThe results were just okay, not even enough and every other line wasn't a consistent depth.
I wonder if you've run into a problem with regards to porosity of the paper? i.e. the paper probably absorbed some of the thinner the paint, thus causing a bit of swelling. Most of the time I'd seen embossed paper wraps, one side looked shinier than the other (typically the side that goes the outside). Perhaps using coated paper stock might yield better results?
ReplyDeleteHi Naoto,
DeleteI did use a smooth card stock. The problem was the second set of embossed lines stretched out the first lines on either side. In the end, the smooth tube looked better than the corrugated wrap I made.