any advice for making 1:24 ignition keys?

[jonno356SC]

Materials, techniques etc.

Thanks in advace

[Fat Brian]

You might could take a piece of photoetch sprue and file on it with a very tiny file while holding it with tweezers. You have to think, it will only be about a 1/16 of an inch long so get your jewelers loupe out.

[Casey]

I am pretty sure Model Car Garage make 1/25 scale keys, and includes them on various photoetched frets.

[Deathgoblin]

MCG generally includes a set or two on each fret. I've got PE sets for the 60 pontiac, 53 ford and 77 Monte Carlo and they all came with keys. I'm just not bored enough to use them yet.

[Longbox55]

Detail Master also includes keys of assorted types (car, house, etc) on their Interior Junk pe sets.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Longbox55

[jonno356SC]

thanks guys. so you prefer to buy rather than scratch build?

[Longbox55]

For something that small, yes.

[Ramfins59]

Personally, I prefer to buy something like PE keys and such since they already come on so many PE sets. While I've done some scratchbuilding of small items for some of my models, these 65 year old eyes of mine would REALLY be hurting if I tried filing a piece of PE sprue to make keys. I don't even think my Optivisor and my set of Rifler files would make it much easier to do. I put an ignition key, ON A KEY RING, in the interior of the '49 Merc convertible that I recently finished and it took me 3 tries and 1 lost key, to get the PE key onto the PE key ring... tweezers, Optivisor and much holding my breath....

[southpier]

depends on how soon you need it. eventually you'll buy an etch fret and the key will be included. if you need it immediately, make sure you get an etch kit for a car you know that you'll eventually be building

[MrObsessive]

Yet another vote for PE..............I would go crazy trying to carve a set of keys out of PE fret!

[Draggon]

If you want to scratchbuild some out of styrene, the common plastic "for sale" signs at the hardware store are pretty thin, and with a sharp exacto it wouldn't be too hard.