If you've built a kit, you should have the beginnings of a scrap box. Extra parts, sprues, cut pieces... can all be converted to junk. Here's a few I've done recently...
This one has coupler shims from Micro Trains, some broken wheels, bolster king pins, old coupler springs and a variety of other bits and pieces.
More of the same, with some styrene scrapings to look like curly bits of scrap metal.
This is from a commercial casting I modified... It was twice as tall, so I cut it in half, then added some smashed up Bachmann autos on top to give it some more detail.
I made this rebar load using some stranded wire leftover from a ceiling fan installation...
This structural steel load was built from Evergreen H beam strips.
You don't have to spend a ton of money on details. Just pay attention to what you have laying around, and maybe organize it a bit so you can go back and get it when you need it.
The other rule, of course, is NEVER throw anything away!
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
For shredded metal, get heavy duty aluminum foil. Spray paint it various colors, black, grey and primer red plus assorted colors. Then get an old blender, put some water in it, add chunks of the aluminum foil and blend the mixture. It will shred the foil and depending on how much is painted, it will be somewhat shiny. If you want more rusted then cover a surface with glue, sprinkly on the shredded foil and paint it a rust color.
If you soak steel wool in vinegar you can get a really nasty rust colored solution. WARNING Do not get the steel wool particles or the rust solution near track or around where motors can pick up pieces or electrical/electronic components.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Present-day car crushers put out a square-box shape about 2 x 2 x 4 feet, which can be made from that heavy-duty foil. Spray both sides rust, then overspray with your least-favorite automotive color (or the one most commonly used in your modeled location.) Make a jig from 1/4 inch wood, 1/4 inch between sides and with plugs to limit the cavity to 1/2 inch lenngth. Crunch the foil into the cavity. A little experimentation will tell you how much foil to use to simulate a squashed 4-wheeler. If you want to lift it with a magnet, bury a small piece of steel in the foil.
Back when soda cans were steel, I cut one up, saving the bits with paint from the labels, and sprayed the pile with a little tomato juice. After a few days I had real rust...
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September - with new ideas for through-train gondola loads)
I kept a bunch of older N Scale brass sectional track that will be dismantled and used for gondola/flatcar loads and/or visible outdoor storage in trainyards.
Conemaugh Road & Traction circa 1956
Well does anyone know where I can get some modern day equipment that one would find in a scrap yard? I would like to have at least one of each of heavy equipment outfitted with a grabber and one with an electromagnet, preferably nonworking? That seems to be my biggest problem, just locating prototypical scrap yard equipment. I guess I am going to have to have a car crusher and some sort of conveyor belt system to transport metal from barge to yard or from yard to gondola. Any ideas where I can get these things or make myself would be extremely helpful. Thanks again!
jammin.madridWell does anyone know where I can get some modern day equipment that one would find in a scrap yard?
Well does anyone know where I can get some modern day equipment that one would find in a scrap yard?
As a starter here's modern freight car prototypes...
FreightCar America, formerly Johnstown America, formerly Bethlehem Steel Freight Car Division has CoalPorters, BethGons, etc. In fact, modern gondolas rival hopper tonnage capacity, but have a lower center of gravity, and more cost--efficient long-term maintenance.
http://www.johnstownamerica.com/
Hi
This is from www.mremag.com hints and tips... I know it is English but it still applies
Ever wondered if you could recycle your washed aluminium foil or foil chocolate wrapper? Roll your foil into tight balls about 1/2" or so diameter then take a pair of slip joint pliers and using the jaws mould them into cubes.
Being Scrap metal, they would be discoloured so paint them with a rusty orange/brown colour. A number of cubes and you therefore have a load of scrap metal for that otherwise unemployed open wagon... and you can enjoy your way on two fronts to make them!
Hope this helps
Regards
Trevor
Hold on a minute with the scrap wagon. What kind of steel plant and what kind of product will it be shipping? That affects the type of scrap your mill would be receiving. By the way, no mill gets autos the way you showed. They would go to a processor who would remove the motors and transmissions and crush them into #1 or #2 bundles for steel mil consumption. #1 bundles also have most of the plastic (door panels, dashboard, seats, carpet, etc.) removed. Your I beams are bigger than some product and would not be scrap. That could be an outgoing product though. Cleanliness of scrap is HUGE factor as it has a big effect on pollution abatement and generation as well as steel quality. A lot of scrap comes from stamping plants where the leftover metal is loaded still shiny into gons or trucks for return to the mill and is prime stuff. If the stampings leave the waste in a strip form it is run onto a baler which makes big rolls of the stuff. Sometime parts are not up to spec. and need to be sold for scrap. That stuff is all prime scrap and would never be rusty or dirty. There is also prepainted scrap from companies making steel siding, firewalls for cars and non exposed automotive as well as many small parts. That scrap is a lower quality since the paint needs to be burnt off in the furnace also adding to pollution issues and frowned upon by most regulatory agencies if used in too high a quantity. An integrated steel mill making steel from ore has an average of 68% (the last time I saw a number) leaving the plant as product. the remainder goes back into the process as super prime scrap. Loping off the ends of rolled slabs and coils account for most of this and it never leaves the plant. Different styles of melt furnaces can utilize different quantities of scrap. Open hearth and electric fces. can utilize up to 100% scrap. If planning a BOF melt shop you are going to need about 25-33% molten metal for your charge material and a very precise recipe of bundles, bloom butts, coil ends and other forms of scrap. Making stainless steel? Same thing. You need to keep your 300 and 400 series scrap separated as well as you more exotic stainless steels. So what you are going to ship is going to dictate what materials go in the front end. Low carbon steel products can use almost anything. Higher content carbon steels require higher quality acrap and iron. Minimills have taken over most of the smaller structural market like angle iron, channel and rebar. Very few have successful flat rolled steel product lines. The auto and appliance market is a very sophisticated market requiring large volume contracts and ability to supply nationally in JIT contracts with quality being extremely important left primarily to the big boys. Same with plate mills which require massive furnaces and rolling mills and huge buildings that are nearly always square for some reason and up to 1/2 mile on a side as well as structural mills dedicated to I beams. Any steel operation requires huge storage facilities to protect the product from weather and rusting. Finished product is never placed outside. I have seen warehouses one mile long and 1/4 mile wide or larger. You have to put that stuff somehwere. The point of all this is to encourage anyone considering steel operations to not by a Walthers rolling mill which is smaller than the office of a rolling mill and slap USX on it and call it some USX works anymore than building a 4' x 8' roundy round layout and then claim it is a transcontinental railroad from New York to LA. Even a minimill needs about 100 acres of ground to be the least bit believable. Can it be done? Yes in relief as a backdrop with just the ends of the buildings showing but exercise great care to make it believable. My personal taste would be to just model the receiving yard with a picture of a steel mill on the wall. Every mill has a receiving yard and it is always right next to the railroad feeding the mill. USX Fairless Hills in Pa has a yard about five miles from the mill proper right along the corridor. Inland Steel has a lakefront yard right outside the fence that can handle several 100 car hopper trains of coal to feed the coke plant. That is where all the action is for the railroad and mill switchers take the cars from there through the plant. I have never seen a railroad road engine or switcher do the work inside a mill and I have been in every integrated mill and over half the minimills in North America. Not saying it has never happened but it would be very unusual and the exception. Those are my thoughts on steel mills.
Don't remember where I saw this but someone wrote an article a few years back and used pencil sharpener "grindings" and painted it silver and rust. It looked real good. My concern with using any
type of metal is if the car derails and stuff falls out and shorts the rails. Also - someone else uses
foil and shapes it around plastic cars, paints it up and then crushes em into piles of one car on top
of the other. Some clever folks these model railroaders!
Enjoy
Bill
Check out this store on ebay for some smalll detail parts, cranes and junk/scrap loads or piles. The store will accasionly have a crane with claws or electro-magnets as attachments
http://shop.ebay.com/savonart/m.html
As far as scrap goes, make it out of anything you can find and feel free to get creative. I have built many plastic model kits and keep all the sprues from the pieces, literally every piece of plastic that comes out of the box, if not used on the actual model, gets saved and goes in to the scrap pile to be painted and placed at a later time. Make a mound out of plaster, cardboard or tinfoil and use it as a base then just cover the base with scrap pieces and your scrap will go a lot further.
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
At a train show a couple years ago a guy had a big crane unloading gondolas of scrap metal. The magnet doing the lifting was a round magnet used for kitchen cabinet doors. It looked great but could only pick up the scrap, not let go. A work in progress I guess.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Just saw this guys ad in new N-Scale, he advertises scrap loads for gondolas. I don't have any info on them and have never ordered from.
http://www.scratchbuiltbyjoe.com/index.html
This is my module Diamond Valley with a scrap yard.
You find more and a vid at the website. The scrap in the foreground is made of sweety wrappers.
Wolfgang
Pueblo & Salt Lake RR
Come to us http://www.westportterminal.de my videos my blog
The image below shows some pencil sharpener grindings that I spray painted with flat aluminum. Since the pencil wood itself was reddish brown, I didn't bother applying any rust-colored paint. In the image below, the gondolas have resin-cast Chooch loads in them, the pencil grindings are piled up toward the right (near, and in, the wheel loader):
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
Great ideas and images everyone!!!
Would the "bailed" scrap be seen in the 1950's or was it all loose scrap back then? Or would a "shredded" look be more appropriate?