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Note: To reduce loading time, illustrations and details of interest are relegated to subtopics through links. Many construction projects require precise alignment during assembly or just plain holding, during bending, cutting, drilling, gluing or soldering. Especially true in repeated or assembly line processes, flexible or specific holding or guiding devices can be great aids and time savers. Some commercial ones are available and many can be made from scrap wood, metal or plastic material. Often they can be combined for more complex uses. Magnets used with ferrous sheets or shapes can act as very flexible clamps. Even vises, clamps, locking tweezers and pliers and your fingers may fall into this group. Other tools may be of use instead; such as chain nose pliers, thumb gauges and slitters and balsa strippers. Often many tool accessories can be adapted for use. But all facilitate their associated processes. The dividing lines among these devices are often nebulous or overlapping. Usually flat, templates are used as guides for locating, cutting, drilling and shaping. Commonly referred to as forms or patterns some are three dimensional . Jigs are generally used for more temporary holding and positioning, while fixtures are considered more permanent and complex. To use many of these devices , careful planning, setup and layout is required. This is truer in the fabrication of them. Standard measuring and drafting tools; including scales, calipers, dividers, compasses, triangles, protractors and squares; are invaluable. Too often overlooked, an original part may be used as a guide. To relieve eye strain, contrasting colored coatings are applied during and after fabrication. The use of DYKEM on metal is a good example. Expanding on some of the ideas presented can help reduce a difficult task to a much simpler one. Paper or thin card stock can be used to make TEMPORARY, TRIAL TEMPLATES OR PATTERNS _ for all types of projects from location guides through bending patterns to mockups for scratch building structures. Using a CAD program, designs can be drafted and printed to scale. They are very useful on curved surfaces. Many examples exist in plans for craftsman type wooden kits for cutting, aligning and shaping. In some cases the template is temporarily bonded to the model or work surface to prevent movement. Turnout templates fall into this group. Effective masking templates can be made from frisket, often used with airbrushes, by commercial artists to block out areas or to eliminate overspray. Masking and Scotch tapes also form template for painting and lettering. CARDBOARD MOCKUPS of buildings, bridges etc. can be disassembled and used as templates to form and cut walls, sides and even windows. They provide an inexpensive, visual idea of how things fit, which could be a valuable evaluator before a new structure is purchased or built. PLASTIC TEMPLATES are more durable and many are available for track planning and many other applications including lettering guides. Many provide geometric shapes in a wide range of sizes including circles, ellipses, rectangles, triangles etc. French and ship builder's curves with smooth changing radii of curvature come in a wide variety of sizes and curvatures. Selected ones may be helpful in laying out odd track or road curves and others. If you lay many easements, templates can be made to help lay them and to align them to existing tangents and curves. Templates are indispensable for establishing vertical easements, where there is nothing but thin air on which to plot them. More durable yet, METAL TYPES can be applied to any of the above. Straight and curved track alignment templates are available for in many radii. Placed between the rails, they are slid along as spiking progresses. Although they are very useful in tight spaces, where a curve can not be swung from a center, unfortunately not all radii are available. A straight edge or steel scale can be used to align tangents. Years ago Walthers offered a positive pattern for curving their cerestory roofs. For most applications templates will have to homemade. The NMRA GAUGES are excellent examples of metal templates used to check wheels, track work and clearances. Almost anything solid can be used as a jig to line up, space, bend or hold pieces during fabrication. Blocks, dowels, tubing and coins can be used as bending guides. Various strips can be used as spacers. Even a true flat surface might be considered a jig. Often it is wise to look at other areas in the hobby shop to see what others are using. For holding while gluing and cutting, the simplest is an old standby from balsa flying planes; a wooden sheet, plans, waxed paper or plastic wrap (if you are able to smooth it) and TEE-PINS with hold down disks. Variations of this scheme can be used for soldering handrails and piping. Available commercially, a very FLEXIBLE ASSEMBLY SYSTEM is a flat, sheet steel box using magnetic fixtures of various types plus some additions. Easily stored, most of the devices can be held inside by the magnets. It can position car sides and ends, building walls and almost anything for assembly, at any angle. Some of the pieces provided are a little large for delicate work, but others are easily fabricated. Although these are usually more permanent, complex and dedicated and often fastened down, some may be simple. Often they are accessories for hand or machine tools. Probably the most common are vises and clamps, which may be highly specialized. Kadee's COUPLER ASSEMBLY FIXTURES are excellent examples of specific commercial types. For bending or curving larger and thicker pieces, specialized BENDER OR ROLLER fixtures (tools) are required. Many tools are available to aid in precise angular alignment of devices, including vises and even directly on models. Among the most useful are MACHINIST'S SQUARES of various sizes. All surfaces are ground to very accurate right angles and can be used. Sizes range from 2" to very large. A variation is the RIGHT ANGLE PLATE used to mount work verically on milling tables Both fixed and adjustable BEVEL ANGLES can be used, including drafting triangles. Many cutting tools include guides for angular cutting that can be used elsewhere. Very accurate accessories for machine tools, INDICES AND DIVIDERS, can be used as both fixtures or aids in setting angles in layout for others. Less expensive dividers, using gears or disks with holes and fitted stop pins, can divide circles into equal parts. A 40 stop could be used to layout a complete circle roundhouse with 40 stalls spaced at 9 degrees. Very expensive and bulky indexing tables can be set to the neighborhood of .1 or .01 degrees = 6 minutes or 36 seconds. These are ideal for making jigs to fabricate odd angle frogs for crossings and turnouts, if you can afford them. Machinist's protractors are more affordable and less accurate. Spacing parts during fabrication is a common necessity, Almost anything can be used, from styrene, wood or metal in strips, sheets or blocks; if the edges are deburred and trued. Machinist's PARALLELS both fixed and adjustable are ground very accurately and are available in a wide range of sizes. For larger vertical spacing, adjustable STEP BLOCKS AND JACKS are ofen used. Some processes require a combination of the types at various stages. Many of the processes in modeling these parts are similar in that they may reqire locating, shaping, drilling and joining. Although some kit manufacturers provide dimples or drilling templates to locate holes or bending jigs for odd shapes, many do not. Ready made parts may be provided or available from various suppliers, but they may not be correct for the prototype modeled. When dressing up or scratch building, your on your own. Locating mounting holes on the model can be very frustrating and time consuming. Pliers of various types, some specialized, can bend almost any shape, but shaping parts to fit with just a pair of pliers can be even worse. Joining parts in mid-air can prove almost impossible. In any case mistakes can be very difficult to rectify and may ruin the finished product. A wide variety of GRAB IRON, HANDRAIL AND PIPING BENDING AIDS can be made to simplify the processes. Mistakes can be made on scrap or expendable items. BACK TO TOOLS INDEX |
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