I need some details that I can not make my self. I have many flat car, and gondola loads that need load binders to hold them in place while moving around the railroad. How can I get the word out to those that can make these in HO scale? Also I need crane parts esp hook, swivel, ball, block, and sheaves. I want to correspond with someone who can make these parts.
Lots of that stuff is already available
Check Walthers.com and search for what you want
Plenty of useful info as well as pictures of the items
Eric
If you go to a craft shop or Hobby Lobby type place, and perhaps a well stocked general hobby shop, you can find inexpensive “craft sticks” or “project sticks” – a bag of sticks that look like match sticks. They tend to be quite cheap. Those and some ordinary white glue and you can easily make those load binders for yourself. If you are worried about getting the angles nice and sharp and 90 degrees, do the work on a piece of graph paper (perhaps pencil in the outline of the flat car or gondola car so you keep within measurements. To avoid sticking to the graph paper if you are a bit sloppy with the glue, put a piece of wax paper over it. You can see through it but the glue tends not to stick very well.
Trust me this is very easy to do. If you have wood matches in the house it might even be free.
American Model Builders makes some laser cut kits for load blocks – see the superdetail parts section of the Walthers catalog. But frankly this is something that can be easy and fun to do on your own. It is even possible to use pins or track spikes that, if carefully spaced, can fit into the stake holding openings on a given flat car so the load won’t shift. I might add that flat toothpics also fit into those stake holders and they can also be integrated into your load bracing.
Crane parts? Well, the old Tyco railroad crane is often seen at swap meets selling for very little money (like $2) and it can be raided for parts. That might be cheaper than actually buying the parts themselves. I have also seen really nice crane parts at a hobby shop devoted to ship building models.
The general idea that the parts you want might be more cheaply acquired as part of a bigger kit than buying separate detail parts carries over to considerably nicer stuff than the old Tyco railroad crane. Tichy has a neat littl
There are so many ways this can be done as mentioned above. Check out hobby Lobby if you have one in your area. They have a good assortment of Bass and Balsa wood strips that you can purchase and make the items yourself. The wire that they use for plant crafts works very well for log ties or lumber ties. Also, check out the evergreen and plastruct websites. there are many internet websites that carry styrene plastic sheets and strips so that you can order and build your own accessories. I once built a crane hook from glass ornament beads and styrene plastic that got from Hobby Lobby and evergreen styrene co. …chuck