 |
 |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |
- Share the positive experience of our cooperation and recommend us to your friends and acquaintances:
Building Materials for Dioramas
Building materials are the raw stock from which everything not in the box gets made. A brass rod becomes an aerial, a grab handle or a gun barrel; a sheet of phenolic foam becomes a stone wall or a cobbled road. This is not the kind of product that comes with instructions – it is material that takes shape under the knife and in your hands. The category holds AK Interactive brass rods in twenty-three diameters and Carving Foam in two formats.
What is in the category
| Brass rods | 23 diameters from 0.2 mm to 3.0 mm, 20 cm long. Thin diameters come 5 to a pack, the extremes 2 to a pack. |
| Carving foam | Carving Foam in A4 at 10 mm and A5 at 8 mm – phenolic foam for walls, paving and buildings. |
How to choose a diameter
Brass serves three roles on a model, and the thickness follows from which one you need. 0.2 to 0.5 mm is detail – aerials, wires, grab handles, pins into small parts. 0.6 to 1.0 mm is the band that gets used most: gun barrels, hydraulics, axles and pins that actually hold something. 1.1 mm and up is structure – the pin under a bust, pipework in an industrial scene, a post or a beam.
If you are starting out, buy one thin diameter around 0.5 mm and one around 1.5 mm. Those two cover most ordinary work: the first for detail and pinning, the second for joining a figure to its base. The rest are bought when a particular build calls for them.
Frequently asked questions
Why brass rather than plastic?
Because a plastic rod a tenth of a millimetre thick bends at the first touch and never straightens again. Brass holds its shape, takes a load and can be soldered. For an aerial, a handle or a load-bearing pin there is no better material.
How is brass painted?
Degrease, prime, then paint. Without primer acrylic will not stay on smooth metal. Primers are in the Primers category and paints in the AK 3rd Generation range.
How does Carving Foam differ from Construction Foam?
Carving Foam is more rigid, more resistant and finer-grained, fine enough to take a scribed mortar line. Construction Foam is coarser and suits bulk terrain shaping rather than detail.
What else do I need for scratch building?
Tools from the Tools and Accessories category – above all a cutting mat, the Ring Maker and cement. Pastes from the Textures category then unify the surface and pigments add the dirt.