Strangest place I've ever worked on a model

Back in the day

Years ago and I mean years ago, while attending university I "worked" a weekend midnight to eight am shift as a garage man for the local telephone company. I was the only one on duty and after washing truck windows, fixing flat tires, etc there was little do except wait for the sun to come up. I used to take kits with me to work on. (What..me study for finals when there is model railroading to do??) I sat at the desks the day guys used in the parts department and build away. Kept me awake too. 

Strangest place you ever worked on a model?

When I was a kid they sold model kits at the Capitola variety store( now it's half a dress shop and the other half a yuppie wine tasting room) The folks that owned it lived upstairs and would let us kids work on our models on their deck. One day a friend of mine bought the biggest ship model they had in stock, a lightship , we spent the afternoon assembling it then took it down to the creek and watched it float on it's side( guess it needed ballast ) . I still have pieces of some of the plasticville buildings I got there, they look really small now  ...DaveB

And then there was the time I was;

Cleaning and lubeing a couple of engines in the turret of an M60 tank while waiting for our turn on the range, in a quiet corner of the Munich airport when the flight was held up do to mechanical problems and many times on trains traveling to and from Knoxville, Memphis, DC, Cincinnati, Denver and between Tokyo and Nagoya. Most depressing location: working on a friends Lionel engine in conference room in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Hospital room for me

While Mrs. Fuzzy was in for child #3.  Now that we're working on #4, I guess it will be a repeat!

-Fuzzy
DM Rail  Group
 

In a tent in Afghanistan

Details will appear in a future article. My only other claim would be somewhere in Mullah Omar's former compound. I haven't done any model work on a train, but did unpackage and read over the literature of a lok I purchased in Prague while I was riding to Amsterdam. 

train-order desk working midnights

at Swastika ONR station.  Might copy three orders on a busy night, but I got a bunch of Scotia Scale wooden boxcar kits put together.

David

Antimatter & traffic

How about while waiting for my roommate to to finish observing (the trails of) electron-positron collisions in a nuclear lab.

Then there was a time stuck in a sigalert (unplanned freeway stoppage over 30 minutes) on a SoCal freeway, so I read (and re-read) the instructions for a new kit I'd just bought.

At Sea. Not advisable.

 I worked 12 years as a merchant marine going to sea on freighters and tankers for 1 to 4 months at a time, and then being home for about the same time windows. Feeling my hands were tied while at work as far as being a model railroader, I decided to brainstorm ways to bring my hobby with me. Just so I am not a liar, let me admit that I have never taken a full-blown kit with me to complete. Being on the open rolling ocean is not the environment for that. So I came up with preparation type tasks like.... cutting tree material (production style): INDIAN OCEAN, reading MR and MR Planning: ANTARCTICA, painting HO figures: MOMBASA KENYA, weathering automobiles (not as fun due to only basic suppluys): PANAMA CANAL and probably SUEZ CANAL.

 I have not kept track of when and where honestly, but I have been to all these places and more while practicing these and more similar hobby tasks... but it kind of counts right?

 By the way, I would welcome any ideas of train hobby-ish ideas I could take with me on the go.

Portable supplies

I found working in the confined space of a tent with no ventilation I had to work accordingly. My chief supplies, whether scenery or model building were water based. Tube acrylics, water based Woodland Scenics pigments, matte medium instead of dullcoat (I can't get spray cans shipped here either). I'm now somewhere where ventilation but protection from the weather is easily afforded so I've expanded a bit. I use windshield washer fluid pretty heavily as brush cleaner and for thinning the tube acrylics. I'd prefer to use MEK or some high quality plastic cement but instead I use super glue, it's readily available and using a toothpick or sharpened coffee stirrer helps in the application. The picture below is of a 1/87th truck I customized and weathered using only tube acrylics, washer fluid, silver and black Sharpies and weathering powders. 

No limits

I purposely did not limit this to "train" models, as sometimes the line is a fine one to draw.  For example, when I said "High School Classroom" above?  That was me building a 1/48 scale house in drafting class my senior year of high school.  Technically, that would be "O" scale.  Still have the drawings and photos of that model, but it is long gone.  The hotel room one I mentioned above was a model aircraft, but another time I was working on painting some engine railings in another hotel.

Of course, part of this comes from the article this month.  First time I ever taught that much modeling all at once.  Doing the first kit with 2 of my nephews was pretty good too.  Took them to the hobby store and helped them pick out the kits.  One took an aircraft, the other the space shuttle.

For the guys in the tent, I'm assuming service men overseas?  Thank you for your service from one vet to another.

Magadan, Russia and Guasipate, Venezuela

My former employer operated a couple of mines in Far East Russia (Siberia was closer to civilization) so on a couple of stints at the mine I took a few resin boxcar kits to build there.  CN 36' Fowler boxcars were the result, and they survived international travel with no issues.

Same employer had an exploration project in Venezuela so I built a few kits there as well.  A few Intermountain Cylindrical grain cars are weighted with sufficient Venezuelan currency (Bolivars) to track well.  Using the coins was cheaper than buying weights as the Bolivar was devaluing significantly during my time there.   

I also built a few kits in a tent on the tundra in the middle of nowhere in the Northwest Territories in Canada.  Ahh memories.

Strange places leads to strange solutions

(James, I'm actually a civilian contractor doing HVAC work for the Army but thank you)

Sea-rail brought up an interesting side bar to this discussion. Modeling out here has made me a better craftsman. On the truck above I fashioned parts out of sprue and the stake pockets I made from an aluminum can. I found my green putty was all dried up when I was working on some 1/35th scale models I found depleted "Battle Damage & Repair Kit" that one of the remaining items was a brown bottle of UV curing fiberglass resin, I used it instead of Squadron putty on the figures and set them in the sun to cure. I've used coffee stir sticks as forms for pouring a plaster sidewalk (they were an HO scale four inches thick).

My time out here has made me a better hobbyist. I've learned to employ a lot of "tricks" to accomplish my goals without my air brush, without any solvent based paints, without a supply of styrene shapes, brass wire and shim stock. Also I've accomplished what I have using only a basic tool kit, green mat, chisel and regular Xacto blades, nippers, a set of brushes, sanding stick and a scale ruler. I'm somewhat hampered by not having my calipers with me but the human eye is a pretty good judge of scale and gage. If it doesn't look right then it probably isn't.

Mesimpson mentions using low value coin currency for car weights. What other strange solutions have all of you employed in these strange locations? Collectively I think I see an interesting article here. If somebody wanted to author it I'd contribute my experiences for being listed in a side bar as a contributor to the article. Or I could take a stab at it.

An article?

Never looked at it that way.  I would be willing to write about my experiences some, but in each of my cases it didn't require special tools, just bringing the right stuff with me, or getting it locally when I needed to.  The high school house is where I learned to use wallpaper books to get rugs in a building (or observation car - see the City of Miami part 2 in Aug 2013)

The article I wrote for this month's magazine (railroading merit badge)  got me thinking and the hospital came to mind.  Then I added a few more.  In the hospital I was dong Campbell roof shingles, which require the cardboard, the roll of roof shingles, a simple paint brush for putting water on the shingles, and a small cup of fresh water.  Still got a strange look from the nurse when she came in in the middle. Of course, I was tethered to the bed area by the IV. 

Maybe Joe could put together an article from a series of posts where we each detail the strange places and things we learned modeling?  Or someone could I guess.  What do you think Joe?

Article

Any pictures of Venezuelan currency as weights? I think I'll go ahead with compiling an article. I have a few pictures of some of my make do methods and of the tent exterior. It'll be challenging as I don't think collectively we really have too many pictures. A lot of what I'm reading is of the "There was this time..." sort of story when at the time we didn't figure on documenting what we were doing. But seeing model trains being assembled in the cab of a real locomotive would be a bit of a treat! 

I'm thinking right now of a story that is comprised of anecdotes like are on here but expanded with some further details. Each vignette could be 1-3 paragraphs with a picture (if available) and the total scene would be "Model Building in Unusual Locations" 

I want to be careful to write an article that inspires those who live in apartments or condos and have limited space or resources yet not scare people into thinking they have to be a super modeler to achieve things. I want to inspire not paralyze. 

Maybe a side bar would be the bare minimum tool kit the authors of the article (all of you who contribute) consider necessary. There are a lot of tools we like to use but get by without on a ship, on a train, in a tent and so on. 

Just tossing spaghetti on the wall. Let me know if any sticks.

I've done work on some of my

I've done work on some of my scratch built models in the waiting rooms of various medical offices, as well as the chemo bay at the oncologist's. It's a much more satisfying way to kill time than reading old magazines! Just last week I was making corrugated metal pieces while my wife was getting her chemo port taken out. (She's all through with treatment and doing very well.)

Years ago, before I was self-employed, I sometimes did modeling during my lunch break at work. 

the bare minimum tool kit

might be useful for newbies to the hobby looking for their first tools.  A minimal tool box for me would be exacto knife or razor blade,a good pair of tweezers, small straight and phillips screw driver, side cutter and needle nose pliers, a zona saw,set of small drill bits and pin vise, a small file, a scale rule and appropriate NMRA standards gauge, a small soldering iron with solder, and some small paint brushes. . Next thing I'd add is a panavise, and a dial caliper which when used with a calculator makes the work of measuring small parts a lot easier. Hope I didn't leave anything vital out? ..DaveB

I've started compiling the tool suggestions

ctxmf74 I took your list and plugged it into a spreadsheet in Excel. I put mine in it too. As others post or message me I'll compile them all and reach a consensus of minimum tools that are good to have along for working in strange places; trains, ships, tents, assorted foreign lands etc.

Check out Scarpia's adventures

Rustman and Mycroft, Scarpia did an article in the Sept/Oct 2010 edition of MRH dealing with challenges in a foreign land.  Title was "Modeling 22 Stories Up." 

He followed up with a blog.

Bare minimum tools?

A really good pair of Scissors.  This is one tool where spending the extra to buy a sharp stainless steel pair is worth it.  Another good "tool" I use is a large fishing tackle box to store most of the tools in when not actually using them.  The bottom 2 drawers in mine are also full of assorted paint bottles.

I think that in such cases for me, the bare minimum of tools was I planned to do certain steps in the building of a model and took with me what I considered the bare minimum tools to do that step or steps.  Sometimes you don't even bring the full kit you are working on!

Anecdotes are good.  We now have 2 related ones of cancer patients working while chemo goes.....

Venezuelan currency - sealed in a hopper

Unfortunately (?) all the Bolivars (Bolos in local slang) are sealed inside the Intermountain cylindrical hoppers and/or boxcars. Only way to get at them is to dismantle the car.  The Russian built boxcars might have Ruble coins as weights, I don't recall what I used. 

I'll have to see if I have any extras kicking around the house to photograph.  At one point I had a bag full of 1 Bolivar coins for weights.  Considering the exchange rate was about 1250 Bolivars = $1 US that was some pretty cheap weight!

I still have a tool kit that I use while travelling, I'll have to take a few photos of it for the proposed article.

Marc Simpson

Mr. Clean

I once modeled on a squeaky clean work bench. In my case that was a strange place to work.

Cheers!
Marc - Riverside

Rough outline

So far I've had two replies about tools. I've compiled them into a spreadsheet shown here. I highlighted the areas where we are in agreement. I also placed the tools I consider less portable on  the lower section.* The replies so far have gotten me thinking. I hadn't put scissors down on my own list because they weren't a "modeling tool" here but something I nicked from the office supplies, and I used them a LOT. So this list is by no means complete. Mycroft also delved into supplies a bit with glue, tape and some other items.. So I need to expand my mind to include some of the basic supplies that if you find yourself in Siberia or in the middle of the Pacific Ocean you are going to wish you had to make working on your model easier. Also he brought to my attention the various blades of the Xacto knives, I came to realize that I swear by not only the No.11 but also the chisel blades. ctxmf74 can you weight in about your blade preferences?

*These tools are also often more specific to certain tasks. I've used a Dremel to cut diecast but can usually live without it. A soldering iron is absolutely necessary for track work and electrical, but typically isn't needed for car kits. A Magnetic clamping jig is great for structures, not so useful for automobile kits.

Marc Simpson, pics of your toolkit would be great. You can message me with pictures and stories for the article. Kopek coins are about worthless, when I was last in Russia 1 Kopek coins weren't even available your change, was rounded up to the nearest tenth of a ruble usually.

Marc-Riverside, A clean work bench is a strange place indeed. Can't say I've ever worked there for more then the first few minutes

can you weight in about your blade preferences?

  I have one of most of the different blades but 99% of my work is done with either a #11 exacto if fine work or a single edge razor blade if scraping off plastic. For narrow areas where those won't fit I occasionally use a thin exacto chisel blade and for thick cuts in sheet styrene a utility or drywall knife. I use larger sewing  scissors to cut thin brass sheet and small finger nail type to cut decals but I didn't think of them as "modeling"  tools either so forgot to add them. I need the small soldering iron since I make my own details from brass wire and thin brass sheet then melt them into plastic cars when ever possible  instead of drilling tiny holes, I also solder things like cut levers to their mounts and airhose handles to the air lines. If one uses the supplied kit parts a soldering iron probably wouldn't be needed unless it's a loco that needs some wiring. For glues I use mostly ca, testors black bottle, and a liquid solvent type like plastruct.  I probably wouldn't try to finish up a car on the road since I'd want weathering paints, sharpies, flat  spray, etc.I'd probably build them to the point where they needed painting and then work on another if there was still time to kill.Almost forgot to add an optivisor if the scale is smaller than S scale, they make some of the finer work easier to see :> ) . ......DaveB