i was incredibly bored tonight and eating easter eggs, when i think i came up with an idea... i started making a load for a gondola out of easter egg wrappers, im crunching the foil into small cubes and putting them in the gon. once the loads are painted they might look like scrap steel or something. just thought i would share my idea.
Cadbury Egg wrappers......hey that's a great Idea! The only problem is making them atleast somewhat cubed, lol.
I've done this with foil wrapper from a Ring Ding on one similar boring night of snacking in front of the TV. Took a bit to make it look weathered but came out decent. Let me know how the Cadbury foil turns out as I should have an ample supply by week's end! Russ
ive been making the bits slightly cubed by using a ruler and pressing the foil against the desk with it. its been hard to get them the same size, but thats not important. when its done i will try taking a photo.
Painting them with a little Floquil Rust (and maybe some other colors such as Grimy Black) would also work- gives the load some character.
Well, there is a saying out there that goes something like "inspiration can strike at any time...." Don't worry too much about making uniform sizes. Compacted steel isn't always the same when it comes out of a crusher. It depends on what went in to start the process. A car? A refrigerator? Etc. Boxcab E50
Aluminum scrap is crushed too. We tried mashing foil down over HO cars, then "bend them up" a bit to look like wrecked cars. Didn't look too swift up close, but from across the layout, it looked sort of like a car wreck. We gave it up and never tried to do any super detailing to it. But it was one of those ideas.
Good idea, but not new. I think it was in the 70's there was an MR article about spraying or brushpainting pieces of household aluminum foil, in random rust & dirt colors, cutting it into strips, and putting the strips through a blender for a few seconds. It made for scrap metal loads in gondolas. Stll, since you didn't see the article, you are to be commended for the idea. regards/ Mike
Good idea UNION_PACIFIC_STEVE Especially when TV gets boring. Thats a good idea too Mike for junk yards and those empty gondolas
well here are some photos of my gondola load, they arent very good pictures... my camera really does suck, but theyre better than none i guess.
My cousin peter showed me something niffty he made in O scale. I'm not sure how it would work in anything smaller than HO though. He got a small square block of wood, and then took paper towels and soaked them in 50/50 white glue and water mixture, and then wrapped them tightly around the wood. He them weathered it light grey and it looks like a great covered load for a flat car. His version was no different than some identical store bought loads which gave him the idea to do it himself.
I also remember an article in Model Railroader in which the author used aluminum foil to simulate tin roofs on his scratchbuilt buildings. He would cut them to scale strips and "raze" them with something like a comb to put the lines in each piece. He then attached the roofing and weathered it. Russ
