HDPE as a raw material.

If you're into crafts you may need a new material to work with. You can use High Density Polyethylene, aka HDPE, or recycling plastic #2. Shred it, melt it, compress it, and use the cooled block as a source of stuff to carve, cut, turn on a lathe, and so on. I found this video on Boing Boing. Enjoy! Best aspect: you can get neat multicolour marble effects.

D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling (1978, 2nd edition)

     D. A. Boreham. Narrow Gauge Railway Modelling (1978, 2nd edition) Boreham has a sly sense of humour, and a nice comfortable direct style of writing. He addresses himself to people who are ingenious and skilled enough to be able to use both scrounged and professional materials and tools to make their models. He does say that there’s no point in making stuff, especially small parts, that are commercially available, but even 1978 narrow gauge modelling still required a lot of scratchbuilding. Boreham describes a number of tricks that are worth considering, such as how to make a doubly curved roof over a wooden form using tissue paper and glue. A charming book, which I’ve read before. I enjoyed rereading it. **1/2 (2006)

Anonymous. Locomotive Plan Package Book 2 (1944)

     Anonymous. Locomotive Plan Package Book 2 (1944) Published by The Model Craftsman, one of several predecessors of Railroad Model Craftsman, this book reprints plans and articles from that magazine, along with what are (somewhat ambitiously) called instructions for building the locomotives depicted. I suspect Bill Schopp as the author of most of the articles, which display his characteristic vagueness and assumption of high skill levels in his readers, as well as his colloquial style.
      The plans are a mix of general arrangement drawings “simplified for the modeller”, shop cards with limited information, and elaborate drawings reproduced from the Locomotive Cyclopedia (Simmons Boardman.) Thus, they mostly provide too little information, and sometimes too much. The instructions are laughably incomplete, even I think for the kind of craftsman for which they were intended. Eg, “The drivers may be made up on the lathe, but some fellows may wish to buy castings”. The castings would have to be trued up on the lathe, too. The suggested materials range from wood to tinplate cut from cans, which reflects the dearth of modelling supplies during wartime. It’s left up to the modeller to glean what he can from the drawings and develop patterns for cutting parts. There is a brief description of how to make a pattern for casting drivers from Linotype metal, and how to progressively modify it for larger counterweights.
     Reproduction of the halftones is abysmal, even for the times. Model Craftsman used photo offset to copy the original pages. The line drawings also suffer from this process, with small details sometimes blurring together into almost indecipherable blobs of ink. The scale is usually 1/8" to the foot, which is too small to resolve smaller parts precisely enough for accurate modelling. The reader is often referred to photographs that weren’t reproduced, since they would not have fit into the layout of the book.
     The book does have historical interest, as an example of how awful the so-called good old days really were. Building models was not for the fainthearted. Modellers of all kinds had to contend with a lack of parts and materials that we just don’t tolerate anymore. Kits were few and far between, and consisted mostly of rough castings and chunks of unfinished materials. Modellers had to have a skill set that for the most part could only be acquired in an apprenticeship for tool and die maker or machinist. It’s amazing what these craftsmen accomplished. I have a series on building a “kitchen table locomotive,” which gives the kind of detailed help that the average person with average skills needs, but this series of articles wasn’t published until the mid-60s, by which time decent quality kits were available.
     The time it took to build the models almost completely from scratch of course reduced or eliminated the time available for building a layout. This suggests the main reasons for founding the clubs: pooling what little time they had enabled te modellers to build a layout they could share, as well as providing larger pikes than they could hope to build in their small and cramped homes. * (2006)

G. H. Deason. Simple Cardboard Models (1969)

     G. H. Deason. Simple Cardboard Models (1969) The title is an optimistic misnomer. Deason clearly has lots of experience building models in card and paper (with metal and wood bits added as needed), and his notion of what’s simple is not  what a beginner might think. He describes the construction of rather large traction engines and boats, as well as motor cars and trains. Simple these models are not: they are all motorised, working machines. Deason uses shellac and glue, as well as layering, to produce what are in effect high strength composite materials. Like Taylor (see How to Build 20 Railroad Models), he assumes rather more craft skills than most people possess, but I suppose that most buyers of his book would already have tried one of the “easy to build” cut-and-assemble card kits.
     In any case, the book shows what can be done when one is obsessed with building models on the cheap, and counts the cost of time as zero or even positive: after all, model building is a pleasant way to while away the hours between work and necessary business. Like Taylor, Deason writes in a plain, colloquial style. He  should explain his technical terms more than he does. This book, too, has merely adequate half tones, and pretty good drawings. From a few throw- away comments, it appears that Deason was one of the people behind the Micro-Models line of kits printed on post-card sized cards. I have one of those, and the smaller bits would take a magnifying glass to see clearly enough to make accurate cuts. **½ (2006)

Frank Taylor. How to Build 20 Railroad Models (1941/53)

     Frank Taylor. How to Build 20 Railroad Models (1941/53) Ah yes, the Good Old Days of building models, the ones that recent whinges about the dumbing down of Model Railroader refer to.
     Frank Taylor describes the making of everything from boxcars to cranes. He prefers brass and tin sheet (ie, tinned iron). He uses nails as well as glue to hold the parts of the models together. Most of his work is done in O scale, which at the time of writing was still number 1, and OO (1:76 in 19mm gauge) was still a contender. He doesn’t have modern glues or plastics available. Detail parts are few, and scale lumber is not even a distant dream, except for O scale, for which a “fellow with a circular saw” can cut exact scale sizes. He wrote at a time when the “local lumber yard” would cut wood to small sizes for you, when 1/16" 3-ply wood was widely available because of the strength of the model plane hobby, when “cut and shape the two pieces of the coupler pocket” was deemed sufficient help. Taylor does promote the building of culverts and other merely scenic items, which don’t after all contribute to the running of the trains. Around the same time as he wrote his construction articles, Frank Ellison was beginning his series on model railroads. His ideas and his Delta Lines changed the hobby forever.
     Taylor writes in a nice, clear, colloquial style, with occasional asides into the philosophy of building models based on the prototype, and with frequent mention of alternative materials and methods. The book is a pleasure to read, and many of Taylor’s tricks and techniques are still worth knowing. The plans and drawings are good, the photos merely adequate; the book was printed in 1953, when halftones tended to muddiness unless the original was brightly lit and contrasty. Despite the dated technology and assumption of rather more craft skills than most people posess, Taylor’s book is still worth reading, and it’s certainly inspiring. It's out of print, but if you find a copy, buy it. ***

Marion Elliot. Paper Making (1994)

     Marion Elliot. Paper Making (1994) A brief history of paper making, emphasising the handicraft aspects of the technology, introduces this well put together and instructive book. Artistically not very inspired, but technically very sound. Makes you want to build a mould and deckle, and start making paper. *** (2004)