Back when freerails was viable (RIP) I posted my method of making corrugated roofing/siding sheets.

My goal is to build this in O scale:



It's an oldie and goodie from :




It will take a lot of corrugated material.  Ray Oversat made his HO scale siding by scribing tin foil with a ball point pen.

I actually started this in HO back in the '60s.  I fought the scribing and the scribing won!

I have been on a quest to make good corrugated material cheaply and quickly. It's probably the challenge presented by my 13 year old self.

I don't like the plastic versions out there because they are way too thick, and overlapping stands out.  I purchased a small amount of an O scale  paper version online to see how nice it was, it is very nice paper,  it's very pricey as well.

To use for dies to make my own, I purchased a package of Evergreen Plastics 4527 Metal Siding .060" Spacing.   I happen to have some old full size corrugated roofing/siding on my property. I measured the rib spacing on my tin;  mine would scale to within .002" of the Evergreen Plastics, so close enough for rib-counters.
 
A dive down the WorldWideWabbit hole revealed as one might suspect, there is quite a range of rib spacing and rib depth, often from the same manufacturer.  One manufacturer said for steep pitched roofs, the ribs can be shallow, but for more gently pitched roofs, the ribs should be deeper because of different snow loading.

My first trials were OK enough to post on freerails.  The material I pressed between two pieces of the hard plastic material was a "cover paper" that measures .012" (regular copy paper averages near .004") 

I used a small roller that was for setting window screen splines, because I had it.



Dried paper wouldn't take an impression, simply wetting the cover paper didn't work well either.   Eventually I soaked  it overnight.  A lot of my material wasn't usable after drying due to uneven pressure from my rolling.  While drying out after an overnight soak, it also seriously potato-chipped.  Usually, I could get that out when gluing it down.  I was producing usable material, but way too slowly, and with a lot of unusable material as well.

I quit working on that building because my process was too slow to produce the amount of material I needed.   Meanwhile, I've been carefully watching Bernd's amazing efforts at making scale roofing from thin aluminum shim stock.  I did press some from heavy duty kitchen foil with my method, but it dented too easily, was difficult to paint as well.  I don't use solvent based finishes in my basement workshop. 

Then, the other day at Goodwill I ran across this, curiosity got me so I took a dive down the web.  It's an entry level Sizzix machine. Paper crafters use it to cut and emboss shapes and designs.  The machine is just 2 rollers spaced apart by a fixed distance.  Side lever works a vacuum base.  For 4 bucks, I brought it home.



After playing around a bit, here's what I am making now, much faster and better.






My current paper softening technique is borrowed from leather working: I soak the paper in alcohol, but only long enough to get it thoroughly wet, takes just a minute.

I sandwich the wet paper between 2 strips of the evergreen plastic, and sandwich those between enough card and basswood until it presses hard enough to get the results I want with a single pass through the rollers.

The machine presses way more evenly than I was with the hand roller, and the alcohol dries way faster and with way less potato chipping.  Now I am able to consistently make paper corrugated material in a timely fashion.

This is some of my old paper after a very quick weathering experiment:

In the May/June 2022 NGSLG, I saw a plan for a Russel Wheel and Foundry Logging Car, and went searching for more photos of the car, either models or prototype.

While down that particular WorldWideWabbit hole, I ran across a nice collection of "Builders of Wooden Railway Cars"

This is really more of a history site, but it does have photos for many of the builders entries.

https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/builders/index.htm

The amount of information at each builders entry varies, but there are some photos and often more links within the separate pages for each builder.  Unfortunately the photos are not very sharp.

The collection is offered by the Mid-Continent Railway Museum in Wisconsin:

https://www.midcontinent.org/

A different page that I found particularly interesting is this one in their dictionary section that details passenger car clerestory framing:

https://www.midcontinent.org/rollingstock/dictionary/dictionary1.htm#Duckbill%20roof

While trying to determine how viable San Juan Car Co. is nowadays as I am contemplating placing an order with them, I ran across this on their FB page:

In their words:
 
"The San Juan Photo Shelter site now has more then 6,000 images loaded on it.  Narrow gauge, standard gauge mining and other topics.  Not organized yet. But great photos for modeling references."

https://sanjuanphotos.photoshelter.com/index


The photo collection is very viable at this writing. I agree 100% there are great photos in it! There are collections from different photographers, some collections are very large, others not, and one was empty when I tried to browse it.  But it is definitely well worth a look!

Back to why I was on San Juan's FB site in the first place:  A couple years back I tried to contact them; they were totally silent.  Has anyone here had good experiences with ordering from them recently?

Does anybody have a trick for assembling this sort of coupler box? 


 

I've read and understand why coupler boxes should not be glued to car frames or bodies. I use hardware.

I am working with Kadee 803/7 boxes (On3-On30) that have a centering spring. That is, they should have, but my springs keep vanishing into thin air...

I can assemble them OK off the car, but then trying to keep the box and lid together while turning the assembly upside down and trying to insert mounting screws, is where things go awry. 

Before even trying to assemble coupler to car, I pre-drill and run my mounting screws in ahead of assembly to cut appropriate threads, so when it comes to final assembly "all" I need to do is hold the coupler in place and tighten the first screw.

I just want to hold the box and lid together for a bit, just long enough to screw it to the car.

I tried MEK, it doesn't work at all. I tried a tiny bit of AC, the sort that comes in tiny tubes.  I applied a tiny bit to the outside of the join between the box and lid, not to the actual joining surfaces. It worked, but hours later, my coupler was sticking, it hadn't been initially.  My guess is that the vapors gassing off inside the box might have affected the plastic?

One older Kadee 803 package reads: "Contains: Acetal plastic." 

Spelling is everything in organic chemistry, Acetal and acetate are not the same at all.  On my trip down the web I discovered that Delrin is also an acetal plastic.   

I am familiar with Delrin.  Google's AnnoyingInsistence reaffirms that it's strong, slippery stuff, impervious to "most" solvents, but not all acids, bases, or oxidizing agents.

A thread on the Practical Machinist forum led to an industrial epoxy that works with Delrin, but the manufacturer states that surface prep and a primer is needed, and a 1.7 oz tube of just the epoxy is about $75.   

Kadee does suggest in their Whisker coupler instructions that to help keep the knuckle springs in place, a "tiny dab" of glue on each end of the knuckle spring would do.  Instructions suggest Duco.

I realize that gluing the knuckle springs is metal-to-metal.  I don't have any Duco, but I might get some as it was pretty handy stuff back when I was a kid.

Before I try a very narrow strip of blue tape around the assembly, and after getting it on the car, I could remove the 3 sides of tape showing, Does anybody have a trick because I'm out of extra centering springs.

I am a new member and thoroughly enjoy looking/reading on this forum. 

I would like to make a small submission of my  of my own, so here goes..

I am a retired shop teacher and worked most of my summer "vacations" as a carpenter.   I still work at occasional carpentry jobs, so I'm comfortable around table saws.

This is not meant to be a tutorial on the use of full-size or otherwise table saws, just a "how I do it".

I offer my technique here, for milling small strip wood on a full-size (12" diameter in my case) table saw, to those who are comfortable with table saws. 

I saw the basics for this jig on a wood working website I would like to credit and acknowledge, but I cannot recall.  I made some adjustments of my own.

I hope my description and photos give enough information to understand how I made and use it.

For reference, the pencil lead is .7mm




I put what is called a "finishing" blade in my saw for this, as it has a very narrow kerf and a large tooth count.

I also use a push stick.


I started with an old shelf that had a smooth laminate on it.  Then I glued a  wood spline to the bottom.   A 1/2" by ¾" spline fits the miter slots in my saw's top, fairly common, but your mileage may differ.

After the glue dried, I fed the shelf carefully into the blade, stopped the cut half-way through, and carefully shut the saw off.   This made what's called a zero-clearance auxiliary table,

It is held in place laterally by the spline, and longitudinally by a clamp (not seen) at the off-board end.




Along the right edge of the shelf, I attached a fixed fence with glue and screws from the bottom, being careful to keep it parallel to the spline.  To this fixed fence, I then attached a movable fence, which is adjusted by 2 pairs of carriage bolts.  One pair is shown below.


Note that the movable fence ends just before the blade.  This is to mitigate the binding and subsequent kick-back that can occur when ripping next to a table saw fence conventionally.

Not seen is the long, thin wood splitter that I insert into the kerf of the auxiliary table top to the left of the blade.

The upper carriage bolt is threaded into the fixed part of the fence, but not threaded into the movable, left fence.  It serves to move the movable fence predictably 1/16" per turn, as it's a 16 TPI thread.

The wing nutted bolt is fixed into the left fence piece,  and has a clearance hole in the right, fixed piece.

After I adjust the movable fence, I fix the it in position with the wingnuts.






I typically start with ¾" thick or less stock.  If larger than that, I will rip it down conventionally w/o the auxiliary fence.

As always, I stand to the side of the blade trajectory, as I do occasionally get small pieces kicking back.   Since the pieces are small and not in a tight blade bind situation, they are far less exciting. 

This process yields more sawdust than scale lumber, so I mill found free material.  My 1:1 work brings me into contact with plenty of spare lumber.

Here's some 1/4" by 1/4" for a trestle I milled from a very old redwood fence.   I have ripped other pieces of this tight-grain redwood down to 1/8" by 1/16".  I have also milled poplar, tight grained cedar, and clear pine.



Hope this helps someone who is comfortable and safe around table saws.  If you aren't and wish to learn, I suggest you learn live from someone who is.  Someone who can watch you and then suggest corrections.  I see some sketchy wood-working techniques on amateur videos.