Hello All,
First off I am James’s dad. And I thank him for letting me use his account.
But I have often long wondered, why on stainless steel prototype cars, no body makes the cars out of Stainless Steel. They make them out of brass. So it would seems to me that it would be possible to make them out of stainless steel.
Is there an important concept I am missing. It just seems to me that nothing would look like stainless steel better than real stainless steel.
Yours Truely,
Andy (James’s Dad)
Maybe they would be too heavy? No, that wouldn’t work, brass is heavy too.
Oh, it must be too hard to form, isn’t brass good for that?
Matthew
Hello Andy and welcome to the MR forums. Just throwing in my [2c]. I would say the production costs will be too much, making the MSRP of the car higher than it would be in brass. I think there would be a weight issue of it being too heavy.
Take care,
Russell
I also don’t know for sure, but I recall my dad, a welder, constantly complaining about how hard it was to weld and otherwise work with stainless. It’s also far, far harder than brass or ‘white metal’ we see used in modeling. So it’s probably what trainnut set - too labor-intensive and thus expensive.
Yep, that’s the reasons, Stainless is harder to work with, and it costs more. Plus, the extra corrsion resistance is not really necessary (on indoor layouts, anyway). Some cars are made of extruded aluminum, more so in large scale.
Brad
I think the closest you get is the extruded aluminum. OK Models has been making those for many years now, in both ‘shorty’ and scale length versions. (in HO anyway)
–Randy
Andy,
kchronister and Brad are correct. Stainless steel - even in thin sheeting - is a much harder material to cut, machine, and/or bend than aluminum or brass would be. SS would also be more expensive. Actually, polished aluminum makes a respectable substitute for mimicking stainless steel. I don’t think the weight factor would really make much difference for that size scale.
Tom
WEIGHT and COST. + Painted plastic doesn’t show fingerprint’s.
Also, you can easilty solder to brass. And I don’t think you can do that too well with Stainless Steel.
It’s far easier to nickle-plate brass to make it look stainless (or even “crome” plastic) than to work stainless into model railroading cars and locos.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
I use a lot of small stainless parts in things I design. Either because we need the springiness of stainless or we need the corrosion resistance. A small photo-etched part in .005 stainless costs about the same as photo-etched in brass. Until we have to bend or shape it -then the cost goes out through the roof.
We got some small support assemblies in today from the shop that does our prototype fine metalwork. The brass prototypes cost $21.30 each for 10 pieces, they told me bending took about 2 minutes each using a simple bending jig that we got from MicroMark. The shop told us that if we need them in stainless they would be about $40 each - all the extra cost is in bending. In a 10K piece lot - brass is $0.81, stainless $2.45
For modelmaking, brass would have to be one of the best amterials around. Being malleable it can easilly be rolled into a variety of sheet thicknesses, it takes and holds shapes well and from a manufacturing standpoint, it is a low tech material. Unlike stainless which is a rather exotic alloy and much less environmentally friendly to produce.
John
Stainless steel is prone to rust until it is annealed. It does not solder well, and would be more difficult to form than the more traditional building materials in the hobby.
Will
it’s kinda like modeling water; the molecular structure is all wrong to use the real thing to represent itself.
I repaired transit buses for years. The GMC RTSs (still in service) have stainless steel underframes. Man! They are tough but what a pain they were to repair! Stainless steel is a challenge to weld and solder. Add to that, just like oil, the price of all categories of steel is climbing due to increased demand from countries like China.
Today, It would not be cost effective for manufacturers to produce cars in this material.
For the stainless steel “look” the best options for plastic cars would be to “Paint Metalize” them with products, such as Alclad II. Done properly the metal finish results will fool the human eye.
Doesn’t walthers make steel intermodal cars or are those aluiminum.
What are Model Power’s Metal cars made out of?
http://www.modelpower.com/site/519087/page/286766
Has anyone used these? I guess they are non-conductive… I can just imagine the shorts and shocks that would cause.
Kevin
I’d guess the Model Power cars are diecast metal of some kind - I have one of their N scale FP7s which has a diecast bodyshell though I’ve not managed to get hold of one of the HO cars. Think I’ll take a good look next time I’m near the not-so-local hs that stocks them, and maybe buy one for testing purposes (a train of those would make a great way to test loco haulage abilities!).
Walthers have offered both well cars and spine cars/frontrunners with diecast parts - the well car has the whole car body in diecast metal while the spine cars have the central spine in diecast metal. In both cases it looks pretty good and solves the problems of running them unloaded.
Stainless is too expensive and too hard to work with.(speaking from experiance)
When building the foundation for my midwest house, I left the pea gravel fill out from under the porch, poured the surrounding block cores full of concrete (and rebar), created a re-bar grid through the slab, and wood-formed a platform at slab level for a monolithic pour of the 8 inch thick slab. Now I have a shelter which will sustain a near miss from a 500 pound bomb, and hopefully, a direct hit from a tornado.
I built a zig-zag entry into the main crawlspace to keep windblown debris from packing it full, but wanted a little more protection since some storm geometries could still sned in small debris at 200 mph, give or take, and because the water table is high in the area, looked into a 2 inch thick sliding door made of stainless steel.
Everyone I talked to trying to find a supplier for stainless, laughed at me. They said I’d need all new tools to work with the stuff, new drill bits, a whole new cutting system (probably a plasma torch), and a lot of money just to buy the steel, because the suppliers would have to invest in similar tools just to cut a piece off for me.
Rather than go through all that, I just added another concrete block wall to the baffle, filled the cores with concrete and re-bar, and called it good. Stainless is not just rust proof, it’s darn near everything-proof.
Well, the Budd shotwelding process just didn’t scale down right…
I understand that Alcad ‘Stainless Steel’ paint is supposed to produce a steel fini***hat is exceptionally realistic (better than the various buffing metallizer paints offered throughout the years) - has anyone around these parts tried it and got a decent finish (I remember you are supposed to have a glossy black finish on the model to start, as opposed to Bare-metal foil where you need…bare plastic).
One more thing - stainless steel (as I remember it) unless coated with some clear finish, will show fingerprints, grease, and dust like nobody’s business (just ask your nearest Delorean owner). Of course, if you spray a clear coat on your stainless steel model… well, it may not look like real stainless anymore.
Brass is easier to work with. My Dad have been in the metal (primely aluminum) bussines all his life and I understand a bit about the topic. Welding steinless is a pain. It is a more rigid material than brass. Is like comparing brass with lead. Aluminum is not a choise since you can’t weld it, you must rivet it.
It is like trying to build a steel truss bridge model out of true steel mini beams. Imagine the work!