Work stations done!

Ok- getting close to the finish line here on the Build-A-HQ project.  I have finished the work stations in the Tactical Operations Center, which is three computer screens at four locations, each screen made up of three rather tiny pieces of styrene and cut just so to match each other, and to fit little computer screen decals.  Each station also has a little white keyboard with keyboard decal on top as well.  Doing the computer screen step was actually one of the most tedious steps of the entire project so far, and for what felt like the least amount of work, but once everything was glued in, none of that mattered.  Everything looked absolutely amazing. Check it out for yourselves.  

I took these pictures as soon as I was done cementing the screens and keyboards in place.  If you think they look good like this, you should see what they look like with actual little action figures at each station.  They look *sweet*.  Since the last set of pictures I posted on the project, I have redone the stickers for the map display on the back wall of the TOC, the Exit sign above the lobby door, the fire alarm by the reception desk, the "No unauthorized personal beyond this point" sign at the reception desk, and the keypads by the lobby door and in the TOC itself.  The last set of stickers had been too small; when I figured out how to print everything out at the correct size (see the "sticker update" post about this) I decided to pull the old ones and redo it them.  The correct sized stickers look much, much better than the small ones. 

There are a few things I still plan on doing.  I have at least two more monitors I am going to post on the common wall between the lobby and the TOC, on the TOC side of things that will have visual data for the TOC.  Those are not up yet.  And in the time between when I took these pictures and wrote this post, I have done some touch up work with a paintbrush and some paint to fix some cement stains on various surfaces of the model.  The stains my have been too small to see in these pictures, but I'd really like to get everything looking good before I finish this bad boy and put him up on the shelf full of figures.  I didn't want to have any steps left undone that I will spend the next few years noticing and thinking 'Jeez that looks like crap' so I went ahead to did the touch up work.  As I sit here typing, the paint is drying and leaving very little indication that it was ever there, so that's cool. I was worried it would really stand out from the white and black styrene, but nope- its all good. 

What else is there to say?  I'm not sure how much longer it is going to take to finish this bad boy.  Maybe another hour (knock on wood) at most. I've painted up a white styrene dowel in grey to match the walls of the TOC to look like conduit that will run between the table and the two new monitors that will go in there. I haven't cut the styrene for the monitors, but I have plenty of scrap that will be the correct size and have the decals that will be the images themselves all ready to go.

My last issue is figuring out which figures are going to staff the TOC. At the moment, I am thinking Mainframe, Helix, Cover Girl, and Pit Commando.  These figures seem to be the most appropriate dressed (save Helix) for TOC work.  What I would really like to have in there would be the figures from the Toys R Us Troop Builder 5 pack, which included Dial Tone, Footloose, Law and Order (without the dog), Zartan, and Repeater. These figures are all in fatigues and would look great in the TOC, but I can't find it for sale anywhere at the moment except on eBay, and the five pack is going for about $45-$50 including S&H there, and I'm going to have to save my pennies for a bit to pick that up.

I need to run pretty quick, so I'll end this post about here. Thanks for keeping up with this project.  It has been so much fun to work on.  I've done my share of screw ups, but I've learned from each mistake and this thing really looks cool.  No mistake thus far has been a project killer; when I cut a section of styrene too small, I can recut it.  When I cut it too big I can sand it down.  When paint gets where I don't want it, I repaint.  This is very forgiving.  Its also a fun in that each step makes the display much cooler, so I never feel like my time or energy was wasted.  I hope you like the pictures.  I think there is a good chance the final product pictures will be up soon.

Until next time,

David D.

Chairs made and stickers up!

Peg warmer Duke is now warming the security
desk chair in my soon to be completed GI Joe
Lobby and Tactical Operations Center model.

Well, its been a busy past few days in Lake Woebegone.  Got the chairs made and am starting to work on the computers.  I got some sticker project paper from Office Max nearby, both the clear sticker paper and the white stuff for the decals, and have started putting it all together.  So far, so good.  Its a slow slog, especially with the computers.  Each computer screen is three pieces, and there are going to be a total of 12 computers and four keyboards.  It'll take some time to get all that cut and ready, but its looking good in the mean time.

The chairs were super easy.  I was not sure if I'd be able to bend the styrene well, but all it took was a little exposure to a small flame, as discussed in the project instructions. I used a candle lighter we had in our junk drawer, and I did it outside and with a mask on, because I figure styrene fumes are probably not the best for my health.  Turns out that a few  seconds of flame exposure makes styrene super flexible.  Just to be safe, I marked the parts of the plastic where I wanted things to bend, and put the flame on each face in the zone where I wanted it to bend- front, back, and both sides.  I was not sure if the heat would be conducted through the plastic, and I'd rather not snap good material.  I probably held the plastic just above the tip of the flame for about seven or eight seconds per side for a single round- I didn't need to heat sides again after I cooked them the first time.  It worked so well on the back of the first chair that I kept doing it for the remaining four, and had no problems with any of them.

Chair in place, stickers coming along, and all I really have
left are the computer screens.  I hope to have this thing done
in the next few days.

I printed the decals from page three of the decals website at Vexar Designs (again, thanks very much Vexar).  They printed out a little small. It seems to me that they should be between 50%-100% bigger to be the same size as they look at on the Vexar Designs site pictures, but I'll manage.  If I do this again, I'd try using an image editing program to increase the size of the stickers by 50% and see how that works, but the moment is passed.  Nothing looks really bad, and actually, the stickers make things look much, much cooler, as they always do when it comes to GI Joe related stuff.

I also noticed (learning tip!) that any stickers that are going to end up on black styrene really need to be printed on white paper, because if it is on clear, it vanishes when it is put over the black background.  Made that mistake with the world map on the back war of the Tac Ops center, but it isn't too bad.  There are plenty of decals that will be stuck on white styrene that clear stickers will find a home someplace.

Other big learning point: I was hoping this item would be strong enough to actually handle play like a playset would.  Well, not so much.  The desks themselves are very fragile.  Not the entire structures, but if you put more than a little pressure on the desk surfaces, they pop right off whatever they are glued to.  This styrene set is going to be more of a diorama than a playset, but that's cool. It looks pretty sweet.

I need to get back to cutting black styrene for the computer screens, so I'll end this update here.

Until next time,

David D.

Desks up and How to Cut Styrene.

So far, so good.  Glad the painting stage is over.

Well, the painting adventure is over.  Cotton balls + mineral spirits got rid of the non plastic paint with no problems at all.  The next coat of paint went on and everything looks great.  ::phew:: that's nice.  I was worried the surfaces were going to look like crap forever.  One problem solved. So that was cool.  After the paint situation was resolved, I went on to add the desks, both in the tac ops center in the back and in the lobby.  The desks themselves are made from black styrene, the same stuff used to make everything else. 

Except this stuff is black, not white. 

I have some little piece work left to do: print out the decals from the website on some sticker project paper, and making the chairs and computers.  That will involve a great deal of cutting styrene sheets but I'm not too worried.  During this project, I have become a master at cutting styrene sheets.  I have wanted to do a 'how to cut styrene for beginners' tutorial for a while, and I may as well do one now since I have some time and I'm on the subject.  Here we go.

How to Cut Styrene

You will need: 

1. A  sheet of styrene

2. A pencil

3. A ruler/Straight edge

4. An Xacto knife/Razor/cutting blade of some sort.

5. Sandpaper (if you screw up.)

Recommended:

6. A desk/work bench makes things much easier.

1. Use a ruler to measure out the length of styrene you want on one side of the styrene sheet.  Mark point for length you using a pencil with a little dash mark on the styrene. (this works on white and black styrene.)  So if you have an 21x8 sheet of styrene and want a 6x8 panel, go 6 inches up from one end on the 21 inch side and mark a dash at 6 inches.

2. go to the other side of the sheet, and do the same thing.  So now you should have two dashes, both 6 inches away from the end.

3. Now flip the styrene over so the flat surface that was on top is now on bottom.  Do steps 1 and 2 again on the other side. 

4. Repeat steps 1 and 2 again to make sure you measured correctly from the ends (measure twice, cut once isn't a joke, and it will save you time if you screw up.) 

5. After you confirm (or remark) your dash marks with a pencil, use a straight edge, such as your ruler, to draw a line between the two dash marks.

6. Repeat step 3, which is to say, flip the styrene sheet over, double check your measurements.

7. Now repeat step 5 on the other side of the styrene sheet.  Use your straight edge to draw a line with your pencil to connect the two dash marks.

8. Now take out your knife.  You can use an Xacto knife, a razor, whatever.  I also use the straight edge, and score the styrene along the pencil line you just drew.  On one side of the styrene.  You can use the straight edge to guide your knife, making sure the score is straight.  Repeat this at least three times in one direction.

9. Important Note: you do not need to cut all the way through the styrene.  You just need to score it.  I spent a LONG time on the first few cuts of this project because I carved all the way through the styrene with my xacto knife.  I don't recommend it.  Learn from my mistakes!

10.  Now, score the line in the opposite direction at least 3 times.  If you were going right to left the first time (in step 8), now score the styrene from left to right.

11. Flip over the styrene.  There should be an unscored surface with a pencil mark facing up, and the scored surface should be facing down.  Repeat steps 8-10 on the other side.

12. Now you are done with your knife.  To be safe, first put the xacto cover back on your xacto knife or adjust your razor so it slides back into the tool's handle.  Stage 13 is going to be a little violent, and you do not want sharp objects around where sudden motions take place.

13. For best results, place the styrene on a flat surface, such as a desk or work bench, with the scored line right at the edge of the table or desk and the part you want to break off hanging over the table or desk.  Apply steady pressure to the styrene, with one hand on the part you cut to use in your project and one hand holding the part you want to have left over.  You do not have to do this quickly.  The first few times you try this you may not feel exactly how much pressure you need to place on the styrene to get it to break.  The styrene will bend.  Do not worry, it will snap back straight again when the piece breaks off.

14.  Very suddenly, the styrene will snap apart.  If you scored the styrene well, the line will be a very nice flat line.  If it was less well done, you may need to do some minor sanding to make the break line clean.

The key to this entire process is scoring the styrene well.  If you do good straight cuts, the break lines will be pristine.  Yes, you can just do one side of the styrene, but when I have tried going fast, in my experience it does not goes nearly as well.  Score both sides of the sheet.  The lines are much finer and need zero sanding to get what you want. 

Congrats!  You have cut your styrene!

I'll update this post soon with pictures for the styrene cutting steps.  Until then, enjoy the words.

That's all I have for now.  Until next time.

David D.

additional pics

Detail of the door to the lobby section of the HQ, with some
of the wall sections on the left side of the frame.  Not too
shabby, and very easy to do.  If I can do this, *anyone* can
do this.

For some reason, I didn't post some pics in previous posts on the Build-A-HQ project, but they are pretty good in progress images.  Here is one I thought I would include in the blog I so you can see what the parts looked like during construction.  If you have not worked with styrene before, you would be amazed at how easy it is to work with this stuff.   I still need to do my 'how to cut styrene' post, and I will.  In summary: its easy, and the stuff looks good (as you can see from the pictures) with very little effort.

After all of the frustration I had trying to paint action figures (see the Alex Armstrong story, and there are even more projects I have worked on that were so bad I didn't even make blog entries about them.  That should tell you something.) It was *great* to work on a project that is more or less working out for me.  If you are thinking of trying to put together a little dio for your action figures, I recommend this the Vexar Designs Build-A-HQ project.  Try it out.  Its really easy and it looks great.  You'll be happy with the results.

Until next time,

David D. 

Painting the HQ, or, Another Fine Mess I've Gotten Myself Into

Ok then.  The styrene is all cemented together and looking good.  All I need to do now is paint the thing.  I did exactly what the instructions said: wash everything down first to get rid of dirt or oil or whatever, let dry, and go nuts.

I went nuts, all right.

After spending a bit of time at the local hardware store, I picked Krylon Fusion for Plastic Satin River Rock spray paint.  I wanted to go with a kind of light gray look, because the original GI Joe Headquarters was grey.  Grey seems more like a military base color than BLINDING WHITE STYRENE I had going on here.  So I started painting with the River Rock.

And it looked pink.  Even after 3 good coats applied well after the the previous coat had dried, the BLINDING WHITE STYRENE under the River Rock kept the paint from looking dark at all.  At the end, it was looking kind of like a weak cream color.  Not at all the kind of bad ass look I wanted for my headquarters.  I wanted to find a good grey.  And what luck!  The store had this paint called Grey Metal for plastic.  The cap looked just right.  So I grabbed that and came home.

What we have here is River Rock in front, and Grey Metal in
back.  If the River Rock looked as nice as thisin real life, I probably
would have kept it.  But it was severalshades lighter than it shows up
on camera, and it didn't work at all.  Obviously, Grey Metal wasn't
what I was looking for either.

 Except, I was thinking kind of a gun metal color, and the paint was thinking metal metal color.  The stuff was shiny and not at all what I was looking for.  Maybe in a computer room or if I ever make a robot costume out of cardboard or something, but not want I wanted in my model.  It looked horrible.

I still have that Krylon Fusion for Plastic Grey primer that I have used for a few of my other painting projects.  Sure, it would leave that chalky consistency on top, but the color is exactly what I wanted and I didn't see any good grey paint at the hardware store.  So I went with that for the back, in what the directions call the tac ops center itself.  And it looked great.  Ok.  One room down, one to go.

And here is where the wheels kind of came off the wagon.

See, I couldn't find any white Krylon for plastic at the store, so I just grabbed some white spray paint for wood or metal.  Hey!  It couldn't be *that* bad, right?  After all, the plastic already had a good coat of paint on it.  What could go wrong?

This is why you should never use non plastic spray paint
on plastic surfaces.  Let this be a lesson to all.

The metal/wood white paint looked like shit almost instantly.  As I did my quick spray motions, I watched the stuff curl up into horrible looking spider webs of cracks and fissures.  To make matters worse, I sprayed a few more times over the cracks in the doomed hope that it would fix itself.  No such luck.  I did some looking on the internet, and yeah, non plastic paint should never be used on plastic.  It ends up looking like crap said pretty much every site on the internet.

If only I had checked it out before I started spraying.

So now I had options.  I could: a) accept the fact that the lobby looked like crap, decide this was my first project and give myself a pass.  b) try to fix it, knowing I had no idea of how to fix it.

Because I am optimistic and dumb, I went with option b.

At first I tried sanding the paint off.  Didn't work.  Then I went to the internet and did a google search on "how to I get spray paint off of plastic?"  It turns out there is a fantastic product in England that comes in a spray bottle that can be used to do this, but nope, that stuff isn't for sale in the US.  Which is probably good, because the fumes in my workshop at this point, between the paint and the plastic bonding compound, are pretty intense.

Out out, damned paint!  ...or maybe that should be
off off, damned paint.  eh, whatever.

Some websites recommended trying rubbing alcohol.  I have some rubbing alcohol on one side of my workshop that I use to clean out the contacts of my old NES game cartridges.  I grabbed the Q-tips I use for NES game repair, and started rubbing the rubbing alcohol on the paint with the Q-tips.  I started working on just the desk itself, as I figured that if it damaged the desk, at least I was not screwing up the entire room.  I didn't screw up the desk.

Didn't make much progress getting rid of the paint through, either.

My wife suggested I try using her nail polish remover.  Hmm.  I could give that a shot.  I put some on a rag and rubbed it into the paint.  Again, I tried it on the desk, but on the other side this time.  The nail polish remover worked slightly better than the rubbing alcohol, but not by much.  Then I thought of the mineral spirits.

"Don't use turpentine!" called our forum upon forum of internet discussion boards dealing with the topic of how to get spray paint off of plastic.  I can warp the plastic!

But Curious David was Curious.  And he was learning how not to do things, so he figured, why not try that?  He put some mineral spirits from his work bench on a rag...

...and the paint came off like MOTHERFUCKING MAGIC.

AND THE PLASTIC DIDN'T WARP.

(cue Indiana Jones music) 

So after getting the paint off, he washed all the pieces in the sink and put them on the table to dry over night.  Tomorrow, hopefully they would not be warped and he would be able to spray paint the lobby room with white plastic paint.

Until next time.

Please don't warp over night, styrene.

David D.

State of the HQ

Well, I got a lot of work done on the HQ today.  And I've learned a lot about working with styrene.  The styrene lessons learned discussion will go in a future post, but I wanted to do a quick update on how things look with the model itself.

It took a while to get this far, but was surprisingly easy to build.

As you can see, I pretty much have all the white styrene parts together.  I'm planning on spray painting what I have here with Krylon Satin River Rock color paint, and then putting in the desk and counter tops, which will be made out of black styrene. 

If you haven't had a chance to go look at the plans over at Vexar Designs, what you are looking at are two rooms.  The first is an entrance which will have a desk facing a front door.  The next room will have four chairs and four computers and a tv monitor on the back wall. I may also throw some TV monitors in the common wall facing the computer center- it will depend on how things look at that point.  Right now, the design in 22 inches long by 8 inches wide.  I do plan on building additional spaces after this project is done.  Hallways will go immediately left and right of this section, and a mission briefing room/dojo is planned for one side, and a conference room and General's office is planned for the other side.

Welcome to the HQ.  Made by David
Construction, not in any way affiliated
with Halliburton.

So far, this has been a fantastic project.  It takes patience, but it has not been difficult.  The instructions at Vexar are fantastic.  I figure this section will be able to display 4-8 Joes easily and should look pretty cool when complete.  Like I said before, I do plan on doing a "how to work with styrene" post based on everything I picked up building the HQ thus far. I don't want to get into that topic too much here, but I will say that now that I've spent a few hours scoring, shaping, and adhering the stuff, its easy to use, and much easier to use than when I first started working with it.  When you prepare cuts correctly, it splits into very clean sections on very fine lines.  Pencil shows up well on it, so its easy to mark things down.  Its great for building models and for projects like this, and the stuff a far stronger than foam board.

On the other hand, it does look like the stuff is really bad to breath in, so I've been wearing a face mask that I got from the grocery store.  Its the kind of mask that you see people wearing in epidemic movies.  I'm using it to cut down on the possibility of breathing the dust in when I sand the styrene down. I have a ventilation fan going, and I have been washing my hands every time I get up to do something else after I am done working on my project.  And if the styrene dust is bad, I think the fumes from the "plastruct bondene", the cement used to bond it together, is probably horrible.  It sticks like death and you can taste it even through the mask.  I don't want to know what kind of crap it does to the human body.  It does say that "this product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer", on the back of the bottle, so that is lovely.  I also read that this stuff can be absorbed through your skin, so I've been really careful about not dumping this junk on me.  But it does get the styrene to stick together is seconds, and cures in 30 minutes, so hey, it could kill me, but it makes the model building go quickly.

Until next time.

David D.

Time to Build-A-Headquarters

So the way I see it, the centerpiece of an action figure collection is the playset.  When I was a kid, I had all of my He-Man figures arranged around Castle Greyskull, and Skeletor and his minions arranged around Snake Mountain.  But now I've got this collection of Joes and vehicles, but no playset for them.  I do have a Terrordrome (only missing the gun tips for the lower guns- almost complete!) but the Joes still need a place to call home.  I've been looking around for projects in my ability level, and I found

Vexar Design's Build-A-HQ Tactical Operations Center.

This is what I am going for.  Image Credit: Vexar Design

Holy Effing sweet. Its a playset that looks cool as hell that someone with some inexpensive tools, money for supplies and patience can build themselves.  That's two birds with one stone, the way I see it. I decided to take this project up a few days ago, and so far so good.  I love a lot of things about this project.  Here is a list of them.

1. Its modular, so I can add rooms as I see fit.
2. I get to put it together myself!

When I am done with the first section, I plan on
branching out like Canesfan0245 did.  
Work and Image Credit: Canesfan0245 & JoeCustoms

3. I get to work with new materials and build some skills there.
4. Vexar's website has the designs to build the thing (more or less) step by step.
4. Vexar's design is cool, and they have images on the website that can be used for decals right there.
5. It's a freaking action figure playset that doesn't suck!

Canesfan0245 over at JoeCustoms.com worked from the Vexar design and made several other rooms based on it, and the work looks tight.  This little project looked like the perfect next activity to launch into.  So far I am a few hours in (yes, I did say a few hours.  Cutting the styrene takes a long time at the moment.) but I am making progress.  I picked up all the parts Vexar lists on the website to purchase.  Thankfully, my local hobby shop carries the Evergreen Scale Model brand styrene that Vexar recommends AND Vexar identified by item number exactly what stuff to buy.  This turned what could have been an hour shopping trip into a 10 minute shopping trip, because there are lots and lots and lots of types of styrene made by Evergreen in different dimensions, and many of them are very close in size.

My poor xacto knife!  Thank goodness for my sharpener
(the grey and orange item top right corner).  My sharpener
is the unsung hero of this project so far.

So far I have the four six inch columns cut out, the four five mm corner brackets cut out, and the front and back walls cut out. It took me about 30 minutes cut the five mm corner brackets with my xacto knife, and involves plenty of resharpening during that time.  If anyone has any better ideas about how to cut those bad boys out, please let me know.  I have a saw, but I don't know if a saw is the right tool to use on the styrene square tubing.  I also have the door cut out, and I attached the back wall to the floor. 

I purchased two cans of Krylon Satin River Rock color Fusion For Plastic brand spray paint that I will use to give the white sections a more grey/tan color, because I'm not a huge fan of the blinding white of the naked styrene.  I hope this goes well.  I should probably get a section of styrene and do a trial spray paint run first to make sure the paint adheres to the plastic before I go nuts spraying the entire model itself...  note to self: yeah. Do the practice piece first.  But hopefully that will work.

I can follow directions!  They say line the floor up to a wall
to make sure the back wall section glues at a 90 degree
angle.  So put it up against my wall I did. 

If you look at the instructions on the Vexar Design's website, you will see that I am in the middle of step 7.  I do plan on doing the optional step 8 to create the light switch and conduit because it does not look like it will take much more work and because the results look really nice, and give the project a much more real life, lived in look.  I am really getting ahead of myself here, but the next section that I would like to do will be a mission briefing room/dojo/if there is room/work out room.  If there isn't room for a third room, I will combine the dojo and the workout room into one space.  I plan on having this section just to the right of the section I am working on, running parallel to the tac ops panel.  The mission briefing room will be in front and the dojo will be behind it, and an hallway will run along both rooms running lengthwise along the module.  So that's where I am thus far.  More as this thing continues.

Until next time,

David D.