Being a model railroader for way over 25 years, one thing I’ve learned is sometimes yaz gotta be cheap .For those of you ,who don’t want to spend big bucks on freight car wood decking, this is for you guys.
Two years ago while getting a cup of coffee at my local gas station. I discovered that the coffee stir sticks kinda look like …strip wood. I talked the gas station attendent into letting me purchase a spare box of stir sticks. On the way home , I thought about all the uses I’d have for this new scratch building material.
Using an old model railroader trick of using isopropyl alcohol and indian ink to weather the strip wood. To do this I mixed the alcohol and indian ink in a zip lock bag. I then put in the desired amount of stir sticks into the bag. After mixing them, I then put them on paper towels and set out in direct sun light to dry. 20 mins later their dry.
I then used a {straight edge paint scraper type} razor blade with a handle to cut ,each piece down its center. After cutting all the pieces length wise, I then took a roundhouse flat car and measured the width of the car. I cut one piece to test fit, before cutting a bunch of them.
After cutting 1.2 million of these buggers and a eye popping headache later… I was ready to install the decking. I used good ole elmers wood glue to secure the decking boards to the flat car. Going only an inch at a time, so not to get too much glue on the flat car ,before I could make sure the deck boards were straight.
Below are pictures of the whole process ,from start to finnish and the flat car.
I know it seems to be a time consuming process {and it is } but the finnished car looks great. This can also be used on gondols too.
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
they sell those stirrers in our local Kroger(grocery store) I saw yesterday, Starbuck also use them.
The car looks GREAT Patrick, the ONLY thing I would humbly suggest is that you cut the strips to length before you ‘weather/stain’ them… that way you wont have a clean white wood edge where you cut it to size at the end of each strip, infact it will be darker.
just a thought, apart from that, fantastic work and discovery. I have a couple of boxes of these stashed away somewhere for “future projects” if I ever finish or even start the ones I’m already working on.
This is my roundhouse. I used coffee stirrers for the flooring:
I was bummed when we switched to plastic stirrers at work. Then I learned to use those as conduit inside the subway tunnels. I still have enough wood ones left over to make a fence that will be a retaining wall.
Yeah now that you mention it , the ends of the decking does stand out. I’ll use black chalk to weather the decking even more and to cover up the ends. Thanks for the tip Karl, I didn’t even notice it.
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
As a pipe smoker, I go through fairly large quantities of wooden kitchen matches, and when I can get them, wooden cigar matches. It seems there is a potential source of lumber for any number of projects…
If one thinks back a long time to when the R-T-R or kit stuff that we have today wasn’t available, or was too expensive for the average Joe, doing work like this was actually pretty common, was called scratch building, and people actually enjoyed it {{{gasp}}} !!! As your post shows, it’s still possible to do it today, reduce model railroad expenses, and engage in an enjoyable and satisfying activity at the same time.
Obviously not everyone has the time, but it is something to consider.
Those make excellent RR ties: Stain them dark brown and they look freshly creosoted; light gray or tan [plus a few ‘gouges’] and they look like discarded ones!
I would re-classify “cheap” to using the proper product for the proper project, the coffee sticks work and that is the main object of the job, it’s not how “cheap” it can be done. Also, try a craft store for popsicle sticks, you can buy a box of about 10,000 sticks for 2 bucks. There is nothing admirable about being “cheap” it’s right up there with " obnoxious". Remember, when some refers to you as “cheap” it is NOT a compliment.
