Plastic

For some reasons (which I have no intention in disclosing just yet), I need to work on a project regarding Design & Technology (those secondary 4 work). Anyway, this time, I have to work on it in my room, and my table will be my work table. Oh well, there are far too many constrains regarding this little project which I am going to do. First of all, it's quite impossible for me to work on cylindrical objects simply because I don't have a lathe at home (who in the right mind will have one?!?!?!). Another thing is that the constrains with the type of materials which I can work on. To make things easy, I've decided to work on acrylic as working on metals without proper machinery is more than just hard, and I personally want to make something transparent, so acrylic is all that I am left with. Oh but there's also a problem with acrylic. I don't have a strip heater at home, and I can't possibly use my flying pan to heat plastics, can I? I mean, I don't want to get food poisoning myself and don't wish to account for it if it happens to my family. Jeez, life's hard. All the tools which I am left which are hand saws and hand files. So basically, I have to come up with something nice with the amount of constrains involved. Cool, now I have to put my not-so-bright head in use. Great, just great.

So I went to those shops which sells acrylic sheets. One thing is for sure, it's DAMN EX. I've got myself 7 pieces of 400x400x2 (mm) acrylic sheets and 6 80x80 acrylic pieces, all transparent. It adds up to over 300 HKD (which is around 50+SGD). Now I know why my D&T teacher then asked me to use brass and pine instead ... Anyway, to my horror, there aren't any coloured transparent acrylic pieces on sale! I've even thought of getting six different coloured transparent acrylic pieces for decorative work... Sight, tough luck. Well, there's one other way, but it's kind of risky, and that is to use paint. Yep, transparent paint which I've used for gundams. Glad that I have that kind of hobby =P. So I'll have to make a stop at 興記 (a shop which sells a lot of model stuffs and is know for the variety of tamiya goods sold) but before that, a visit to a hardware shop first.

Basically, I don't have any hand tools at home, so I need to get some at a hardware store. Junior hacksaw, G-clamps, hand files, needle files and sand papers. First thing first, the junior hacksaw looks ugly. Seriously, its ugly... I mean, its not those cool looking saws and all, but just something made out of bent steel rod. And boy, the file sure is expensive. 38 buck just for the file blade... and it looks like second cut to me, though it says "bastard" on the file blade. Oh well, who cares? Good thing the shop owner allowed me to buy the needle files separately, but I've chose 5 needle files... might as well as get the whole set =/. Need some wood pieces or cardboard to support the G-clamp too. The shop doesn't sell sandpapers for acrylic by some reasons. Oh well, using those meant for metal won't hurt, cause acrylic has a similar material structure when compared to metals... similar, not alike, k?

It's a good thing that there's a model shop near where I stay, and it can come in pretty handy too. There's this cute little looking paint cans on the shelf. Too bad there are only 5 transparent colours (red orange yellow green blue). How I wish there there's pink or purple, so that it can meet my requirement of 6 colours. Too bad there aren't, so I got a metallic blue instead. Hmmm , maybe i can mix red and purple together. Worth a try, don't you think so? Oh and I couldn't find any chloroform so I guess I will be using model glue instead. Hope that it wont leave any kind of stains.

There's still three items which I need. Brush (for paints), vernier callipers and one 4~6mm diameter steel ball. Anyone knows where I can get such a steel ball in Hong Kong?