Hi All, I have recieved my first Aber sets for the Tamiya Famo and trailer. I have used GMM sets on 350th scale ships for many years. However after seeing these Aber sets I think I’m ready to give up.
Honestly some of the parts I want to use are so minute…How can they be worked with?.. even after 15 or so years of p/e experience.
I’m not going to use all the parts however I want to build the under-carraige hydraulic lines
The copper and vinyl are to go into Aber pieces that have to be rolled into a recieving part.
Its so small how can it even be ca’d, or held with a tweezer
Any comments or help here are very much appreciated.
Hey Wil, first of all, breeeeeathe! OK–Aber is well-known for being overly-ambitious with their details and PE sets. There are parts that nobody–and I mean NOBODY (but the most supernaturally-talented)–would even dream of using! You’re doing exactly the right thing–pick and choose what you’re going to use, and what to leave on the trees.
I’ve used Aber sets before, and forget about rolling anything, unless you’ve got a degree from Hogwart’s Academy! “Replace” these parts with either the kit parts or scratchbuilt plastic rod.
One of the things you might want to get that I find VERY helpful with the smallest parts is an “Optivisor”–a magnifying headpiece that you can wear to see at a good deal of magnification. Compine this with a set of 3X regular reading glasses, and you can see just about anything and paint any detail, no matter how small, to boot!
Use stretched sprue pieces to apply glue to the smallest pieces. Good luck!
That is why when we see a build where a guy has used some of the minutia successfully, we ooh and ahh like chimps at the San Diego zoo on banana day. Seriously, Doog is right, some of the set is ridiculous and…in some cases, less accurate than the molded part(s). I use what I can. Don’t forget to heat the parts over a candle frame before trying to bend them. Inuring the brass will soften it up and really help.
Tamiya makes a dandy set of hand held bending pliers that I find indespensible.