# Just Plain Folk and Railroad Avenue Figures



## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

Has any one had any luck changing the poses of these figures?

How did you do it?

Can they be heated up and then repositioned?

John


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

No one has any suggestions?


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## Lawrence Wallace (Jan 2, 2008)

I've heated them and bent them but find that when they a hot enough to bend you sometimes smash them. 
You can cut them at the hip at an angle then cut the leg section again to make a right angle and repeat the same thing below the knees then glue them back together to make siting figures 
The resulting people don't look to bad when used inside coaches or buildings.


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## Fritz (Jan 11, 2008)

Railroad Avenue and Just Plain Folks figures are made from some very brittle resin. Heating will not make this material flexible. 

In most cases it is much easier to cut a figure into peieces and assemble it with short lengths of wire


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the help.

These figures are really great. I will just have to work at finding an appropriate place to use them.

My wife likes them. They will bring some life to our railroad in the springtime.

John


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## Fritz (Jan 11, 2008)

I forgot to mention, the figure I used in the above example is made from softer plastic. I is a spare part from PIkO, slightly larger than 1 : 22.5. Almost 1 : 20.

Since the bald head with the glasses looks quite unique I made a simple rubber mould to make some copies from fine artists plaster. 


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Posted By Fritz on 16 Jan 2011 03:10 PM 













Great looking figures Fritz! 
Somehow those two blokes on the left remind me of 1980's Ska Punk bands!


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## tacfoley (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By jbwilcox on 13 Jan 2011 09:06 PM 
Has any one had any luck changing the poses of these figures?

How did you do it?

John



Yup, I dropped 'Mike' the engineer and my daughter ran over him with her wheelchair, and now there are no more - leastways, that I can find.

tac
http://www.ovgrs.org/
Supporer of the Cape Meares Lighthouse Restoration Fund


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

I have a bunch of these figures so, I started to think: How can I modify them in the quickest and most efficient manner?

First I thought about putting them in the Oven and cranking the heat up to about 450 for an hour until I checked our fire insurance and it does not cover malicious misdeeds like this, since I am sure that I would end up with a puddle of highly flammable liquid people. That would probably not work too well.

Thanks to a segment on Red Green, I have decided that I will place them on the floor and then run over them all with my Lawn Mower.

Bingo!

I wil then have a large selection of arms, legs, heads and necks which i can then piece back together in my spare time? Oh, another thought just came to me!

I can give them to my wife who loves to work puzzles while I sit back and watch the NFL Playoffs.

I just hope she rearranges the pieces and does not put them back in their orriginal forms. Now that would be a real Bummer.

John


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## Ray Dunakin (Jan 6, 2008)

Before I started making my own figures, I heavily modified a RR Avenue cowboy character into an engineer for my Buddy L loco: 








  

I cut his legs off at the knees and glued them back on a different angle. I carved off his right arm and sculpted a new one. I also carved off his vest and altered his clothes, and reshaped his hat. I used an epoxy putty called "kwik plastik" to form his new arm and other details, as well as using it to fill gaps.


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## Totalwrecker (Feb 26, 2009)

In the past when reshaping folks I used gel CA to reglue and sculpt. I used accelerator, sprayed into a cup and transfered a drop with a thin steel probe. (I got a bunch of used dental tools, the probe was one. Ask your dentist, mine would replace his every year.) 

The gel/accel combo allowed me to work faster and the gel was thick enough to hold it's shape so I could sculpt wrinkles and folds of clothing across the gap. 
Cleaning off the glue was easy as it burns hot without affecting the probe, burn it off and wipe with damp cloth and go. 

The cured gel can be sanded. 

John


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## chrisb (Jan 3, 2008)

I modified several esin figures. There should be an archived thead about the subject. Basically saw the limb off (at the elbow for example), then drill the end of the for arm and upper arm to receive a piece of brass wire.
put it all back together with out glue and bend the wire to the desired position. because of the way muscles contract, you may have to remove material out of the inner side of the elbow, or inother words
create a miter type joint. When satisfied, glue the wire in and set everything to the correct position. When the glue has dried, I use epoxy putty to fill the gap, then with a small round file shape or fix wrinkles
in the clothing. This almost becomes a hobby in it self (atleast for me). There is a DVD that I have seen on Modifying figures and that help alot.


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## Fritz (Jan 11, 2008)

Beside breaking or cutting resin figures to pieces, you can use a Dremel with suitable discs to do some simple sculpting. You will be amazed, how much white dust you´ll poduce.


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