Hello from the middle of the US

[Miked53]

Hello, my name is Mike "aka" Miked53.

I have been amazed at what can be done in paper. My hobbies are vinyl albums and electronics. I work in IT and took a new job to reduce the number of hours I work.

After I get some of the things done around the house, I have an electronics project I have been wanting to work on and also would like to get involved in building paper models. I am a Sci Fi geek.

Before I start asking for models, links or looking for images, I would like to know about the basics: what tools are used and how to shape paper when building.

Any books or articles?

 

[Zathros]

A fellow audiophile!! i was an Electronic Technician, I even had a T.V. repair shop for 10 or so years. You'd like my tube amps.

Get a cutting Matt, the nice ones can be found at a Michael's Craft Store, which will have a good straight edge, TONS of Exacto blades. A set of really nice paper cutting scissors. UHU Glue and ZIP dry work really well. Stay away from Elmers as it tends to penetrate the paper and make a mess of things. That will get you started. A good printer is a must. I use www.inkproducts.com for all of my Ink needs as they get their ink from the same O.E.M. manufacturers as Epson and other printer companies. I prefer pigment based inkjet printers as opposed to dye as the pigment is more permanent and dye dye is color affected by moisture and U.V rays. I have a couple of Epsons, an Epson 415, cheap but good, and an Epson Workforce 1100, for BIG stuff. Nice thing as these two printers use the same cartridges and if you order the ink refill station from Inkproducts.com, you get a double set of cartridges and you get 2 for 1 basically. The following place is a great start for Sci-Fi models, and you have landed in a next of SciFi aficionados (O.K., Geeks!).

http://paper-replika.com/

There are many more!

 

[silveroxide]

At the top, click on the forums tab. That will bring you to a categories section. The fifth one down will have "tips, tutorials and tools" you should be able to pick up on a lot of techniques, tools and glues to use there. Have fun and hope to see some of your works around here soon. The name of the game is to enjoy yourself.

 

[Stephenb]

Welcome Mike! One thing that I have found might work well for you also. I have a leather strop glued to a piece of wood and I use an abrasive called ZAP to strop my blade on. I say blade because since I've started sharpening my xacto blade this way (usually only three or four passes on each side) I haven't had the need to change blades, and the result is a sharper blade than the ones in the box. I have done this for a very long time and saved alot of money by doing this as opposed to switching out blades. I would like to know if anyone else here does this as well.

 

[Zathros]

I have always wondered if this worked. I think I am going to try this. I know it works and the more you use the leather, the better edge you can get. Interesting!

 

[paper hollywood]

My own intro to paper modeling was from an excellent 2004 article in Modelers Resource magazine by Hilber Graf. I just Googled and it seems the magazine has the article posted as a free PDF download (labeled onlypaper.pdf). Some of the links mentioned won't work, but the article content's not bad. All I found was an unformatted link page, but there are some other interesting article downloads on it, too:

http://modelersresource.net/Articles/

Wade

 

[paper hollywood]

BTW, there are links to all the models shown shown in that article at my website (signature link below) under the respective movie names.

Wade