I want to scratchbuild a bridge. What is the best way to simulate the rivets?
dakwest - Welcome to trains.com! [C):-)]
Archer Decals: http://www.archertransfers.com/PAGE_Rivetpic.html
MicroMark sells a similar item: http://www.micromark.com/ho-scale-decals-with-raised-3d-rivets-and-other-surface-details,9968.html
Those Archer details are fantastic. Also for bridge construction, check into the Central Valley girder sets (these are that lattice type, boxed construction) Central Valley along w/ MicroEngineering offers a variety of open/ ballasted deck girder sections as well as the Girder or truss designs.
Gidday, For individual rivets I use my trusty engineers metal work scriber and a wood block though have to be careful not to go right through the styrene, never knew they existed but like the look of those “rivet decals”.
Cheers, The Bear
They are relatively recent (past few years), at least in regards to availability - advancing technology finally allowed 3 dimension details on decal film. As you can see, there are also tread-plates, weld-lines, and other texture features available, and so this 3-D technology may truly turn out to be revolutionary in the modeling world as opposed to just evolutionary.
JaBear, I believe the reason you never knew these decals existed is because the same container ships NOT bringing these decal sheets to KiwiLand are the same container ships NOT bringing Hokey Pokey Ice Cream back to North America, so you can readily see the problem here…
Some of the best fake rivets I ever saw were done by a guy that would apply a very little dab of Five Minute Epoxy along a rivet line with a needle. When it was almost hard he would give it a light sanding to take off the little points left by pulling the needle up. It was very time consuming but it looked really good after it was painted. I tried the method myself on a scrap piece of styrene when I got home from the show and was pleasantly surprised at the job I did on my first attempt.
Brent[C):-)]
Gidday, Having over the years read from cover to cover the Model Railroader, RMC etc I have always been slightly amused by the few US model railroaders who from time to time complain about the lack of availability of various items, where as I, especially before the advent of the interweb, “on line shopping” credit cards etc, looking through the advertisements of the aforementioned publications have been rather envious of what appears to have been readily available on the eastern side of the Pacific and considered that the complainants actually spoilt for choice !!
Having worked in Aussie occasionally I knew that they did not have the delectable delight, but now realizing that the good citizens of the USA have been deprived from the creamy goodness and delicious crunch of Hokey Pokey Ice Cream, well now I do not feel too bad after all !! [swg]
My apologies to dakwest for going off topic.
Cheers,The Bear.