Using Specialized Model Railroad Equipment: Styrene Scribers
MRA EditorsDescription
There are many tools and types of model railroad equipment that are multifunctional and can be used to tackle a variety of jobs on your layouts. The hobby knife, for instance, is perfect for cutting materials, scraping and cleaning train cars and structures, and creating various landscapes. For model railroad equipment like the hobby knife, we are infinitely grateful.
And then there are those tools that serve only one purpose, but they serve that purpose well. A great example of a single-job tool that should be in the belt of all serious model railroaders is the styrene scriber. In this lesson, we teach you what makes the styrene scriber and important piece of model railroad equipment important for a realistic model railroad layout, and show you how to get the most out of your scriber.
Benefits of single-job model railroad equipment
Depending on the type of layout you’re designing, the styrene scriber could be one of the most underrated pieces of model railroad equipment you have in your toolbox. As mentioned above, it serves only one purpose: scribing styrene. That may not sound like much, but chances are, if you’re like us, you’ll be doing a lot of scribing during your model railroading career.
To help you maximize your styrene scriber, NMRA Master Modeler Gerry Leone demonstrates the proper technique for using this model railroad equipment to take away small amounts of material from styrene and acetate on your layout. You’ll also get to see how these pieces of model railroad equipment can be utilized to scribe expansion joints and cracks into sidewalks and roads.
Later Gerry talks about why, although hobby knives are great for cutting objects, they aren’t meant to pull material from objects. With styrene scribers, you won’t get that V-shaped ridge and the line you draw will be unnoticeable to the touch, which Gerry emphasizes by painting India ink over his cuts. Take advantage of this special piece of model railroad equipment during your next build, you’ll be glad you did!
A styrene scriber is a tool that was designed to do just one thing, and that obviously is to scribe styrene. You can't use it for much else because you don't wanna ruin the point on the tool. Now, why do you need to scribe styrene? And why can't you use a hobby knife blade? Well, you may need to scribe styrene, if you're putting expansion joints in a piece of styrene, to represent a sidewalk, you may wanna use it on a clear piece of acetate to simulate broken panes of window or scratches on windows. And the reason that you can't use or shouldn't use a hobby knife to do that is because when you think about it, a hobby knife doesn't really take any material away. All it does is spread the materials so that as you're dragging your hobby knife across the styrene, it is just merely parting the styrene and what you wind up with is a V groove that has lumps on either side of it so that when you run your finger across the styrene you can actually feel where you've scribed through. A styrene scriber on the other hand, which looks a lot like a dentist's pick, will actually remove material from the styrene. And I'll show you that right now. I've got a couple of lines already in here. But we'll, use a ruler and I'll show you and watch the tip of the of the styrene scriber because you'll see a little piece of styrene come spiraling off, and that's the material that the styrene scriber is removing. So, we'll just put this right here, and just scribe this little piece of styrene. Let's move it back here. And watch the tip of this as that little piece of styrene comes spiraling off. And that's because the styrene point is removing that material. And as you can see, here's the material that it has removed. And when you run your finger across that line, you can't feel it. And let me show you though, with some India ink, exactly what we've got on this piece of styrene. So you can see how nicely this does it. And again, I'm not staining the styrene for any particular reason than to show exactly where the lines that I scribed are, and you can see how nice those are. So again, if you wanna if you're making a sidewalk, and you wanna scribe some expansion joints, you can certainly scribe lines across it this way. If you wanna simulate cracks, you can kind of drag this along in a jagged, jagged sort of fashion. I'll put some more India ink on there so you can see what I just did. And create, cracked looking sidewalks cracked looking pieces of glass. Once again, a styrene scriber is a tool that was made for one purpose only, scribing styrene. But when you need it, and when you want a nice clean line and your styrene, styrene scriber is the way to go.
Who make a good styrene scriber?