Protecting your Work-In-Process

Well, in days of old, I'd use a mix of things.  Like a 16" or 22" "lazy susan" from the home center.  Even the cheaper ones with less-good ball bearings wouls swivel when bumped.  But the greater utility was in how easy it was to change from port to starbord to fore or aft angles, rather than reaching through, over, whatever.

Now, I've also used a wheeled cart to similar effect--which can be convenient if it is lower, as it can put upper masts much closer "to hand" as it were.  Wheeled cart can be rolled out of the way, too, or off into a closet--which can be reassuring when your vistors bring their exuberant setter with them <g> . . .

   For dust covers I figure my model is going in a custom built case with a glass cover when finished, so why not build the glass cover first then you have a properly sized dust cover to place over the model for those lengthy between building sessions.

   Recently I built a slightly oversized glass cover specifically to house models during construction. Very handy for when I'm spending months building bridge and smokestack subbasemblies, and those subbassemblies are housed under three pound coffee cans whilst awaiting attachment to the model. 

I admire ChuckO's courage.  I wouldn't want a glass box sitting in my workshop while I was working on something.  Glass sheets, in my vicinity at any rate, have a mystical, almost magnetic attraction; they attract hard objects.  I suspect I wouldn't be able to get through the building of a model without busting the glass at least once.  My preference is to either build the case last, or build it earlier and keep it far, far out of the way till the model's ready to go in it.  And I generally prefer plexiglas to glass. (That's another issue.)

My inclination is to keep the in-progess model in a cardboard or foamboard box, if necessary custom-making the box to fit it.  I tend to spend a long time on my models; the biggest function of the box is to keep them from gathering dust (sawdust and other) during the long periods when I'm not working on them.  I like to screw the model down to a baseboard early in the construction process, and make the box in such a way that the baseboard gets fastened firmly to the bottom of the box.

When I was in the early stages of my little Continental frigate Hancock (which is shown in my avatar), somebody bashed into the rear end of my 1978 Chevy Monza and punched out one of the tail lights.  The replacement tail light assembly came in a nice, sturdy cardboard box that was a good fit for the model (without masts or bowsprit).  I glued a couple of strips of wood inside the sides of the box, so the baseboard slid between them and the bottom.  The model traveled across the Atlantic and back in that box, inside a suitcase, and made it in fine shape.  (That model has more miles on it under the American flag than the real ship did.)

One day about three years later, as I was sliding the model into the box again after a work session, I thought to myself that the box was looking a little ratty.  Sure enough, that very night, in a rainstorm in Newport News, Virginia, I stopped at a traffic light and got rear-ended by a Toyota, which punched out the other tail light.  So (courtesy of the driver of the other car - which was totalled) I got a nice, new box.  The model lived in it till I installed the bowsprit, at which time I had to make a new box for it.

I can't think of a practical way to protect a sailing ship model while it's actually being worked on.  If the model is really large, and if you have a big enough shop, it might be worth considering setting it on a purpose-built table in the middle of the room and walking around it.  Most of us don't have room to do that.  If the model has to be turned around, unfortunately, there's always going to be a possibility of bumping it into something. 

jtilley wrote:

I admire ChuckO's courage.  I wouldn't want a glass box sitting in my workshop while I was working on something.  Glass sheets, in my vicinity at any rate, have a mystical, almost magnetic attraction; they attract hard objects.  I suspect I wouldn't be able to get through the building of a model without busting the glass at least once.

   I don't swing things large enough to smash models and glass boxes in my model building area, but that's just me I guess.

One advantage of building mainly in 1/700 scale, I suppose - I use a shoebox! Most of my builds are waterline anyway, so I use some doubled up blue painter's tape to fasten the model to a piece of cardboard that has at least 1-inch clearance all the way around the model. Every night, it goes back into the box.

And my cat is still mad at me for getting into that habit.

I guess part of my problem is that my workshop has to do double-duty.  In addition to building models in it, I have to do various home-related stuff.  The next project, for instance, is to build a set of shelves to go in a closet.  That will involve swinging some rather large pieces of wood around the place - and swinging a hammer as well.  The less glass there is in such an environment, the better.  (I haven't busted a window yet - but give me time.) 

I also have the opposite problem from mfsob.  My ongoing major project is an American clipper ship with a hull length of almost three feet.  Turning that thing around 180 degrees is a bit of a project under the best of circumstances; if there were a glass box in the room with it - well, it would just be a matter of time.

I can relate to mfsob's cat problem.  My shop is a detached, prefab building in the back yard(bless my dear wife for insisting that I buy it).  One of our three cats, the utterly senile Willie II (who was no intellectual giant in his younger years), is in the habit of sitting on the steps of the shop and yowling, at neighbor-waking volume, to be let in.  If I relent and let him in, he waits till I've gotten settled at the workbench and then starts yowling to get out.

Other cat-owning hobbyists, if they haven't already heard about it, might benefit from the following instructions on

How to Wash a Cat.

Step 1.  Pour approximately 8 oz. of shampoo into toilet.

Step 2.  Insert cat.  Sit on lid.

Step 3.  Flush vigorously 8-12 times, allowing approximately 30 seconds between flushes.

Step 4.  RUN.

I am building the Heller Victory, a dust magnet supreme what with multiple deck furniture and hammock nettings.

My work space is somewhat less than that enjoyed by Shipwreck and  continual vigilance is required certainly once the bowsprit is installed to avoid knocking it (in my case) against the computer monitor whilst turning the model this way and that, it is so easy to get absorbed in the area being worked upon.

I use thin acetate sheeting cut to specific shapes to overlap sections of the decking so that only the work in hand areas are exposed.

Once the hull is all but complete I contain the model in a temporary acrylic case whilst the masts and yards are prepared off model. For the Heller Victory this is still 33" long by 11" high by 8" wide, but nothing of the order of size required for the fully rigged beast.

Once the masts are installed and the rigging begins a fully enclosed case is the only sure way of keeping dust out, but perhaps not that practical for the purposes of moving the model in and out for working.

As a working compromise  I have used  a lightweight wooden frame covered with polythene sheeting which can be rolled up at the front for ease of access - not very pretty but fairly effective at keeping the dust out.

Perversely I am not really a fan of large scale sailing ship models in cases, particularly in a domestic setting, but I don't like to get them dusty before I'm finished with them!

Shipwreck and others,

Here is what I have done for a Cutty Sark. I build a frame of 1/2" x 1/2 Balsa 18" wide, 39" long, and 28" high to act as a frame for the model and use light weight plastic painter sheetings.  This is light so you won't get any bending or bowing of the balsa framework and it is easy to remove. Cost are about 7-10 bucks, everything at Wal-Mart.

The balsa come is either 24" or 36" long, so you need to splice some together.

Jake Groby

I save the plastic bags my dry cleaning comes in each week.  They cost nothing, are very light and you can custom size/shape them with a little scotch tape or masking tape.  They're good for small drop cloths too when you are painting.

Also, I have 4 cats and they don't like the smell of the plastic so they stay away from the models.

jtilley wrote:

to be let in.  If I relent and let him in, he waits till I've gotten settled at the workbench and then starts yowling to get out.

Well, since the loaf is already sliced (hobby space used for housewrightry); you clearly neet a cat door in the human door.  (Get the kind with a slide-over cover or lock--best to not go into how I know this . . . )  May not stop the cat from yowling (some seem to enjoy cleaning the bronchia that way)--but at least there's no having to get up and go to the door (might need an old, wore-out softball or two to wing at the petflap <g>).

Can be quite reassuring to have one's housepredators wander in, check on the vearious scent markers, and then depart sure and certain that the universe is running quite correctly within its feline spheres.  Unless we have not learned that you can get a huge amount of attention by "helping" with all those bits of stick and string . . .

(This can be nipped in the bud, a bit--use some double stick to layout self-adhesive contact paper face-down on the bench, this has an unpleasant feel to furry toes, and discourages--mostly--walking adventures.) 

Well, I certainly wouldn't want a cat door leading into the detached workshop.  The thought of any of those creatures (we have three) getting in there unsupervised is hard to tolerate.

We used to have a cat door that led into the house.  We never had a possum or raccoon come through it (though a coon took up residence in the attic once; the city's Animal Control office loaned me a humane trap for him - which worked), but we did have a considerable problem when our cats brought their various conquests in.  Willie once brought my stepdaughter a dead squirrel as a Christmas present.  (He laid it proudly on her bed, so it would be the first thing she saw when she woke up.  That was a memorable Christmas.)  We got more frogs and moles in the house than I can remember.  (The frogs were usually alive and healthy; the moles weren't.)  And one morning I came downstairs to find a full-grown red-shafted flicker (i.e, medium-sized woodpecker) perched on the mantel in the den.  (He was in fine shape, but extremely perturbed about the experience of being dragged in through the cat door; it took me quite a while to shoo him out the window.)  My wife and I eventually agreed that the cat door had to go, and I sealed it shut.

jtilley wrote:

The thought of any of those creatures (we have three) getting in there unsupervised is hard to tolerate.

Which is precisely why it has to be a "controlable "flap."  That way, you go in, and can "unlock" the flap, and thus not have to do the "let me in/let me out" dance. While also not wondering what else might have wandered in.