K2 Telephone Box - OO (1:76, 4mm) scale

K2 Telephone Box

Wow, am I a happy bunny today!
My man Scott (UPS) was late today and missed his tea/coffee & bacon sarnie, but with a smile he presented me with my latest Shapeways delivery. My OO (1:76, 4mm) scale K2 Telephone Box in FUD.

Now, the telephone kiosks I modelled are the first time I have attempted to make any kind of accurate scale model, and I am proud to say the K2 has turned out better than I was expecting.

All seven parts laid out - there's seven parts to make painting easier - note the tabs on the sidewalls, these fit into corresponding gaps in the floor and roof.

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Detail - I modelled the telephone inside the kiosk as accurately as print restrictions will allow, under the wax residue are the dial and finger holes - The handset of the phone is just over 3mm across!

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Dry fit - everything fits together quite nicely even without removing any of the wax residue. The sides are a little warped, a dose of hot water & a flat surface should cure that.

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More detail - I quickly drybrushed part of the roof piece with some black artists acrylic - the detailing is embossed by just 0.1mm and stands out quite nicely, again, the embossing is to aid painting.

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The only thing I didn't put onto the roof section was the Royal Crown, whilst I maybe a King in name only, I'm sure I'd be breaking some ancient British law without proper Royal endorsement for the Crown.

I can't wait for the rest of my FUD orders to turn up - I'm sure they'll be just as good!

Wow, those printed nicely at such small sizes. I've never really thought about getting several pieces printed out to glue together. Let us know how the flattening and painting process goes.

...and I'm of British descent so, yes, I would have sent a letter to the Queen if you'd used the Crown!

Glenn

An update.

I've had the opportunity to have a play with removing the wax residue and straightening out the sidewalls. The process went like this;
1. - Grab wifey's nail varnish remover (NVR) and a stiff artist's brush.
2. - Work the NVR over the wax residue with the brush and drop the part into a glass containing cold water (50ml/~2oz) and washing-up liquid.
3. - When all the parts were in the glass, I put the glass into the microwave oven and 'cooked' it for 60 seconds on the 300w setting.
4. - Left to stand for a few minutes, then lifted out the parts, some onto kitchen towel, the sidewalls straight onto the kitchen worktop - the parts were quite warm and flexible at this point - the water coating the sidewalls sucked the parts onto the worktop (surface tension) and as they cooled they remained fairly straight.

Images;

Less warped - here you can see the sidewalls have just a slight bow, glue & a bit of pressure will get things lined up & true.

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The phone - check out the large image, the dial is visable and the finger holes are just showing.

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Yet more detail - the door handle, and 'TELEPHONE' across the top.

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My next steps prior to painting are to thoroughly clean the model - how, I'm not quite sure. I'm not in favour of using any acetone based product due to the way it 'frosts' the plastic as can be seen above... to me, frosting means the plastic has been chemically altered and is now more brittle - even if this is just the surface, there's only so much thickness to play with (the sides are minimum 0.3mm wall thickness)
After reading about other people's methods, I'm headed towards using a glass fiber brush. I have some glass fiber tape with really fine strands that may work out ok making my own dremel type accessory, and I'm all for experimenting

On with the fun FUD!

[edit]The kiosk has had a chance to sit, made up (dry, no glue), for a while and all the sides are now straight

Looking forward to seeing the final paint job.

And that's where I might fall down. I've not done any small scale painting since I was a teenager (25+ years ago), but hey, in for a penny, in for a pound

My children gave me some vouchers for our local Hobbycraft store on Father's Day. I bought all the supplies I needed to paint up the K2 Phone Box. I'm using Tamiya Fine Surface primer and Humbrol enamel paints. My idea of making a glass fibre brush didn't work out, so I ended up giving the parts another scrubbing with nail varnish remover.

Here's a couple of WIP images. The parts have had 2 coats of primer.

Sides primed

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Top primed

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