Building Materials?

hi ! I have used primarily basswood when using wood . it,s fine grain and can be painted with or without a primer . I do (except on yachts and speedboats ),use primarily  EVERGREEN SCALE MODELS  scratch building plastic. It comes in many railroad scales as well as architectural scales. this is the best i,ve have found for the money.      tankerbuilder

I use magic sculpt as well but a lot of people use Aves and others use Plumbers putty.

There are a number of diffirent density foams available like the Balsa Foam but far more firm.

The stuff tends to be expensive but it is easy to work with and can be coated to have a hard surface.

 

Eric... 

If you like working with wood you can also get Basswood in many of the same precut shapes and sizes as Balsa. Basswood is a bit firmer with a less prominant grain. Pine is available from most hardware / lumber stores in useful sizes for larger projects (1x1, 2x2 etc) some of the molding trim is handy as well. Even better for hobby use many of these shops keep a scrap bin where you can get short remnant pieces cheap, 2 feet of trim is pretty useless for them but can supply us with enough for several projects. Pine is soft with a fairly tight grain.

If you put a coat of shellac over the wood and sand it before you paint it will reduce a lot of the wood grain effect from wood. You can use clear shellac or white BIN primer, both work well.

There is a member here Solid who has done some really neat all wood aircraft. I believe he uses Mohogany for most of his work.

 

Getting away from wood there are a couple of epoxy putties that are pretty handy. I use Magic Sculpt, but there are others out there I just can't think of the brand names at the moment.

I had never heard of balsa foam, that looks interesting. I have used Daz Paperclay, Crayola air dry clay and sculpey before. I'm primarily scratch building aircraft.

I did find the thing I was looking for above. It is called NC Proofboard and it is from GoldenWest Manufacturing. It is also a really good foam board type material.

Balsa Foam, Styrene Sheet, Brass Sheet, Epoxy Putty.

It all depends on what your making.

 

Eric... 

I thought i remember using some yellowish celluose board that was kinda like a rigid foam prototyping board but now I can't recall the company that was making it. Anyone have any idea?