Some very old MR articles on making house cars made roofs out of two pieces of wood where in essence the challenge was to create bracing pieces beneath at the correct angle. That roof could be replicated with sheet wood of modest thickness. Or as Wayne points out, do it in plastic.
Indeed with care styrene can be lightly scribed so it "bends" cleanly at the scribed line, and bent to the desired roof angle, with styrene shapes underneath holding it to that angle. So you could do the entire roof with one piece of styrene, properly braced from beneath. Such a modest angle should not result in the styrene breaking in two, and while there may be a slight "stretch mark" at the bend area, for vintage freight car roofs there is a running board covering it anyway.
This may sound nuts, but at swap meets American Flyer S and Lionel 0-27 (very close to S in size) junker freight cars are so plentiful and often quite cheap, I'd think there is a supply of fodder for plastic roofs right there, even if all the cast on detail was sanded off and they were used strictly for their size and shape.
Dave Nelson
Jock, I'm curious why you're using wood for this project? I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong about doing so, but when sheet styrene, along with strips and shapes, became readily available, I quit using wood for model building, and it made modelling much more enjoyable and much more productive, too.
I did use wood to build a garage, then later a pretty fair-sized house, and a bunch of furniture, too, but nothing more for my train layout...well, the benchwork, I guess, but I consider that part of the house.
Here's a LINK to a thread showing some revisions to some Tyco HO scale 40' reefers. Along the way, the cars get shortened, but what may be of interest to you is the installation on the re-worked cars of radial roofs.
This one
The whole point of those two links is to show an alternative for what you wish to accomplish. I've found that I can do more, both faster and better than I ever did in wood, and I enjoy the work much more than I ever did modelling in wood.
Styrene materials are available in sizes suitable for pretty-well any scale, and another upside is the paucity of tools needed to get good results.
Wayne
Another idea. Build something up from HO roof stock by adding a standard sized board(a) to it. The angle should be right, just needs to be wider.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
The Northeastern S scale caboose roof is rounded not angled. It is the only remaining S scale railroad car part left.
I think as someone said using the O scale inner roof and triming it to S scale width is probably the best way to go.
Another option is to take 2 flat pieces each half the width needed and sand a bevel in each so they can be joined down the middle. You'll have to sand your end blocks to match.
Paul
Yeah, it sounds like contacting Northeastern is the easiest - and probably the cheapest.
Jock Ellis Cumming, GA US of A Georgia Association of Railroad Passengers
RR_MelI like that idea!
maxman I see that Northeastern sells an S scale caboose roof. I can't tell from the website what the actual configuration is, but wood ummm would it be possible to glue two pieces end to end to get the length you need?
I see that Northeastern sells an S scale caboose roof. I can't tell from the website what the actual configuration is, but wood ummm would it be possible to glue two pieces end to end to get the length you need?
I like that idea! Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
The manual plane is the closes thing I have to a planer.
You might try the Dremel router with the appropriate cutters. I’ve done pretty good with my router.This is my post on making corner posts.https://melvineperry.blogspot.com/2013/01/scratch-building-1916-sears-catalog-home.html Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
RR_MelI had to dig around to find it. This is an X-acto somewhere around 25 years old. Haven’t used it much but I just tried it and it seems to work OK...
Mr. Perry, bless your heart, but that is a plane, not a planer, which is a power-operated machine with rotating knives in a heavy drum. You might use a plane to bevel a piece of stock but it would be tedious...
I would agree that you might be able to do 'roof stock' in a planer by attaching it securely to a pre-planed carrier board with a shim piece raising the stock to the right angle, then reversing the piece and adjusting planer drum height for symmetrical removal. That would let you run even small stock in a larger and more stable planer with enough control over infeed speed.
A somewhat cheaper expedient would be to use a belt sander with a suitable 'handle' attached to the roof stock and the bevel and centerline marked on both ends. "Process" until all six marks are just 'touched' and you have taken care of bevel and straightness together. You could do this on a properly flat sanding plate or block if you have the patience.
The problem with little planers is that, to be any good, they need to be heavily constructed and have good rotational inertia in their drive, and so their cost is a good percentage of a 'real' planer suitable for a vastly wider number of jobs. At one time I had a small (I think 3" wide) "rotary plane" with tiny adjustable knives that worked reasonably well -- this was like half a planer, a handheld tool. Presumably you could make a frame to use it as a formal stock planer on a good flat feed surface like a table or radial-arm saw.
I was all gung-ho to say 'what you want is a shaper, not a planer (which is in keeping with the suggestion to use narrow-kerf no-offset veneer blade in a table saw) but then I got to thinking about the double bevel. You would need to mount the stock in a milled recess in a longer carrier board with both infeed and outfeed faces to cut the second bevel without shimming the outfeed fence... same for using a router table.
I had to dig around to find it. This is an X-acto somewhere around 25 years old. Haven’t used it much but I just tried it and it seems to work OK.
EDIT:
Mel My Model Railroad http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/ Bakersfield, California I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
I think using a saw will give you more reproducible results. Kind of hard to set up specific angles with a planer, which works better where everything is parallel with each other.
That said, trimming the edges off O scale stock sounds like the easiest path here?
You should be able to make it with a table saw or radial arm saw with the blade set at an angle. Just run the wood through then turn it upside down and do the second side
Does anyone know of a small, hobbiest-sized planer that can produce the angled boxcar roofline of wood? I may have to buy Northeastern O scale roofs and cut them down to size for S scale.