I am currently building a dragon 1/35 German K-5E 28 cm Rail gun. This kit has a bunch of ladders. All were of different sizes, lengths, and configurations. This is how after several mistakes, I finally got it right
There are several ladders on my K-5E 28cm rail gun. The kit ladders are too big and besides I messed them up. So I bought the Eduard photo-etch kit. I tried to drill holes in the ladders to put rungs through them. Bad idea see photo. Then I tried using very thin sheet stock, looked like junk see photo. Then I saw another Eduard photo-etch on e- bay bought it and while it looked ok, it still was not up to the standards set by all of you. Plus, if truth be told I thought they looked like c—p! See photo. Then it hit me, my problem was drilling holes in tiny pieces of plastic, getting them glued and even. It wasn’t working.
I went to my hobby shop; Bobe’s in Pensacola and bought 3 sizes of Ladders, pre made. When I got home the middle size looked best. But how to make bends .and ladders to fit within ladders (they telescope).
Ok so here is how I did it and the results are great. First I used the Dremel tool with the rotary sanding attachment and carefully sanded the outer edges of the ladder stock to make it a lot thinner. I used the Mark I eyeball. Then hand sanded it smooth. Next got suitable (close to scale) flat stock and got the Plastic Weld glue with dripper. I used the Eduard photo-etch as a guide.
I cut the ladder stock to length, cut out rungs where needed, until I had all the ladders (9) ready. There are 6 side ladders and 2 front ladders. The front required attachment points that look like the letter F see photo.
I laid the sheet stock and ladder on glass and glued the straight tips, I used butt joints. See photos, I used lots of glue, after they dried I used an Exacto knife to pry it up and turned them over and clued the other side. The front ladders required a lot of small straight pieces that when glued and cut look like they are bent. I shaved the edges to make the right angle glue pieces look round. Then I carefully sanded them, so they looked rounded. On the front 2 ladders I had pre drilled holes on the attachment points. Now I had all the ladders, but all were the same width, they were TOO BIG (wide). I used the Eduard kit ladder to get the width of the front ladders. I took a length of plastic rod and cut a piece the length I wanted. How to get it all perfect? Using sprue cutters I cut all the rungs on each ladder at one edge. Now I had 1 edge with rungs and one that I sanded the tiny rung bumps flat. Then I used the exact length rod and held it against each rung. I cut each with the sprue cutter. Now each rung was the same length. I carefully sanded the tip of each cut rung to be sure it was flat. At this point I put the hangars on the appropriate rung I test fitted them and if ok, I glued the rung half to the other piece. Using a right angle glued with super glue as a straight edge, I made sure that the each side of the ladder was even and true. As they dried I also made sure that they were vertical. You can see the result with in the photos.
Note a few of the end pieces came off during sanding and handling. No problem I either cut new ones or just re attached and glued. The curved nature of the front ladders was tricky as I had to cut some at an angle then make straight pieces seem to be a continuous curve. I took the L shape and very carefully cut the angle, then sanded to make it look like a single piece of steel. I think the final result looks pretty good and very close to scale. Now all I have to do is paint them and glue them to the side of the gun.
I hope I have done a decent job of explaining how to make ladders to scale. Hope this helps some of you on your projects. My next project, the 54cm SP Morser Loki also has ladders so I am ready for that too.
I’ll be happy to answer any questions. Hope this was of interest.
REDLEG Scarlet Guidon 6
