Dumb question - metal modelling stock

[Esmedune]

Hi All,  I want to convert a car flat to one with a mesh cover on it, and I have sourced the mesh, but for the life of me, I cannot work out what to google for to find metal strips to act as the frame. I can see sheets of metal, but I'd rather have pre-cut strips or even 90 degree angled formed strips for added strength, but no matter what I google or search for on eBay, I get nothing back, what am I missing here, I have seen them in the past along with tubes/pipes and squared tubes, and I know you can get them in styrene, but no matter what I look for... nowt!

I also want to build a 20T well wagon too, and I need I Bars and girders.  What am I doing wrong here? 

[chris p bacon]

Try Eileens Emporium for starters.

 

https://www.eileensemporium.com/index.php?option=com_hikashop&ctrl=category&task=listing&cid=1070&name=c-half-tube&Itemid=189

 

You're looking for Brass Angle or 'H' section or 'C' section.

 

Plenty of suppliers out there, personally I use Phil at Hobby Holidays 

 

https://www.hobbyholidays.co.uk/categories.php?cat=35

 

A very helpful chap

[AdamsRadial]

I've chopped up old umbrellas in the past for the metal sections, and you can often find useful bits in old car wiper-blades.

[chris p bacon]

2 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

and you can often find useful bits in old car wiper-blades.

 Surely it's hard soldering the rubber.......

[tomparryharry]

I sometimes use sheet tin from corned beef tins. You can normally cut it with a good pair of scissors. A soup tin has corrugations, with a clear 20mm-odd section top & bottom. I've used them for shimming up before now. 

 

Problems can be solved if the user regards an item as an 'asset'.  One example was a fridge, delivered a few months ago. Apart from the foam packing, the wooden slats were all 19x19mm, and about 750mm long. I haven't used them yet, but I know it's 'in stock'.... 

[tomparryharry]

7 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 Surely it's hard soldering the rubber.......

I tried to work in a joke about rubber, Vulcans, and Star Trek.....

[Esmedune]

11 hours ago, AdamsRadial said:

I've chopped up old umbrellas in the past for the metal sections, and you can often find useful bits in old car wiper-blades.

It finally dawned on me which bits if the wiper you were on about, and it doesn't seem as bonkers, but aren't they a bit springy?

[AdamsRadial]

12 hours ago, Esmedune said:

but aren't they a bit springy?

Yes, they're not ideal for everything. You can sometimes heat-treat them to remove a lot of the spring by quenching them in a saline solution.

 

Like TomParryHarry I try to make a virtue of re-using as much as I can of what is usually regarded as mere packaging. I'm a vegetarian myself but since my partner isn't and does like corned beef I try to persuade her to live of it because the tin cans it comes in are nice and flat and solder easily.

[SR71]

Albion Alloys supply miniature metal sections as well as K&S (think the latter is right, they are American so less common here). Looking through their catalogues should give you the search terms you need.