Experiment with photo paper


eTraxx

eTraxx

Member
I'm experimenting using photo paper for a vertical boiler I am building. It will be tucked inside a building so I think using the photo paper may work fine.

Here's what you will see looking through the double doors of the pump house (and if you were HO sized ... )
th_View_thru_Door.png


Slipping to the left and peering through the window ..
th_View_thru_FrtWindow.png


Here is the wrapper attached to the boiler 'plug'. The piece of wrapper under the penny .. well .. I will cut the to riveted bands off the top and bottom (rotate the one on top 180 so shadow is correct) .. cut off the fire door .. and laminate them. Still need to do the same for the cone on top .. but thinking will change to another paint .. like green.
th_withWrapper.jpg



Curious to see how this comes out. So far .. so good. Now if I don't screw up the laminating .. if I do .. you will hear lamentations ..
:/
 
Ok. Finished up wrapping the boiler. It came out pretty good I think .. at least for the purpose I was talking about . .inside a building. Couple of pointers (covered at length on my blog) .. (and not finished since the blog is following the build!)

1) You need to make the wrapper a bit longer then what the calculated Circumference is ... paper doesn't wrap that nicely .. and the outer surface is ALWAYS shorter then the inner unless you bevel it. DUH!!
2) I touched the surface up here and there with some AI wash. The fire door was too faded out because the dern thing is only about the size of pea and the AI soaked in from all sides. What I SHOULD have done was seal the sucker in CA first. (lesson learned).

That's ok. I'm still going to add some bits of wire/styrene so it looks like the door has a handler and hinges. Then there's the plumbing for the boiler .. but have to make the steam pump first :)

The first photo here shows how I cemented the 'bands' .. the strips of riveted paper I cut from the second sheet. Used my mini-clothes pin .. cut the strip a little long so I could clamp the ends ..
HoldingRivetStrip.jpg


Then simply hung it over where I needed the bands. The weight of the mini-clothes pin helped keep it in place. I used my CA applicator and secured the area shown then when that was secure I took the clothes pin off and flipped the boiler over and cut and cemented the back side.

3) Luckily the back side can't be seen because I was about 1/16" short on the bands. I had forgotten .. they are around the WRAPPER .. that means they need to be longer.
ClampingRivetStrip.jpg


ClampingRivetStrip2.jpg


So here we go. Think that worked pretty well.
FiniBoiler2.jpg


FiniBoiler1.jpg
 
Thanks. No .. I didn't .. and I should have as the ink on the Fire Door did smear/run just a bit. I'm going to re-do that .. but .. another lesson learned .. matt spray before going any farther. Darn. In the threads on papermodelers.com I can now remember them talking about 'varnishing' to keep the paper from warping. One thing I have HAVE learned is (not for the wrapper which I agree should be sprayed with a matt finish) .. but about the 'plug' that the paper is wrapped on. You can use cardstock for that .. and if you soak it in thin CA .. is pretty much turns to a 'plastic'.
 
Any ink jet printing on regular paper .. and I mean bond paper, cardstock etc. .. the ink is going to spread a bit. What I mean is that it get's fuzzy if you look close at it. The Photo Paper doesn't do that .. the images remain sharp. I actually DID spray a matt finish onto the boiler wrapper but I got in a hurry with the two bands and the fire door when I was laminating them and totally forgot. The one thing that you need to know about if you ever want to experiment with printing to paper/cardstock/photo paper are the edges where you cut them. They are white. I have tried using a gray marker .. paper edge soaks it up .. tried stains .. like AI wash .. same thing. That's what you see on the dull looking fire door. A matt spray might alleviate where the raw edges soak up the color. I picked up some crayons yesterday just for the gray one .. see if that will work. Pastels well work also. The paper modelers recommend gray .. as a neutral color that resembles nothing so much as a shadow to color the raw paper edges.
 
Good points. Have you had success with water-transfer-film for an inkjet? I printed my decal, let it dry for 24 hrs, sprayed with Dulcote and let dry for 24. I cut about 1/32 back from printed color and they still blurred when applied. Re applied one 3 times and still not satisfied. Any thoughts from your experience?
 
Nope. Plan to. The paper I have I picked up at a discount store .. 30 pcs 4x6 gloss paper for $3. Figured it was cheap enough to experiment with. I was pleasantly surprised at the result so .. yep .. matt paper will be in the shopping basket.
 
I've been working on my 'project' .. same one the boiler is part of. I'm scratchbuilding a C.P.R. Pumphouse .. and that is part of it. Right now, I'm working on the pump part .. kinda silly I suppose since the thing in HO is only like 5/8" long .. but having fun playing in Sketchup. Thought/Thinking about starting a 'Construction' thread .. but a little leery since I have never actually scratch-built anything before .. seems kinda presumptuous of me I guess. How have you been? I still have your tree. :)
 
photo paper

have not been feelin to good last few days still busy with work maybe we can get together in a few days so you see my layout although kinda amess in there right now
 
I bought a ream of heavy card stock printing paper and have been using it to print retaining wall, building flats and signs. Works really well. The 3D texture sites that game designers use are a good resource for images.
http://www.cgtextures.com/
I also print manhole covers and grates on Avery labels and stick them where I want them.

Ed, your boiler looks great.
 
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