Photo Etch Wiper Blades How to fold?

[Len Woodruff]

Has anybody used the Detail Master P/E wiper blades that hae to be folded?

I having a had time folding these even using a P/E bender.

Thanks n advance for your help.

[Can-Con]

I use them. Looks great but definitely hard to fold.

Here's a trick that might work for you though,

Put the part to be folded on a small piece of wood like a popsicle stick. Use an old blade in your X-acto knife. Place the blade sharp edge down on the fold line and tap it with a small hammer or something else relatively heavy. This should give you a nice strait bend to start the fold. 

I don't have a bender myself so after this I fold the part down on my table with the knife and finish the bend [usually 90degrees] with another old blade. 

Edited April 22, 2023 by Can-Con

[Len Woodruff]

3 minutes ago, Can-Con said:

I use them. Looks great but definitely hard to fold.

Here's a trick that might work for you though,

Put the part to be folded on a small piece of wood like a popsicle stick. Use an old blade in your X-acto knife. Place the blade sharp edge down on the fold line and tap it with a small hammer or something else relatively heavy. This should give you a nice strait bend to start the fold. 

I don't have a bender myself so after this I fold the part down on my table with the knife and finish the bend [usually 90degrees] with another old blade. 

Thanks Steve. I will try that. The intructions said to bend it oer a narrow butter knife. I never could get the fold started. I will give this a try and report back.

[Dpate]

I use this for all PE bending, but there is a smaller version too.  Tamiya also has bending pliers small and large as well. Tools to have if you do a lot of PE or just when you hit that: " If only i had" moment. Is your PE tool similar?

Edited April 22, 2023 by Dpate

[Len Woodruff]

1 hour ago, Dpate said:

I use this for all PE bending, but there is a smaller version too.  Tamiya also has bending pliers small and large as well. Tools to have if you do a lot of PE or just when you hit that: " If only i had" moment. Is your PE tool similar?

I have a similar one to that but smaller. These arms don't have enough metal to get them under the edges of the bendor. What Steve said above has some potentional but I haven't gotten enough learning curve to make it work yet.

[Dpate]

1 hour ago, Len Woodruff said:

I have a similar one to that but smaller. These arms don't have enough metal to get them under the edges of the bendor. What Steve said above has some potentional but I haven't gotten enough learning curve to make it work yet.

That's where the bending pliers by tamiya would come in handy 

[tractoraholic]

I ran into the same issue, as I started to work with more photoetch, and I'll say the Tamiya pliers are worth the investment.

[Len Woodruff]

22 minutes ago, tractoraholic said:

I ran into the same issue, as I started to work with more photoetch, and I'll say the Tamiya pliers are worth the investment.

I will take a look at them the next time I go to the Hobby Town.

[SfanGoch]

On 4/22/2023 at 2:18 PM, Len Woodruff said:

I have a similar one to that but smaller. These arms don't have enough metal to get them under the edges of the bendor. What Steve said above has some potentional but I haven't gotten enough learning curve to make it work yet.

I use the following method on small PE parts from 1/35 to 1/144 with no problems. Place the largest part of the wiper blade under a finger with the bend line parallel to its outer edge. Tighten the bender screws so that the wiper blade doesn't move. Using an Exacto chisel blade, slide the blade tip under the wiper blade and slowly bend upwards until you have achieved the correct angle. To bend the other side, place the part anywhere along the outer edge of the bender, with the bend line facing up and fold up from underneath, using the chisel blade or a steel rule. to achieve the required angle. There is more than enough clearance to do this.

[Len Woodruff]

17 minutes ago, SfanGoch said:

I use the following method on small PE parts from 1/35 to 1/144 with no problems. Place the largest part of the wiper blade under a finger with the bend line parallel to its outer edge. Tighten the bender screws so that the wiper blade doesn't move. Using an Exacto chisel blade, slide the blade tip under the wiper blade and slowly bend upwards until you have achieved the correct angle. To bend the other side, place the part anywhere along the outer edge of the bender, with the bend line facing up and fold up from underneath, using the chisel blade or a steel rule. to achieve the required angle. There is more than enough clearance to do this.

Thanks Joe. I will give that a try.

[Bugatti Fan]

Joe's suggestion about using an Exacto of similar chisel blade would give good control being handle mounted using a Photo Etch Bending clamp tool.

A single edged razor blade might also be used an alternative on the clamp tool and as it has a solid steel back edge can also be tapped with a small hammer using the alternative method that Steve described in his post.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Bugatti Fan

[stitchdup]

If you dont have a bender or need a longer edge than the bender provides you can use 2 old exacto blades and a pin vice that holds larger drill bits. Just use the pin vice to clamp the 2 blades together with the back edges lined up and its good idea to file the sharp edges til they cant cut too. Next get your fold lines set against the blades and clamp the pin vice tight. now double check its lined up and if you are happy with it get a hard surface that will allow the part to slide (i like an old hard back book or back of a photo frame)and use that to bend the part. This works pretty well for longer thin parts and if you have a folder you can use it to clamp the blades in place of the vice. You might find you snap the blades to begin with but you will soon figure out where to apply the pressure to stop this happening.

[Len Woodruff]

I think the trick is to get the sides bent slightly to get started. It does require a "well" but the blades are not straight tthe whole length that needs to be bent.

[Len Woodruff]

Here is a link to the 3d printed wire hinge bender.

Cults 3d Hinge Bender File

[CA Whitecloud]

On 4/28/2023 at 4:45 AM, Len Woodruff said:

Here is a link to the 3d printed wire hinge bender.

Cults 3d Hinge Bender File

Where can I get one already printed?

[CA Whitecloud]

I'm having trouble visualizing what kind of bend to put on these wipers. Does anyone have pics?

To look lie these...

[peteski]

Those are not very good examples of realistic photoetched  wipers.  The goal is to bend the arm 90 degrees at the location it joins the blade structure.  But those do not seem to be designed for that.  Even if you can bend it, the base of the arm will still be too thin in the cross section to look realistic.

I "rolled my own" wipers when I built my Peterbuilt wrecker, and also my '57 Chevy.  These are made from cut off leads from 5mm LEDs.  Those are 0.020" square cross section wire.  On the arm I built up the thicker lower section using solder iron and solder,then filed it to the tapered shape.  Then the blade is formed from pieces of the same wire soldered together. The Chevy has a simplified blade (it is 1:32 scale model).  Lastly, I spray painted it silver to blend everything together.  It is quite a bit of extra work, but the wipers look realistic to  me.

 

 

[Can-Con]

14 hours ago, CA Whitecloud said:

I'm having trouble visualizing what kind of bend to put on these wipers. Does anyone have pics?

To look lie these...

Those are the Detail Master wipers. They're not made to be bent, just used as they are.

The original discussion was about the Model Car Garage set, like these. Note the crease lines on the arms.

 

Edited February 9, 2024 by Can-Con

[CA Whitecloud]

20 hours ago, Can-Con said:

Those are the Detail Master wipers. They're not made to be bent, just used as they are.

The original discussion was about the Model Car Garage set, like these. Note the crease lines on the arms.

 

Still new to the PE world. Next time I will research the parts further. Thanks for the input. Still, I hope the look better than the molded on wipers.