On Thursday, June 2, 2005, at 09:21 AM, John Degnan wrote: > Groups, > > I have finally accepted that if I am to get the freight cars I want in > S scale, I just need to stop waiting and revert back to > scratch-building. So... > > ... I'm looking for input on how to make steel boxcar sides from > scratch. What type of material is best (Sheet styrene? Other?), and > what methods work best for simulating sheet-metal overlaps (joints), > rivets and other details? I'd like the thickness of these sides to > allow for interior detail, yet remain at least close to the actual > thickness of the walls of the prototype... in short, as prototypical > as possible. I'd also like to know the best methods some of you have > come up with for attaching ends, roofs and floors to the type > materials you used to make the sides. I could also use some > references to readily-availible, fine scale (the best there is) detail > parts.
John, For this type of project I would use sheet styrene. For things like seams I have gotten pretty good results layering .005 material. This is about a 1/3 of an inch so it works for that overlap affect. As for rivets I now use NWSL senipress/riveter attached to my lathe table. This gives me very accurate X-Y positioning. There is a photo of my set-up on my web site: http://webpages.charter.net/kbt1/G22_Project.html The NWSL machine comes with a single direction table that is not very accurate, but if you are careful you should be able to get reasonable results. I tend to use the two smallest dies for rivets. Rivet size depending on the thickness of the styrene and the size of the actual rivet. I have found that only the smallest die works on .005 styrene and that I need to use larger sizes on thicker material. One key to layering thin styrene, particularly if the sheet has been embossed with rivets, is to use ACC and not 'welding' type cement. The welding cement will melt the thin styrene and very easily damage the fine rivet detail. (That tip was, thankfully, imparted to me by Billy Wade of BTS). Do you want to make multiple copies of these cars? If so, consider resin casting. For a box car this would be fairly easy. In fact if you are only making one car, go with casting, then you only have to make one side and one end! It is pretty easy, get a starter kit from Micro-Mark. i believe it includes instructions. Also, there have been a couple of articles on resin casting Model Railroader recently. I write a little bit about casting on my web page listed above. Also, if you follow the links of the 'article' there is a close-up photo of the gondola end showing rivet details in styrene and photos of the painted model showing some detail. Good luck! Regards, kbt The poll results are in....... To REPLY to the list, use REPLY ALL, to reply to the sender, use REPLY. I do NOT know if this works on all e-mail software, but it works on some of the most common ones. For those of you on DIGEST mode, all REPLY messages go to the list. Change your membership, change your message settings, use our CALENDAR, view shared files or photos, view the list archives, GO TO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
