When I did the cabooses I had purchased a package of curved grab irons to save myself some work. Unfortunately they only fit one caboose out of eight so I had to make the rest. Getting a consistent curve isn't too hard. All you need is something that is somewhat smaller in diameter than the curve in the grab irons will be. I used the handle of my X-acto knife. Wrap the wire around the handle, and, once you have the curve where you want it, bend the ends 90 degrees and clip the stubs to length. This is where a styrene jig will allow you to make each curve the same and get the positions of the posts correct too.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
I had thought about getting wire and bending them myself. I have used needle nose pliers to bend stanchions before (for my GP-20s). Bending straights would work for most of the passenger car rails. (Unfortunately, some of the cars and the caboose need curved rails. The way it sounds, it might be just as cost effective to order a package of the curved ones and go from there.)
FRRYKid:
You can make your own jigs out of sheet styrene for HO scale grabs. I just did a fleet of eight cabooses where I had to fabricate more than 200 individual grabs, some of which were a bit complicated in shape:
I'm sorry but I can't find the jigs to show you a picture (I sure hope I kept them!). For grabs with several bends, basically what you do is start with a flat sheet of styrene and then cut the outline of the grab into a second sheet and glue it on to the first sheet. You don't really need to make a groove by adding a third shaped sheet.
If you are doing simple 'C' shaped grabs for the car sides all you need is a single sheet of styrene with a hole the size of the wire drilled the length of the grab from the edge of the sheet. Make your first 90 degree bend, then drop the bend into the hole, and then bend the other end at the edge of the styrene.
I use phosphor bronze .015' dia wire from Tichy Train Group. It is easy to bend but stiff enough that it won't be damaged when you are handling the car. If you are counting rivets, .010" would be closer to scale but it will be damaged more easily. I don't recommend using brass because it will distort every time it is touched with any force at all. You can use music wire which is very stiff. In that case the styrene won't be hard enough to make the bend neatly but you can still use the jig to mark the proper length.
https://www.tichytraingroup.com/Shop/tabid/91/c/ho_wire/Default.aspx
Hopefully doctorwayne will chime in to show you some of his styrene jigs.
If you can find scale drawings, it's possible to make them without a jig. I did all the handrails in the pic below using drawings published in MR. I used a miniature needle-nose pliers to bend the wire, and a Sharpie to mark where the bend should be.
Steve S
I bought a Micro-Mark grabiron-bending jig a couple of years ago for bending various sized grabs on O scale models and have used it quite a bit for modeling grab ladders on the four OT boxcars I'm building. It's very handy, but it's pricey (and getting pricier, jumping several dollars every year--as is absolutely everything), so you should weigh the purchase against future usage. As I said, it is handy and I've used it for bending brass strip for corner stirrups and brake paltforms on the ends of cars.
I remember that kink of dedicating a pair of needlenose pliers for bending grabs and it's fairly simple for HO, but as I keep telling my friends, "O scale is BIG!" and not everything that works for HO will work in 1/4 inch scale. I also remember a kink showing how to use regular straight-jawed pliers to make grabs in multiple--but I have enough trouble making them one at a time. The MM jig makes it fairly easy to line up the bends to keep both legs pointed parallel, but I still keep a couple of pairs of pliers handy for lining them up, grasping the legs and twisting a bit to get them both pointed in the same direction.
My late brother, Dwaine, mentored me when I was a teenager and told me to buy high quality tools--or buy the the best you can afford at the time and replace them with better stuff when you can afford it. And for Pete's sake (whoever he is), don't be afraid to have duplicates. No matter how big a workbench I have, I always found myself working in an area not much larger than a square foot--and having to pause in the job to hunt down strayed tools, which seem to come to life and scurry away, to hide under something. Old dogs and new tricks be damned: I was nearing 60 when I finally decided, after wasting too much time hunting tools I'd just set down and ordered a tool caddy from Micro-Mark. I trained myself to put any tool I didn't intend to use shortly back in the caddy. Saves a lot of time!
BTW, I have six pairs of pliers of various kinds and sizes in the caddy, and several more that I don't often use, in tool drawers.
Deano
American Model Builders has a bending jig for passenger cars. It's kit number 900 http://www.laserkit.com/laserkit.htm look under HO Scale Passenger Car Sides. It's all the way at the bottom of the page. They used to list a bending jig for caboose grab irons, I have one I bought a few years ago, but I can't find it on their website now.
FRRYKid Does anyone know where I might find a jig for bending handrails? I have a few projects where I will need them and bending them will be cheaper that trying to get them premade (and with a few, I don't think they even come in the sizes I need.) I have seen them in the past in various places. However, I checked both Walthers and my favorite online hobby locale (a.k.a. eBay) earlier today and derailed in the process. Thank you in advance for any ideas the forums might have.
Does anyone know where I might find a jig for bending handrails? I have a few projects where I will need them and bending them will be cheaper that trying to get them premade (and with a few, I don't think they even come in the sizes I need.) I have seen them in the past in various places. However, I checked both Walthers and my favorite online hobby locale (a.k.a. eBay) earlier today and derailed in the process. Thank you in advance for any ideas the forums might have.
Sorry, I should have clarified. The handrails are for passenger cars (Both streamliners and a few heavyweights) and a caboose. Scale is mentioned in the title.
Hand rails for what? Locomotives? Cabeese? Tank cars? Other rolling stock? Buildings? Bridges? What scale?