I was planning to use the styrene as I then don't have to deal with multiple adhesives for styrene to styrene and styrene to wood. Additionally, as mentioned, tar and gravel are easier to do on styrene than wood. The styrene is also less expensive, especially when you're on a budget. I am looking at at least 8 different sizes of HO styrene "lumber" in order to create the board sizes I need. The thickest lumber made is 6" thick and 12" wide so almost all of the sizes I need will have to be glued up.
One of the reasons I have pretty-well given up on using wood for modelling it that sheet material, such as scribed wood, has a grain that's visible when stained (and sometimes when painted, too), but it is, of course, continuous over the entire sheet, and not varying from board-to-board. The grooves between boards are also too pronounced for my tastes - in the real world, boards spaced that widely would require battens to be weathertight.
On wood sheet material, it might be difficult to apply a simulation of tar & gravel on it unless it's well-sealed first, while scribed sheet styrene would require only some paint.
Just my thoughts on the subject.
Wayne
I would use sheets of real scribed wood from someplace like Northeast Scale Lumber. I used to live close to their now-defunct retail store, and found it a great resource.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
As to all the questions: This is a short 70s era vehicle bridge that holds about 12 tons. The decking is 2x4 but the framing is fairly strong stringers. The deck is then covered with tar and gravel. I was sent a set of blueprints from our state Department of Transportation for the bridge. I need to email the gentleman that sent them to me again on Monday to double check a blueprint detail.
I had though about using the mentioned car siding. I have used it on other projects and it worked well.
Micromark offers ship decking in several sizes:
https://www.micromark.com/Ship-Decking
I seem to recall Micromark also offered a sheet of individual boards glued to a substrate but I don't see it at the moment.
Northeastern had three-board planking in long strips to be used for box car roofwalk. I'm sure you can find some through the usual channels.
Also, depending on how wide you need, Central Valley has a nice distressed plank fence that can double as a boardwalk:
https://www.shop.cvmw.com/FenceRailings-1601.htm
Good luck, Ed
Evergreen makes scribed styrene sheets with a number of different "board" spacings. Check their scribed car siding. They also offer HO scale 2"x4" strip material (not their .020"x.040") - the 2"x4" is item 8204. If you have a NWSL "Chopper", cutting individual planks would be pretty easy.
I looked through my fairly well-stocked supply of Evergreen material, and found exactly what you seek: Evergreen item 3047 - O scale Passenger Car siding. It's sheet material .030" thick (a bit more than 2" in HO scale, which would be .022"), but the board width matches-up exactly to the 4" dimension of the HO scale strip material.
The sheet size is 6"x12", with the grooves running across the 6" dimension. If you're ordering it through Walthers, the Walthers prefix is 269.
hon30critterOff the top of my head, I would suggest looking at sheets with 0.060" or 0.080" spacing between the lines and 0.040" thick
Dave, I'd guess that a wooden bridge might have support joists more closely-spaced than the floor in a house, especially if it's using 2"x4" decking. Of course, we don't really know if it's a bridge for vehicles or merely a pedestrian overpass. An HO scale inch is around .011", and the 2"x4" strip material is .022"x .043".
It's possible that the prototype of the bridge is a light-duty one, and 2"x4"s might offer less chance of cupping from rain or snow. However, I would think that most wooden bridges not even subject to heavy vehicles would use boards at least a full 3" thick, or maybe the 2"x4"s on-edge.As I mentioned in another thread, I visited a former cotton mill, and learned that the floors there (on steel sub-framing) were 2"x6"s on-edge, in two layers laid 90º to one another.
I very seldom use wood for modelling nowadays, but I had some laying around when I built the turntable at Lowbanks, and I think that it turned out well-enough...
On the other hand, the turntable at Mount Forest is Walthers notorious 90'er. I modified the bridge deck using strip styrene to widen it by one board on each side, in order to add supports for new handrails.
Hi, Northeastern Scale Lumber Co. and Kappler Mill and Lumber both make scribed sheets made from actual wood in a variety of sizes. Evergreen Scale Models makes sheets of HO scale freight car siding in styrene with scribes spaced every 3.25 inches (item #2037) but you need to "scratch" on wood grain to the styrene as it has a smooth finish.
Hi FRRYKid,
You can get scribed styrene sheets from Evergreen Scale Models with various spacings and thicknesses. Off the top of my head, I would suggest looking at sheets with 0.060" or 0.080" spacing between the lines and 0.040" thick:
https://evergreenscalemodels.com/collections/040-1-0mm-opaque-white-polystyrene-v-groove-siding/products/4080-080-opaque-white-polystyrene-v-groove-siding
However, let's look at some other options:
First question - are you sure that the deck is built with 2x4s? Lumber of that size doesn't offer a lot of strength on its own. It does work well in places like walls where it is usually loaded end wise and is stabilized with materials like drywall, but when laid flat across beams at normal 16" centers or so, it is pretty flexible.
Second question - wouldn't 2 x 6s or 2 x 8s look just as good?
Third question, or comment rather - scribed panels are available and would be easy to use, but would they look realistic? Deck boards are not typically perfectly uniform. They have small irregularities and their colours vary slightly. Also, they are distinctly separate from each other. A scribed sheet will be perfectly uniform, and the gaps won't go down all the way between the boards.
My suggestion is to use wider real wood separate boards and stain them individually. This is a turntable deck that I did using that method:
The photographs make the colours more pronounced than they really are, but if you click on the picture I think you will be able to see the small irregular gaps that I am referring to.
As Ulrich said, laying a bunch of individual boards isn't all that difficult or time consuming, and the results are usually very rewarding.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
If you don´t want to cut individual pieces, get a scriber and a sheet of styrene and mark the boards accordingly.
Individually laid boards look much better, though, and 90+ boards is not a big job...
For my On30 engine house, I cut 1,200 individual shingles from thin veneer.
Happy times!
Ulrich (aka The Tin Man)
"You´re never too old for a happy childhood!"
I am need of some modeling help from my Forum friends. I am planning to building a HO version of a prototype bridge. Where I am running into a problem is the deck is made up of individual 2x4s on a approximately 25' long bridge. I don't really want to have to lay 90-95 individual pieces of styrene. Does any company make a scribed sheet that replicates individually laid HO 2x4s so that I don't have to lay that many? As usual, any assistance that can be provided would be most welcomed.