One of the nice little details you can add to scratch built vehicles is rivets. Over the years I have seen many different way to make them, some simple, some quite bizarre. I’ll be discussing three of the more common ways to add rivets to your models.The Chop and Glue Method
This method involves making individual rivets by chopping long sections of tubing into small pieces. One of the more common sources of tubing is the old rhino guardrails. The ones that go along the top of the old rhinos and breaks all the time.
Take the tube and cut it into 1mm sections. You can then glue these on your model as rivets. The problem you face with this method is that the rivets are not always the same length and it is difficult to glue them on. I have used tweezers I the past to make sure they get in the right place.
For larger rivets, you can take a hole punch and some thick plasticard. Collect the ‘rivets’ as you punch them out of the plasticcard and glue them on. It is much faster than the previous method and all the rivets are the same size. The down side is that the rivets are larger. I use a heavy duty punch. It stands up much better to the thick plasticard and you can get a smaller punch size.
I recently discovered this and have had wonderful results with it. To put rivets on a piece of plasticard, take the card and turn it over, then push down on the backside with your icepick. Do not put so much pressure as to push all the way though and make a hole. The goal is to make a small dimple on the other side. I also place my plasticard on a rubber mat, it has a better give than the hard surface I usually work on.
Just to give you an idea of how much faster this is, I can do one rivet in about a minute using the cut and glue method. With the Ice Pick method, it takes less than 5 seconds.
As an aside, apparently wal-mart doesn’t sell ice picks anymore. The guy selling the butcher knives said that ice picks were a safety risk. Go figure.
8 comments:
the aristocrats!
good tips. i like the icepic meathod. also, i think an old filed down soldering iron tip would be good too. also with a hammer.
-sam
try an awl which you should still be able to get at any hardware store
There is also the drill a small hole and insert a train track nail method. It is not recommended as it is very time consuming.
The ice pick method can be improved with what is called ponce wheel (the spelling might not be correct). It is a small wheel with spikes on it that is attached to a pen. You roll it along with slight pressure and it leaves behind it a row of rivets.
I have another excellent method, -lentils(!) (dryed, of course). The trick is to cut them in half, then glue them on. I have recently found out that you can buy "pre-cut" lentils in the store. strange, but true.
The lentils slightly irregular shape looks very convincing once painted, especially on orky stuff.
/Gonka Koff
This blog is quickly becoming a regular for me - way to go! (Especially for tips for us Sisters (Inquisitorial players ...)
Have you experimented with heating the ice pick/ awl/ pointy thing? Just wondering if that improved your results ...
The problem with ponce wheels is that is very difficult to get the wheel moving exactly parallel to the edge of the armor plate. The other probolem is the rivets turn out as slight ovals and you cannot adjust the spacing between the rivets.
If you can't find an ice pick look in a stationary supply shop for a 'lawyers bodkin'. They use these to punch holes in papers for threading together with a fabric tape.
Some girl probably got inspired by "The Basic Instinct" and chopped her BF in bed with the ice-pick :-DDDDD
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