What's the most unusual/unique material/item you've used in building your layout?

[ReadingBob]

I used to cut up the shafts of ice hockey sticks (once the blade broke and they were no longer useful) for risers, etc. Alas, I don't play anymore so I lost my source.

[Anonymous]

I used some fancy round toothpicks for guard rails along side a road. The ones I used had two grooves at the top spaced about 1/16" apart. I used some grey thread that I coated with white glue so it wouldn't get fuzzy as cables between the guard posts. I just wrapped the thread around the grooves, went to the next one did the same and kept going until I reached the end.

Ed Schultz

[easyaces]

Some very thin flat wood coffee stir sticks make great lumber stacks glued together and bundled. They also work well for scratch-building clap-board sided houses. .177cal. airgun pellets(flat head and field point pellets) make neat looking rooftop vents for some buildings and factories. I also use that gray/white paperboard (you get in new packages of socks and shirts) to build HO scale buildings with.

[Anonymous]

Many years ago I used flashcubes painted grey as a load on a flatcar. (for you younger guys a flashcube was a small ~ 1" cube holding 4 flash bulbs that rotated on top of the camera so the bottom had a plastic turning mechanism that when painted and turned upside down looked pretty good - at least to my then 15 year old eyes)

Cliff

[dharmon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by brothaslide

QUOTE: Originally posted by dharmon

Okay......don't laugh........but to dampen noise and vibration is some locomotives I have used.....the self adhesive panty liner thingys....you know..what the wife keeps under the bathroom sink......absorbs...sound ..like a champ. Just cut to fit, peel and stick!

Dan,

You need to submitt an article to MR about this. [(-D][(-D][(-D]

Well first I need to make sure I have "prior art", before MTH tries to patent it and sue me.....

[Junctionfan]

I used fire for a disaster sceen on the layout but I had to replace the layout afterwards (just kidding)

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: The valve stem caps sound like an excellent idea!! With the little ridges in them they do look very much like some of the fancier ones that you see outside of down town buildings.

Wouldn't that also make them great for old metal garbage cans? Just paint em silver [;)]

[brothaslide]

QUOTE: Originally posted by dharmon

Okay......don't laugh........but to dampen noise and vibration is some locomotives I have used.....the self adhesive panty liner thingys....you know..what the wife keeps under the bathroom sink......absorbs...sound ..like a champ. Just cut to fit, peel and stick!

Dan,

You need to submitt an article to MR about this. [(-D][(-D][(-D]

[Anonymous]

The valve stem caps sound like an excellent idea!! With the little ridges in them they do look very much like some of the fancier ones that you see outside of down town buildings.

[willy6]

I used "alphabet soup noodles" for raised letters on a building, they will expand a little when painted.Also used black valve stem caps from car tires for pots for potted trees.And angel hair spagetti for pvc pipe.

[RedLeader]

Yank:

Once you paint the trimed hair with enamel, it will stay stiff. Don't use gel... LOL!

[Junctionfan]

I use saw dust for the woodchip cars, kitty-litter for aggregate cars and real coal that has been in a blender for the coal cars.

[Anonymous]

That straw idea is nice

If you can get it, steel banding makes great sheet metal loads (use the 1" wide kind used to band heavy pallets at factories. There's always a bunch of it in scrap bins, just ask someone there if you can grab a couple pieces). It is a bit heavy, though that also makes it good for adding weight to rolling stock.

[Anonymous]

Rustoleum makes a spray on coating for tool handles. It is slightly rough. It is available in red, black, yellow, etc. I took some plastic drinking straws, cut them to length, then sprayed them with the black coating. Now, they look like large cast iron pipes.

[Anonymous]

I used small, old roots from a bush in my backyard for dead trees on my layout.

[Anonymous]

Some super ideas here, but the pantyliners tops the list!! LOL, that is classic.

A few things I have used:

1.) I have a large grain terminal on my HO layout. You know the large piles of corn that are out in fall especially, I went to the neighbors feed grinder and filled a 5 gallon pail of ground corn, it looks great scale-wise making corn piles. and smells realistic too.

2.) I use the steal shavings mentioned earlier from a shop-friend of mines shop to fill my gondolas, very nice for making ore. especially the natural rust colered shavings. To get that effect, just leave the shavings outside for about a week, giving them a mist of water 3-4 times during the week.

3.) I also have flat cars I use for hauling steel strips. What I did there was use black plastic "zip ties", cut ends off, and glue them in "stacks", and then bind them with white zip ties. The zip ties are lightweight too.

4.) For my other flat cars cars carrying coils of wire, I use ultra-thin guage (almost hair-like) copper wire. I get an endless supply from a friend who works in an electric motor manufacturing plant that they discard. I wind these tightly around those miniature spools that thread comes on and mount 4-6 on my flat cars. I paint the spools a flat gray before winding the wire on them and then a dab of glue secured the wound wire. Looks great.

5.) I also have a meat packing plant on my layout. One end of the building is open on one end for viewing. You know where they hang the sides of beef from hooks and the sides move on tracks mounted on the ceiling? I have very small eye bolts on the ceiling where I run heavy guage fishing line through. Mounted On the fishing lines I have very small fishhooks glued to the fishing line that I hang pieces of wadded up leather painted red/pink to simulate the beef. I have mounted near my control a ultra lite fishing reel that when I crank, the sides of beef rotate around the building as if they are being loaded from an assembly line into my refrigerator cars. Sounds complicated, but very realistic.

6.) For my grain elevator, I use white PVC pipe to make the silos and weather them with gray chalk with very small rust chalk lines. Its the best thing I have found.

7.) I also have a radio station located on my layout. What I used to make the four radio towers were old tv and stereo antennaes. The cable used to support these is "spider-wire" brand fishing lines secured to my base wrapped around a small screw, covered with lichen. The best part is when Im running my layout under low light, I have run up the hollow centers of the antennaes small guage wire and at four points on each antennae I have tiny red lights thatI drilled (tiny holes) on the antennaes to a relay that when I turn on, they all blink on-off and different intervals. At that same radio station I also have two satellite dishes that I made from two small, smooth coffee saucers my wife "donated", painted a slight gray. The dishes sit at a 30 degree angle or so and made the bases from old silverware, cut and ground to look like steel gridwork, very realistic in my opinion. The radio station is an exact replica of a radio station about 8 miles from my home that sits one mile from the real 1:1 BNSF line in my area. I modeled it from photos I took.

Those are my favorite "home made" items

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by mondotrains

I've used wooden skewers, you know, the kind you use for barbecuing shrimp on the grill, for making great-looking guard rails.

Safety matches work great too (the fireplace matches are best). They make good rough lumber stacks as well.

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