Hi,
Does anyone know a simple technique for creating the look of rivets in thin styrene? I’ve heard of using something called a ‘ponce wheel’, but I’m not sure if I can get them small enough for N scale.
Thanks in advance,
tbdanny
Northwest Short Line (NWSL) has a tool called a “Sensi-Press” with an attachment called “The Riveter”. The riveter is essentially a geared table which can be moved from side to side in precise increments. The stock is placed on the table, and riveting dies in the press. Pull down, release, move (stock), repeat. Check out Micro-Mark or the NWSL site for details. They ain’t cheap, but they work.
Edit: An old trick is to use clock gears mounted on a handle made of a wood dowel. Cut a long slot in the end of the dowel, and drill for an axle through both sides of the slot. Actually, it would be easier to drill first, then cut the slot. Mount the clock gear in the slot with a pin the correct size for an axle. Then just roll the gear across the stock, with the stock on a less-than-hard surface (wood, a cutting board, etc.). Press firmly, but evenly.)
There’s a company who’s name currently escapes me (It begins with an “A” I believe), that makes rivet decals. Cut a strip of them, and you get a parallel line of rivets on the surface of the model.
Tichy manufacturers rivet heads in HO that can be glued on. However, I don’t think they make them in N-scale. (They sure would be extra tiny, if they did.)
Tom
Here’s the link to the Archer Transfers N-scale rivits decals:
http://www.archertransfers.com/AR88024.html
There’s an article on the PRR Technical and Historical Society’s web site in the Keystone Modeller e-zine about using them on an HO tender tank as part of a firefighting car:
http://www.prrths.com/Keystone%20Modeler/Keystone_Modeler.htm
The magazine’s a PDF, download it for hours of enjoyment!
Eric
I tried those pounce wheels and didn’t really care for them. The spikes on the wheels are kinda rectangular instead of round so you end up with some odd looking rivets.
I’ve punched thousands of rivets by hand in brass one rivet at a time on my scratchbuilt steam engines. I’ve used the same method on styrene, although on a smaller scale.
I emboss them with a needle chucked into a pin vice. I’ll usually file the tip of the needle a bit to get the right sized rivet I’m looking for. What I will do is tape my work piece to the work bench and then tape my scale ruler along the rivet line. This keeps the rivets straight and I can use the markings on the ruler to space them easily. You need to punch your rivets on a surface with a little give to it. I prefer to use my self healing work matt. It takes a little practice to find the right pressure needed and to apply the same pressure for every rivet. (obviously styrene won’t take the amount of pressure need to emboss brass) I work in HO scale, but the size of the needle determines the size of the rivet, so a sharper needle should work in N scale. Be carfull though as it will be easier to punch through the styrene.
It’s really not as bad as it sounds and goes rather quickly one you get the hang of it.
The NWSL riveting tool mentioned above will create nicer, crisper rivets than what I can produce, but I can’t bring myself to plop down that kind of money. I can darn near build another engine with the amount of money it would take to buy that contraption and all it’s accesories. It is on my wish list however.
What! Tiny rivets on N-scale models! About as rediculous as nail heads in HO-scale. I’ve never seen a nail head at six feet away or more, and my usual layout point of view is much further away than less than an inch. If an N-scale rivet is big enough to see, it is way out of scale…Well, OK, go for it. People who accept track with spikes the size of pumpkins could use rivets the size of large apricots… But if there are (two dimensional) N-scale rivet decal sheets, go for them.
Mark
Don’t believe me? Ok then. Count the nail holes in the structure pictured below.
You can’t, can you? Get the point?
(PIctured is Pearl Van Meter, the Lafayette, CA postmaster’s daughter on horse Pegasus, with family cat pictured bottom left, as 1904.)
Wha?? Were talking rivets here not nail holes. I’m not going to try, but I’m sure I could count nearly all of the rivets on this Big Boy tender, which is clearly the same if not farther away than the building you posted. A new N scale steam engine without rivets wouldn’t look too good to me, and I’m sure it would cause an uproar from the “rivet counters”[;)] The trick is to get them small enough to show up from a few feet away, without being so large as to see them from across the room.
Exactly! Your photo is taken at an opportunistic angle highlighting the rivets. Show me an N-scale model that looks like that and I’ll be a believer.
My point was doing small rivets in N scale seems like attempting to do nail holes in HO scale, a pet peeve of mine.
Mark
I counted 178 on the front face above the porch. There’s another 142 on the area in front under the overhang. There’s probably more but the horse is in the way. I thought there were a few more but when I looked carefully they turned out to be horse-flies. BTW, if you look closely the shoes were made by the “Hamilton Brown Shoe Company” and the hat was made by “Snow White Millinery”, and the inscription on the horse’s tackle says “American Tackle Company”. And the mail clerk’s name is “Henry H. Darby”, if you work at it, you can just make it out over the pocket on his shirt. He’s the one behind the counter with the stack of letters in his hand.
Anything else you wanna know???
[(-D]