Dr. Ullrich Böhme

Something about Detailing of Card

Translation: Ralf Schnurbusch

 

On the card model market you can find very interesting and detailed models, which can bring a not so expierenced model builder sometimes to get very frustrated or in some cases even lose the motiviation to ever buy a card model again. How would it be at the begining of the journey as detailer to try to modify and detail simple models.

There are for example in the Möwe Verlag the small harbour vessel as the fire boat, customs cruiser, etc.

You can change the character of the ship very easily. The grey customs boat you could build with the unprinted side and soon you would have the elegant, white yacht of a ship owner.

If you cut out the windows with a sharp knife and glue behind a blue foil you have made three dimensional windows. Transparent foil I use for windows only, if I want to see through them. Otherwise they look very dark. The doors you can build open. You score from the backside (the doors open to the outside). The other three sides are cut out with a sharp knife. If it is a wooden door, color the cut edges brown with a felt pen. The same you do with windows and bulleyes, if they are cut out of colored walls, of if the encirclement of the bulleyes are out of brass. Here you could use yellow to eliminate the white cutting edges.

The thin mast I strengthen with wire. To stay with the customs cruiser, I suggest 0.5 mm steel wire. You can color it with enamel color or coat it with the paper. Do not forget to multiply the diameter of the wire with 3.14 to determine the circumference of the coat. It is better to add a little more. The cardboard has to be first rolled very lightly over rod out of old nails, broken drills, etc. and rolled then over a wire with smaller circumference until the desired circumference is achieved. If you use a little longer wire and let the additional lenght come out of the bottom, you can place it very precisely. A round mast looks always better than a flat one. For bollards of small models I use brass nails used in wood modeling, they have very fine ones. Obviously the skipper does not drive with brass bollard, therefore I use black ink. It is best to place the bollards before the installation of the deck. This way you can install the bollard through the deck. Flag poles and other poles can be made the same way as the masts.
I recommend to practise detailing on simple models, so if something goes wrong it is not a big loss and the fun is not gone as with sucessful detailing you can have very fast a nice model with not much effort.

Dr.U. Böhme
Bochumer Str. 1
34497 Korbach
email: Drubpa@yahoo.de