Modeling Steel Mills is tough. Modeling corrugated sheet metal siding is a whole other ball game.
Like many others. I tried various method’s and failed miserable. So,the thinking cap was applied.
About 12 years ago I discovered a product called Lenticular Lens . These came on projection screen TV’s. In my work I would find these almost daily. I amassed a huge volume of these screens.
Now you’re probably asking . What is he babbling about ?
Gentlemen.
These old projection screen TV lens are flat out wonderful for modeling corrugated sheet metal. They have ridges just like sheet metal. I built a huge BOF measuring 4’ w X 4’ l X 3’ h. Took up quite a bit of HO real estate. It was the crown jewel of my steel mill complex & most noticable.
You can find my BOF on YouTube. Type in ( Huge HO scale steel mill BOF building ) Sorry,I can’t make a link to video from this device. Would you mind making a link for others ?
12 years later…
Present day, you can’t find nor afford the old projection screen TV coverings. So my current modeling endeavors require building yet another huge corrugated metal BOF.
I found a company in NC that carry’s 30 LPI (lines per inch) Lenticular Lens. Bought some this year to build my BOF.
The company is Micro Lens . Have a look and order the sample. You’ll be glad you did if you have had trouble making corrugated metal. It’s fairly thick sheets and tricky to work with though.
Pretty sure one could model with N scale too with other Micro Lens products.
I am not affiliated with Micro Lens. Just passing on information.
Yeah, I thought about going the evergreen route but would be to costly on my humble budget. Not that ordering 30 LPI lenticular lens was any cheaper. If I remember correctly. It was around $180.00 for my needs.
Dunno if evergreen would be cheaper or not. Depending on how large your building needs. With this Micro lens stuff you can build huge structures with with ease.
Paper mills,steel mill buildings,warehouses and many others.
Actually what I was thinking was using the Evergreen as a form and using a rubber roller to press heavy-duty foil into the grooves to form your own siding.
If you painted one of your layout buildings like this it would be realistic but would probably drive you batty to look at!
Somehwere, too, I came across an article about using a mild acid to “corrode” the aluminum foil for a realistic rusting away effect. It may have been PC board etching solution or something similar.
There used to be some sites, Mike Rabbit and Peach Creek Shops come to mind, that covered steel mill modeling.
Years ago in the 50’s, the Suydam metal corrugated buildings were made out of tin. I had quite a few of them. They had to be soldered together, no CA back then. The great part about those was, (which I found out by accident) even though I had painted them with good ole’ Floquil, if left outside or damp area, they would rust…I mean actual rust…now you sure can’t beat that for reallistic weathering!
In the photos the transload crane extension was all built with Plastruct components…was not costly at all:
