Wills Viaduct

[tarifa]

I 'm building the Wills viaduct and have encountered a problem in bending the arch brick lining. I have heated 2 sheets in warm water to soften for bending but alas the they cooled they awere brittle and snapped. Has anyone had a similar experience.

 

Mike

[tarifa]

I 'm building the Wills viaduct kit and have encountered a problem in bending the arch brick lining. I have heated 2 sheets in warm water to soften for bending but alas when they cooled they were brittle and snapped when I tried gentle bending. Has anyone had a similar experience.

 

Mike

[BRealistic]

I think the approach often adopted is to bend the pieces 'into a roll' first and hold them with elastic bands Then put them in warm water... and simly leave to cool.

[brossard]

Another way might be to use some 0.020" Evergreen sheet and glue on some Slaters/Finecast embossed brick or stone sheet (also 0.020"). This should bend very easily.

 

Just a thought

 

John

[Black Sheep]

Yes,

 

I built the 00 version of the kit as a single track (taking two track N) without the pillars (I actually cut the arches down so that they weren't as high above the canal) and completely gave up on putting the arch lining, the plan was to fit a paper one from scalescenes later, but I didn't count on the thickness of the board that supports the bridge (built 'backbone' boards so the board must run the full length of the layout for strength) and so am hiding the lack of lining with a lot of undergrowth.

[R A Watson]

Dont wait before bending do it whilst the plastic is still warm and soft, better still wrap it around a former before putting it in the water to warm it.

 

H T H.

 

[JZ]

Just to drag this up from the grave.

Just building one of these kits and the approach I used was to place the sheets in hot water, as hot as you can put your hand in, then wrap around an metal drinks bottle, I used a Sigg, available from outdoor shops, place bands around and fill with boiling water. Leave a couple of minutes, empty the bottle and refill with cold water.

[The White Rabbit]

Also, since the OP, we've had http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75194-modelling-a-castle/ - I used a similar technique to JZ above, though using a glass bottle and string. I had no problems with the sheets becoming brittle.

[gwrman]

Hi I had the same problem with mine, I'm going to use Slaters or Tasma N Scale Brick Embossed Plastic Sheet from Modelscape.

[6029 King Stephen]

On one of the DVDs that RM used to include on the cover of their December and January issues a few years ago, their expert modeller Bob Phelps built the Wills viaduct. To form the brick arches he worked the plastic in his hands so that it became warm and softer so that he could begin to roll it to the approximate shape. However, when I tried to follow suit, the plastic provided did not roll but just broke - never thought about using a hair dryer, that might work. My solution was to cut the same size piece of archway from slaters embossed brick and curve that to fit under the arch.

 

At the time I was trying to build a model of Redruth station in Cornwall that has a 7 arch viaduct at its western end but of course this was curved and had three lines for part of it. The straight Wills viaduct wouldn't have worked so I thought about scratchbuilding one in card and even produced a mock up but eventually ditched Redruth and sold the 7 arch viaduct on eBay.

 

Steve

[JZ]

I have curved my Will's viaduct by inserting a 4mm fillet(plastruct) between the arches on one side. The pillars were cut on the centre line and the same 4mm square section inserted, disguised as a water waste pipe. On my 4 archer this has produced a subtle curve and the straight section are not too noticeable.