Tuesday 19 April 2011

P is for plastic

If I say "think of something plastic", chances are all of you will think of something different. The word itself appears in lots of pairings, plastic bag, plastic bottle and even plastic surgery and I'm sure we could all think of a dozen others.
Today's post may well be about a use of plastic that you wouldn't think of, and my even leave you thinking RJR is a bit of a geek !


For some time, as a hobby, I have used A4 sheets of plastic (styrene to be precise) to build scale models. I use to be pedantic about the phrase "model" but really I now accept they are just big boys toys. The particular form of models I build are railway related, so yes that would be toy trains.

So take an old motor and wheels out of a Playmobil train, buy about 12 sheets of plastic, and get hold of some drawings for a real train, then start cutting measuring, looking at photos and gluing and generally making it up as you go along. We are not talking about a kit of parts, that would be far too easy, just flat sheets cut and bent to suit. Its like card making in 3D.

 

 

  

 


And just to give you and idea of size


Then all you need is to hunt down a recording of the real thing to load onto an mp3 player built into the bodywork and some lengths of track in your garden. And if you don't like dirty diesels the video also features a steam engine I created the same way.



So, from hopeless romantic yesterday, to big kid today, the many sided life of RJR

If your curiosity has been tweaked there is a link to "my other blog" in the sidebar, that's all about RJRmodels although since starting this blog, I haven't done a whole lot of model making ....

Till tomorrow....................