I'm trying to find some small HO scale clapboard siding wood parts (side walls, wide walls with windows, end walls with doorways) normally used for scratchbuilding. I want to experiment with staining/painting before I work on an actual model to see what colors look best.
I don't see these items on northeastern scale lumber or barmills sites. What vendor provides stock supplies of bass wood clapboard siding like this?Thanks!
ChrisVA I'm trying to find some small HO scale clapboard siding wood parts (side walls, wide walls with windows, end walls with doorways) normally used for scratchbuilding. I want to experiment with staining/painting before I work on an actual model to see what colors look best. I don't see these items on northeastern scale lumber or barmills sites. What vendor provides stock supplies of bass wood clapboard siding like this?Thanks!
Found them at Foscalemodels.com
https://fosscalemodels.com/collections/ho-wall-sections
I'd use either cardstock or styrene sheet for this long before 'scale lumber'.
I have not seen tools or jigs for 'gang cutting' this, but many years ago I developed a rig that used the equivalent of multiple Auto World 'hot knife' heads (think X-acto #1 blades chucked in low-power soldering irons) attached by set screws to a bar on lateral guide tracks that could be adjusted to a range of needed widths to gang-cut many strips (in my case, plastic half-ties to go in molded continuous-cast concrete roadbed) from sheet or profiled stock easily, relatively precisely, and quickly. (I could get strips 'finer' than the physical spacing between hot-knives by taking strips and tacking them to a clear sheet with graph-paper grid behind it at the correct relative spacing and offset, then turn the strips 90 degrees to cut to length.)
A modern alternative to all that rigmarole would be to program one of the 'Cricut' style graphics cutters that is capable of dealing with the appropriate stock and thickness and 'letting 'er rip' for a few minutes or hours. This is much the same approach as making up 3D 'grout lines' for printed brick or stone wall stock, but cutting all the way through with as minimal edge distortion as practical.
There have been many discussions, here and elsewhere, about how to simulate scale 'woodgrain' on card or plastic -- one approach is appropriate-grit sandpaper 'jittered' in a pass with appropriate pressure across the surface before or after cutting. Likewise there is a considerable body of wisdom about painting and staining car or plastic to 'look like wood' -- weathered or otherwise.
I bought a ton of clapboard from Northeastern when I was accumulating my collection of "Lifetime Supplies" for my next layout.
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
They still list clapboard, and many other styles, on their website.
They gave great service, and the whole order process was smooth as silk.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I also use a mixture of wood and styrene siding. Any significant scratch building project will eventually require some creation of segments that aren't commercially available, so you'd might as well accept your fate. Just get some sheets of material and don't try to create a kit just so you can build it.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.