Removing molded-on tackboards from MTL doors

[bbussey]

I came across Rich Yourstone's Pennsy X46A post from last year in the Weathering/Detailing/Scratchbuilding forum, and it piqued my interest about modeling the X46 as well as the X46A.  The pics are gone but the text is more than straightforward enough to duplicate the efforts.  Got the Deluxe bodies prepared easily enough.  I'm using the MTL 8-foot doors - the Youngstown for the X46 and the Superior for the X46A (I realize the Youngstown is slightly too narrow, but not enough to notice on the car and it is the best option available).  Since Pennsy mounted the tackboards on the upper center part of the door ... does anyone have a tried and true method of removing the large tackboard on the MTL door, or do I have to live with it on the lower right?

[Chris333]

Could you cut a couple doors apart and splice back together using sections without the boards?

[sirenwerks]

I keep hoping manufacturers will make such parts separate items, like Intermountain does (along with ladders and such).

Not to hijack this thread, but does anyone know of a mitre box that's good for doing such small work? The Xacto I have has a saw gap that's wide enough to drive a truck to and no matter how careful I am I always end up with a cut that's not quite 90 degrees,

[Packer]

A chisel blade might work, but it's getting the stuff out of the grooves that would be the hard part. a set of jewlers files might fix that.

I keep hoping manufacturers will make such parts separate items, like Intermountain does (along with ladders and such).

Not to hijack this thread, but does anyone know of a mitre box that's good for doing such small work? The Xacto I have has a saw gap that's wide enough to drive a truck to and no matter how careful I am I always end up with a cut that's not quite 90 degrees,

I'm kind of mixed about what is seperate parts. Lots of the newer models that do have those seperate parts and they do look nice but they break if looked at wrong. Then again older models have them molded on and they wont break, but they don't look as good.

My Xacto box does the same thing. I have a stanley one that is good but it's a tad on the large size since

[bbussey]

Could you cut a couple doors apart and splice back together using sections without the boards?

The part to be removed is so small, I don't know how it could be done cleanly without ruining a few along the way.

... Not to hijack this thread, but does anyone know of a mitre box that's good for doing such small work? The Xacto I have has a saw gap that's wide enough to drive a truck to and no matter how careful I am I always end up with a cut that's not quite 90 degrees

I was actually thinking of doing it with the milling machine.  I've already used it to remove the tabs from the bottom and get a straight edge for the mounting of the extended Evergreen sill.  But the pattern that would have to be cut is not a pair of simple horizontal lines ... plus, the cross section of the rib is triangular, so the cuts would have to occur on the flat recessed areas.

Yeah, I wish they would retool the doors without the tack boards also.

[sirenwerks]

Joe,

Are you listening!?

[Frank Amato]

Brian, I have tried using various Xacto blades, without satisfactory results.   

I would love to see a true aftermarket 7-foot door, both Youngstown and Superior.  Separate tack boards (a la Intermountain) would be a bonus.

  Frank

[Zox]

... does anyone have a tried and true method of removing the large tackboard on the MTL door, or do I have to live with it on the lower right?

Can you put up a picture of the door? I know I'm being horribly naive saying this, but I can't imagine a door being terribly hard to modify and/or replace...

[Sokramiketes]

Maybe Rich was onto something when he scratchbuilt the doors, not knowing they were available from MTL...

If I had a milling machine I'd get some machinable wax and write a quick program to cut a mold.  Actually no, I'd be too lazy and just start hacking with an xacto.   

[SkipGear]

Tamiya makes/made a tool that may help. It is used to apply zimmerit coating on 1/35 scale German tank models. It is not exactly what it is intended for but I have used them to remove car name boards on corrugated side passenger cars. If you can find them, they are a photo etch set of toothed rakes that come in a few spacings on the fret.

I found one that matched the corrugations on the car, then used a knife to get the majority of the plastic out of the way.
After that, I scraped the tool across the area to match the rest of the corrugations.

Here is a Rowa car with the rear numberboards that were in the corrugation removed.



Sorry, I don't have a before shot. You can see the tool in the upper right of the picture. I checked on the Tamiya website and it looks like they no longer make the tool set.
https://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=35187
 
You might check Trumpeter or Dragon Models for the tool as they seem to have taken the lead on superdetailed armor models.

Here is the final version...



You can just see a slight difference in the texture in the corrugations above the far truck in the picture above. That is where the board was removed.