Wills Sheet Plastic & Plasticard

[Graham Walters]

I'm trying to get into scratchbuilding, mainly because I can how satisfying it is if you manage to build something and it looks good.

 

I'm using Wills sheets at the moment, but I'm finding them a bit small for some things, basically if you want something over 170mm high, you have to join the sheets.

 

And that is the problem, actually joining the sheets without leaving a too visible line, the info sheet says to create a 45deg angle on the edge, even this is proving to be very difficult, I've tried sanding, cutting, trimming, I even tried a jig I made and a modelers smoothing plane.

 

So the questions are :

 

Are these sheets available in larger sizes, say up to A4 ?

 

How do you cut decent 45deg angles ?

[hayfield]

Sadly they only do the one size. Coachman has the ability to join sheets together and his painting method seems to disguise the joins. I have seen one modeller melt one sheet into another which seemed to do the job. I think Iain Rice has done a book about using these sheets which may be worth getting

[teaky]

SE Finecast do larger sheets - http://www.sefinecast.co.uk/Building%20Materials/Building%20Materials.htm

 

Slaters also do larger sheets but in different style.  Much thinner which means you construct a backing structure and attach the sheets to that.

 

 

To obtain a 45 degree angle: file roughly to shape with an ordinary file then use a simple jig to finish the angle.  It is easier if you hold the Wills sheet and have the file flat on the workbench.  It sounds like you may have already tried this but I am slightly confused by what you have said above.  You would only mitre joints at corners.  For straight joints in longer or taller walls it is simply a case of taking your time - file a bit, check the fit, file, check...  Make sure you have all the sheets the same way up as this helps.

 

 

You might find Plastic Structure Kits by Iain Rice, Wild Swan a useful book.

 

 

Jason of "The Mill" is a bit of a wizard at joining sheets.  He's also done some nice corner joints using filler to create quoins too.

Edited March 31, 2015 by teaky

[Theakerr]

Where possible drainpipes work very well.

[John_Miles]

It depends on what sheets you are using. If it is brick then they do make larger sheets which, IMHO, are better than Slater's because the brick courses are level. Also, I don't like Slater's stone because it lacks relief. The Wills coarse stone is excellent for big structures such as retaining walls and bridge abutments. I have even used it for small stone sheds by sanding it a little. If you want to make buildings which are of smaller stones, Peco N gauge stone sheets can be useful. Joining the Wills sheets is a matter of practice. You need a strong solvent - the choice of solvent for jobs is a whole topic on its own - like Revell which is very pungent but does the job. You may need to do some carving in places but this can be achieved with a sharpened small screwdriver and a scalpel.

[Arthur]

 

Could we just clarify some things here (for my information too).

 

There are the very thick, and relatively small, Wills injection moulded sheets, as Graham is using. As far as I am aware these are not available in larger sizes, or are they?

 

There are the SE Finecast vacuum formed sheets, larger and thinner, they'll require a support structure, the brickwork ones are very good.

 

And there is the Slaters embossed range, generally A4 size but available in larger sizes, again it will need a support structure.

 

There are others avaiable but these are the most popular ranges.

 

The Wills sheets are difficult to use, tough to cut and exceedingly difficult to join invisibly. Some, the corrugated iron sheet for example, are moulded in such a strange arrangement that they cannot be stacked vertically and provide a prototypical appearance.

[teaky]

I'd forgotten, but Wills added 170 x 113mm sheets to their range which are thinner and more flexible than their usual sheets.

[mike morley]

 

This illustrates the point Theakerr made about using drainpipes to hide joins.  The limewashed stone sheets were used for the buildings.

 

The loading bank is four feet long in total and uses umpteen inch and a quarter wide strips of the random stone sheets.   I made it by getting two whole sheets and finding an area where the arrangement of stones would roughly "mesh" and using that as the starting/joining point for the first two strips.  Then you have to find a mesh for the outer ends of the two strips you've just created and so on and so on.

It is quite effective (there are four joints in the picture) but It is extremely wasteful and time consuming and you find yourself designing the structure around the sheets, which is entirely the wrong way of going about it.  Being so thick makes the Wills sheets quite difficult to work, too, and if you have even a moderate amount to do you soon find yourself taking increasingly frequent and longer breaks to both give your wrists and hands a rest and also to escape the monotony.

 

As you might have guessed, I wouldn't use the Wills sheets again if I could possibly avoid it!

Edited April 3, 2015 by mike morley

[mike morley]

 

This gives a better idea of what I meant by meshing.  The two joins on the nearer parapet are fairly obvious, but I did a better job on the far parapet, where the six joins are a bit more subtle.

 

These are coarse stone sheets that I laid flat on the Workmate then gave a good seeing-to with the biggest, coarsest file I could find.

[Arthur]

 

Excellent work MIke, I can only admire your perseverance in getting joints like that. It's a pity the sheets are so small as, on many of them*, the relief work is very good. I could live with the cutting of them, it's the joining which puts me off.

 

*I'm not a fan of their corrugated iron sheeting for example, it's okay for small 'rustic' buildings but not for large, industrial, structures.

[mike morley]

Thanks for the compliment!

 

I know just what you mean about the Wills corrugated iron.  I always use Slaters.  A few years ago I spilled some solvent on a sheet and it curled and buckled spectacularly and is now perfect for those battered, falling-apart buildings and fences that you often see.

 

One thing I forgot to mention above is that the Wills brick sheets are prone to shattering when being cut.

[Edmund Kinder]

Hi Graham

 

I use both Wills and Slaters sheets for scratchbuilding, and with some of the Wills sheets the joins are easier to hide than others (Wills roof tile sheets are a nightmare to disguise when joined).

 

I use a lot of the Wills coarse stone sheets and what I tend to do when they're initially joined is paint the area round the join in a light grey which then shows up bad joints and then put in plastic putty or Milliput around the join, and when dry spend a lot of time carving fresh joints between.  I then put on a little more light grey paint again to see if there are visible joins still, if so then a little less filler, carve again when dry and paint grey again and inspect.

 

With the photos below, you can see how I used Wills coarse stone on a model of a good shed.  As mentioned above, I made the join where there was least area.  You can still see evidence of a join on the edge.

 

 

On the pictures below, you can see before and after shots of a tunnel mouth on my layout.  A bit of filler and careful painting disguised things (I hope!)

 

 

Finally, the shot below used Wills random stone for the wall.  Again, I made the walls, grey paint, filler, carve again etc and when satisfied paint properly. - spot the joins.

 

Hope this helps

Best regards, Edmund

[Arthur]

 

Some more excellent examples Edmund, very nice work with the houses and the layout looks good too.

[John_Miles]

For corrugated iron, I find Ambis Engineering's products are the best. The Wills sheets are too thick.

[PhilJ W]

The Wills corrugated glazing is better than the plastic sheets of corrugated iron being thinner. It can still be used to represent corrugated iron or asbestos with a bit of paint.

[mike morley]

A lot of clear plastics can be very brittle.  How does the Wills stuff fare in that respect?

[PhilJ W]

A lot of clear plastics can be very brittle.  How does the Wills stuff fare in that respect?

I've never experienced any of that sort of problem, but some I have has yellowed with age. Even when new it can split when cutting if the knife used is anything but sharp.

[John_Miles]

Apologies for harping on but the Ambis Engineering corrugated iron is a metal product and thin so you don't need to file down the edges. The only thing it is not suitable for is curved sheets and for that the South Eastern Finecast plastic is best.

[mike morley]

No need to apologise for harping on.  I've never met anything of Ambis's that has been anything less than First Class.

[CraigC]

On 03/04/2015 at 21:00, Edmund Kinder said:

Hi Graham

 

I use both Wills and Slaters sheets for scratchbuilding, and with some of the Wills sheets the joins are easier to hide than others (Wills roof tile sheets are a nightmare to disguise when joined).

 

I use a lot of the Wills coarse stone sheets and what I tend to do when they're initially joined is paint the area round the join in a light grey which then shows up bad joints and then put in plastic putty or Milliput around the join, and when dry spend a lot of time carving fresh joints between.  I then put on a little more light grey paint again to see if there are visible joins still, if so then a little less filler, carve again when dry and paint grey again and inspect.

 

With the photos below, you can see how I used Wills coarse stone on a model of a good shed.  As mentioned above, I made the join where there was least area.  You can still see evidence of a join on the edge.

 

 

On the pictures below, you can see before and after shots of a tunnel mouth on my layout.  A bit of filler and careful painting disguised things (I hope!)

 

 

Finally, the shot below used Wills random stone for the wall.  Again, I made the walls, grey paint, filler, carve again etc and when satisfied paint properly. - spot the joins.

 

Hope this helps

Best regards, Edmund

Hi Edmund,

 

Looking at creating a retaining wall, admired your pictures above. The 4th picture of the tunnel mouth and wall, did you mount the Wills sheets to wood or did you use another method? The end result looks fantastic! Any other advice you could provide would be appreciated.

 

Regards Craig

[Edmund Kinder]

5 hours ago, CraigC said:

Hi Edmund,

 

Looking at creating a retaining wall, admired your pictures above. The 4th picture of the tunnel mouth and wall, did you mount the Wills sheets to wood or did you use another method? The end result looks fantastic! Any other advice you could provide would be appreciated.

 

Regards Craig

Hi Craig

 

Thanks for the feedback.  As you can see, the hill area is a made up of a lattice of insulation board, and the bits in between are filled with polystyrene.  On top of this is modroc bandage painted brown and then Woodland scenics scatter on the part with the sheep and barn.  The area around the tunnel mouth is carpet felt dyed with Railmatch Doncaster Green. The tunnel mouth made from Wills sheets was fixed on to the 9mm ply that carries the trackbed.  The first picture below shows a very early stage of construction before the tunnel mouth was made and the former's for the scenery were made.  I'd take the 9mm ply over the whole board linked to this one and then I reduced the trackbed area to a length that was about an inch wider each site of the track.  This was what I fixed the tunnel mouth onto.  the first picture below is taken from a very early stage in construction and shows what I did with the ply base.

 

 

The next 2 pictures below are from different stages of construction.

 

 

Hope this is of use.  Any other questions, let me know.

 

Best Wishes

Edmund

 

Edited February 24, 2019 by Edmund Kinder

[Mallard60022]

Absolutely inspiring Edmund, just at a time when I am struggling to motivate myself to get a tunnel and cutting sorted. Thank you.

Phil

[gobbler]

I've used wills sheets for my station.

 

The bricks are over scale, but i do like the definition.

 

As you can see, the rear of the station is made of several lengths

 

A bit of filler and some re-scribing, the model is around 2ft im length.

 

A strategically placed gutter down pipe could hide a join on a long building like this, but I've made the joins quite well hidden.  Just butt joints, no 45° here except on the corners.

 

Scott

Edited March 3, 2019 by gobbler

[Rowsley17D]

On ‎03‎/‎04‎/‎2015 at 03:34, teaky said:

I'd forgotten, but Wills added 170 x 113mm sheets to their range which are thinner and more flexible than their usual sheets.

 

But only it seems in brick - stretcher bond.