Franksville Wisconsin N-scale modutrak module buildout

[SkipGear]

Jamie,
 I have a suggestion for another, maybe easier way to make your corrugated siding.

I have used Heavy Duty alluminum foil sandwiched between two sheets of Plastruct N scale corrugated siding. The plastruct sheets become a die to create the bends. Make sure the ribs line up between the two sheets and then burnish the back of one to make sure you get good impressions into the aluminum.

You can also burnish the foil over one piece of sheet but I have found it harder to keep from wrinkling and tearing.

This was done quickly to show the results of the process. Not as crisp as the production sheeting but you can make it any size and pitch you need.

[lashedup]

Thanks for the tip. I was giving that same process some thought for the roof pieces I need.

Out of curiosity, how fine is the corrugated Plastruct stuff? Most corrugated materials in n-scale are way to big (although corrugated materials have varied in rib width quite a bit in real life)and the ribs aren't ribs, but more like siding. Just being anal.

The roofs on these buildings has a ribbed seam roof material. Most of the scale material I've found is also oversized by a big margin. Any thoughts where to find something closer to scale? I've thought about making a jig to press aluminum foil, but yikes what pain. In real life the seam heights are most commonly 1"-2.5" which would be only .006" - .015" tall.

Just more random thoughts...

[sirenwerks]

Ngineering makes pretty nice stuff, though it's now a special order item and takes a few weeks to get. Look here about 1/2 way down the page - http://www.ngineering.com/other_detail_stuff.htm

[DKS]

FWIW, I make my own standing seam roofing material using the following technique. Admittedly it is a bit tedious, but it produces standing seams exactly the way you need them, and you only need to make the jig once.

After measuring the prototype seam spacing, I mark a piece of heavy sheet styrene with a set of spacing tick marks at each end, then using a steel rule, run a knife across the plastic to make a series of parallel cuts. Then I gently stretch a piece of solinoid wire taught to make it straight, wedge the wire into a knife cut, and bond it in place with CA. (I don't cut individual wires for each line; I wrap the wire all the way around the styrene sheet, in a helix.) After all of the knife cuts have wires embedded in them, I place a piece of heavy-duty aluminum foil over the styrene sheet and burnish it down using a wet sponge, which helps prevent tearing.

[lashedup]

Awesome David. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll look into it. Right now that is the only option I have as most of the commercial stuff is too big for n-scale in terms of detail, yet the pieces themselves are too small for the roof pieces I need.

[diezmon]

Jamie,
 I have a suggestion for another, maybe easier way to make your corrugated siding.

I have used Heavy Duty alluminum foil sandwiched between two sheets of Plastruct N scale corrugated siding. The plastruct sheets become a die to create the bends. Make sure the ribs line up between the two sheets and then burnish the back of one to make sure you get good impressions into the aluminum.

You can also burnish the foil over one piece of sheet but I have found it harder to keep from wrinkling and tearing.

This was done quickly to show the results of the process. Not as crisp as the production sheeting but you can make it any size and pitch you need.

how do the ribs hold up when cutting?  Do you cut with a scissors, or a blade?

[lashedup]

I cut the ones I bought with scissors. A razor blade required multiple scores. In the end cutting the foil is not much different than cutting sheetmetal - it works better with shears/scissors.

- jamie

[DKS]

Wonderful old metal signs on this building. Do you have a more straight-on shot, so that the signs could be reproduced on a printer?

[SkipGear]

how do the ribs hold up when cutting?  Do you cut with a scissors, or a blade?

I reccomend cutting the strips to the height you need before forming. Your cuts will then all be along the folds in the metal and should not disturb the creases. Also, that is why I suggest using the "Heavy Duty" Reynolds brand. It is thicker and holds it shape much better.

As far as rib size and spacing goes, I used Plastruct 91530, wood planking 1.0mm pitch (.039").  That works out to about 6" from peak to peak on the corrugations, a little large but not distracting. That was just what I had on hand. The Plastruct seems to work best because the sheets are vaccuformed and give a rounder profile. Plastruct makes one size smaller (1/64") spacing but I'm not sure that at that size, the detail comes out as well. Evergreen also makes a sheet with a .75mm (.030") pitch but I don't have a piece of that handy to try.

The example in the picture is with a scrap of aluminum foil I grabbed from the kitchen. The wife didn't have any heavy duty handy.

[SkipGear]

As far as the standing seam roof goes. I would suggest the same as David. Below are a few shots of how it was done on a caboose.



And the painted result:

[DKS]

Here's the results of making a standing seam jig:

[lashedup]

Great stuff guys. That's the beauty of a topic like this as we can all pick up suggestions and ideas and save some time and hair pulling!

Skip, nice caboose and a good workaround for the roof pieces. It turned out great.

David, I do have straight on shots of the existing signage on the building, however that was not the signage on the building back in the 1950's. I recreated the existing artwork in Illustrator already, but trying to figure out what was on there in the 1950's will be a little more difficult. This aerial view of the building shows a large handpainted sprawling billboard of sorts. Klema Feeds



Here is another photo taken from inside a speeder in front of the Franksville Depot looking north at the long Klema shed that I'm currently building. The shed has some really neat artwork on the side of it, presumably for feeds or other products they carry:



Anyway, I'm drawing up other structures and making minor changes to dimensions based on cardboard mockups.

[lashedup]

It's been a little while since I made updates and figured I'd just throw a couple things up for now:

I've been building all the Klema Feed buildings. I got the new metal siding material I needed and I built a standing seam jig per David's suggestion and tested a few pieces of tin foil and it should work out great. I'll post some progress photos tonight.

The Mod-U-Trak group got together last friday to build more module bases for people that needed them. We also started working on new larger curve modules:



The new curve is nearly 8 feet long from longest tip to longest tip (!). I don't know what the actual radius of the curve is yet, but we planned for a spiral easement and the curve was so large that it would have been negligible to add it. These should make for very nice sweeping curves with a bit of extra room for scenery.

We also started cutting all the pieces for the 40 feet of Western Avenue yard modules. That will be a separate build project that will start in earnest in a month or two. Lots of handlaid turnouts to be built!

I'm itching to get some of these buildings in place to get going on scenery!

[lashedup]

Here is a quick picture of the Klema Mill building and part of the front overhang with rafters laying next to it. The rafters are intentionally crooked as they are that way on the prototype.



I ended up using some Fine N-scale cement block resin material for the foundation. Not too bad to work with, but the resin can warp fairly easy and it has little give before snapping. Even with the minor warp issues, I'll be able to get it straightened out when I glue it all together. Windows are some Micronart pieces that I decided to try.

The rest of the exterior of this building gets covered in 7 foot tall sections of metal corrugated material. I also have the loading dock framework done and I'm thinking of using real cement for the support pieces. We'll see if it is worth it.

Sorry for the blurry photo, I used my wifes point and shoot at home tonight.

- jamie

[sizemore]

BUMP

We want updates!!! (and pictures!).