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Corrugating with aluminium


JCL

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi there

 

Hmm, first the disclaimer, this post is about a gadget supplied by Brunel Hobbies in Australia. I don't have any links with them at all.

 

Job's Modelling created a thread about a new approach to modelling in the Card Structure Modelling forum and at one point there was a discussion about corrugated steel and the best way to create it. Various suggestions were made, some that provided scale corrugations, and some that gave a 3D texture more suited to corrugated asbestos sheeting. In response to this I bought a small gadget from Brunel Hobbies in Australia that consists of two pieces of acrylic with ridges etched into them. The idea is that you cut out some aluminium, place it on the base above the ridges, run your finger along it so that you know where the corrugations will be formed, and then run the paddle along to imprint the corrugations in the metal.

 

The gadget I bought was $15AUD and is to HO scale but other scales were available. I did think that the postage was pretty steep, but on the other hand, I live 3 1/2 hours from a model shop and I now have an endless supply of corrugated steel if I want it. A different poster on the above thread said you could do the same thing with Wills sheet if it does mesh, and I suppose you could make your own gadget.

 

The process that I have quickly come to follow is:

  1. Roughly cut out a sheet of heavy-duty aluminium foil (or ultrafort as they say over here) and smooth it out. The size that works for me is about 5"x5"
  2. Starting at one edge of the foil put it on the base and rub a finger along it so a faint imprint shows on the foil.
  3. With your fingers at the top clamped firmly onto the foil so it doesn't move, run the paddle along the rows. Try to make sure that at least one end is square to the end as this helps when cutting later. The sheets will curl, don't worry about this.
  4. Cut down each side along a corrugation trough, then, with the ruler running across the end, cut the end off (which is why I tried to make the end as parallel as possible to the sides).
  5. Personally I then cut two "sheets" the width of the ruler and had a bit spare.

It's not easy to do to start off with, but you soon get used to the process and it gets faster. I already have the walls cut out of photo mat with a temporary layer of Scalescenes printed corrugations on it. I marked out with the ruler the location of the edges, put a strip of double-sided tape at the bottom and top and 1/2 way either side of the middle joins (if you see what I mean, it's been a long day), and then using the craft knife placed each sheet onto the tape and pressed down.

 

So far I've found that it's pretty easy to do, if a bit mind numbing, you need a very sharp knife otherwise the metal will tear and your work surface has to be very clean if you don't want specks of dust to show through.

 

I'm really pleased so far with the result, the test will come when I've painted the result and put it onto the layout.

 

Well, best get back to it :)

 

The paddle and base showing the corrugations

post-14192-0-17994800-1359420775_thumb.jpg

 

The resulting imprinted sheet with its slight curl

post-14192-0-80862900-1359420757_thumb.jpg

 

The corrugated sheets stuck to the card and cut through.

post-14192-0-03396500-1359420743_thumb.jpg

 

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  • RMweb Gold

Thanks Doug, that's very kind - I wrote a lot of IT user guides before I changed career and opened a B&B! If people look at my posts they will notice a preponderance of bullet points and numbered lists, I can't help myself :)

 

I'm working on the main body of the shed right now. The aluminium foil is going on well, and remarkably the vertical lines camouflage the fact that the little sheets aren't perfectly square. One thing I didn't mention is that I use the heavy duty foil for the following reasons:

It is much less likely to tear

It's actually easier to smooth out

It seems to hold the imprinting better

 

I'll report back when I'm done.

 

cheers

 

Jason

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Jason

Have you by any chance tried curving the corrugated sheet against to corrugations as per the old Quonset huts?  The "Bibby" shed at New Waltham was made thus and I would like to try to model it but have not been able to shape the various commercial corrugated sheets without them kinking.

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi there

 

That's a great looking signal box. Unfortunately I don't get a chance very often to get Slaters plastic-card, and unfortunately, whenever I get to a model shop they seem to be out of that particular sheet (but always seem to have it in other scales I think)

 

The aluminium is very easy to curve as it's pretty thin, and it keeps it's corrugations as well. The embossing seems to be stronger if you use the thicker "turkey" foil. Also, it actually curves naturally when you emboss it. To curve it the way you want just run it between your thumb and finger. Because the sheets are effectively double-sided, you could build your Quonset hut either using a solid shell and covering it with the foil, or using a framework and leaving the doors open.

 

I'm making a pile of them pretty quickly now that I have the hang of it.

 

Sorry for the poor photo, I'm having to take them on the iPhone at the moment.

 

post-14192-0-91823900-1359497963.jpg

 

cheers

 

Jason

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  • RMweb Gold

In the meantime, here's a crazy idea. In my part of Lincolnshire pantiles are a common style of roofing, but the Wills sheets are pretty thick. I took a sheet of heavy duty foil, a sheet of Wills pantiles and a q-tip and rubbed the foil into the pantiles (wow, was caught out by autocorrect there!) the photo shows the result sprayed with car primer so it's still got a bit of shine on it. An idea though, and it's possible you could try it with Slaters corrugated sheet as well.

post-14192-0-02662800-1359512176_thumb.jpg

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  • RMweb Gold

I had a quick look at producing a Quonset/Nissen style hut in reply to Theakerr to test a few modelling ideas and materials, and came up with the hut in the picture below. It was a test exercise, so I wasn't too concerned about actual dimensions, just something that looked about right. There's loads on Wikipedia etc of info to get the size exactly right. The hut was produced as follows:

  1. Cut the end off a mailing tube the length of the hut and cut in half lengthways with a Stanley knife. The tube I used was 8cm in diameter and 11cm long.
  2. Make a few corrugated aluminium sheets. I've changed the way I do this. I just cut along the full width of a roll of thick foil and use the corrugator mentioned above to make multiple sheets. Then I cut each one out.
  3. Use a ruler to make lines on the tube the same as the width of the sheets
  4. Stick double sided tape over the lines
  5. Draw around the outside diameter of the tube on some card to form the ends of the hut. I used mounting card because I've a supply to use up.
  6. Apply the texture of your choice to the card. My grandad's Nissen Hut had an end made of wood as far as I remember and the outside was a red primer type colour.
  7. Apply the corrugated sheets to the lines. The top of each sheet should butt up against the line. I started on one side, went over the top and came down the other side. I also overlapped a half sheet at the end to take into account the "brick wall" that will butt up to each end.
  8. Cut lengthways down the middle of each sheet to make it approximately the right size (I forgot to do this and I think it shows). You can do this on or off the building.
  9. Spray a couple of coats of grey car primer/undercoat onto the corrugated aluminium.
  10. Superglue the prepared ends walls to the building
  11. Use a new craft knife blade to trim the aluminium back to the front and back walls.
  12. I used some great watercolour felt tip pens (orange and greys) by Tombo to colour the aluminium and a kitchen towel to wipe off the excess, and to paint the door and window sill. You need to be careful if you use use these pens though because they can take the primer off and leave a slight shine.
  13. The window was quickly mocked up using some salad box plastic and a white extra fine point oil based sharpie.

I think the whole thing from beginning to end took about 2 hours, and there's a bit of matte varnishing and touching up still to do. I've included a mock up of how I did it behind the almost finished hut.

 

If you are going to produce a hut from plans and you don't have a tube of the right diameter, I'd suggest forming the base for the aluminium from laminated card. You definitely need some sort of backing for the sheets because they will be fairly fragile on their own and will dent easily. It is foil after all!

 

The hut will end up in a field behind a hedge or something.

 

cheers

 

Jason

 

post-14192-0-92876600-1360095171_thumb.jpg

 

post-14192-0-51318700-1360096058_thumb.jpg

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Hi JCL,

That looks really good and the one I want to make will be a bit taller (with corrugated ends and an airlock type side entrance), so if theory it should be easier since the curve will be less.    I guess I will have to order one of those little gizmos from Down Under.

Jim

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  • RMweb Gold

Here are a couple more ideas:

 

When I buy lightbulbs the bulbs are packed in thin corrugated card with backing only on one side. Probably perfect if you aren't great at soaking regular cardboard, bu probably not good to curve. Another one to represent corrugated asbestos.

 

You might also like to look up Tom Fassett on eBay, he also sells presses in different scales, and they seem to be slightly cheaper.

 

Finally, Iain Robinson Is weathering asbestos corrugations here: http://iainrobinsonmodels.blogspot.ca/

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • RMweb Gold

I feel like I'm a dog with a bone on this subject. Alternative methods, and refinements to existing methods pop up from time to time. I'll add to this thread if I find any more just for completeness.

 

So I was reading through Model Rail issue 160 - September 2011 when I found a large article on making corrugated iron. They did the Wills sheet press style of forming the ridges except they used a Modelscene corrugated panel.

 

A useful tip was to distress the end of the aluminium sheet using a map pin to make it look like it's rotting.

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