Re: Scratch building help

>I'm trying to build a UNSC cargo ship.  It's not really scratch
>because I have appropriated parts from one of my UNSC DNs.
>
>An animated raytrace is at:
>
>http://jumpspace.net/raytrace/DawnTrader.gif

that's one helluva animated gif....

>pong balls.  The girder structure in the center is the problem.
>I may try to sculpt something and then resin cast it, but there
>may be a better way, does anyone have any suggestions.

You'll drive yourself mad trying to resin cast that, unless you have
only
surface detail to the girder structure and then make the rest of it
solid.

Someone else mentioned rail-road supplies.  I've managed to dig up
several
types of girder in the past at RR stores.  One was the entire girder
structure for a metal bridge, in HO scale.  Very detailed, quite small
truss work.  Off hand, I don't remember the name of the supplier (and
it's
packed away someplace).  But, that kind of thing *is* available, if you
look.

Also, there are a couple of companies that supply plastic girders,
pipes,
tubes, strips, etc. separate for scratch-building scenery projects,
hobby
stuff, and architectural modeling.  "Plastruct" (City of Industry, CA
91748
- sorry, no more info) is one.	"Evergreen Scale Models" (Kirkland, WA
98034) is another.

Check with a train stuff supplier, or look up "Model Supplies -
Architectural Modeling" (or something like that) in your Yellow Pages...
There's a *lot* of neat stuff available for architectural model making!

********************************************

Adrian Johnson
adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca