Okay, MR $1 project is decades gone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t update it and pass along our wisdom.
So allowing for inflation, What can you do for under $5?
I’ll start the ball. I transplanted some sedum into my yard that is spreading and flowers every fall. But the stuff grows wild along roadsides and even along the tracks at my fav railfan site. Clip the flowers spray with cheap hair spray and cover with ground foam.
My most recent project that cost less than $5.00 was the stock pen I made from poster board that a friend of mine gave me, and glue and spray paint that I already had on hand. The cattle I put in it were barrowed from a Union Pacific stock car. I figured no one could see them in the car anyway so why not make better use of them.
Some weeks ago I bought some Kadee couplers to replace plastic ones, but the last real project I started with less then $5 was to purchase a brake cylinder and air reservoir and two levers, a bit of brass wire for the rods, and flat wire for safety bars. All this to upgrade an older brass READING caboose that it can rival the newer ones.
This wood fence is made from coffee stirrers, “liberated” from work. I split them in two to get the board width the way I wanted it, painted it with wood stain and applied a couple of home-made decals.
Hey Chip, even with inflation I think we can come up with some projects way under $5.00.
I built this grade crossing with 3 pieces of scrap .030 sheet styrene and some 2"X6" HO scale lumber. All told the price of putting this together could not have been more than $ 0.65
Even those old “Dollar Model” series articles cheated a bit by assuming the modeler has a nice “scrap box” of stuff – anything from the scrap box was not counted towards the dollar. The fact that sprung trucks back then cost fifty cents helped too.
One of the enduring values of very very old Model Railroaders and Model Craftsman magazines, back to the 1930s-40s, is what clever people tried to do with found objects and free stuff.
Wood match sticks as a “free” source of scale lumber, more like timber beams and such.
I once assembled a scale packing crate using a piece of wood with the wood bracing laboriously salvaged from one of those tiny umbrellas that exotic drinks come with in Tiki bars.
The plastic containers that TidyCat Scoopable cat litter comes in has a slight texture to it. Painted dark gray it looks like an asphalt road, and the sides of the container even have the slight center camber of a street. Painted light gray it looks a bit like smoother sorts of stucco. So for the cost of the paint and a bit of time with a sissors, you have a nice free supply of road material and stucco.
I have also cut an asphalt sidewalk from the backside of a leftover roofing shingle.
I am still working on it but I hope someday to show flatcar loads of dragline shovels assembled from large size Walgreens dental floss dispensers.
When we get clementine citrus fruits I try to save and disassemble the little wood crate it comes in. The end braces have a pitched roof look to them. The sides and ends are cheap three ply plywood I think. There HAS to be some use.
I figure this might have cost about 20 cents. Cedar scale lumber, some grit from the roofing tiles that I removed from the eaves troughs a year ago, and some dabs of glue. Presto, a homemade backstop.
Train order stand… Scrap code 55 rail, a couple bits of wire, a ladder from the parts box, some leftover safety stripe decals, and a Miniatronics lamp with shade.
I built this car card holder from a styrene sign that I picked up at a big box retailer. 12" x 18" .060" thick sign was about $4.00. I managed to cut enough parts to make about 6 of these.
Rail (from damaged flex, 1.50/piece at my LHS) < $1.50
Fasteners (spikes, rail joiners, solder, caulk) .50 est
Ties (cut from medium balsa) < .25
Throwbar (cut from PC ‘experiment’ board) < .10
Tool amortization < .25
Slide switch and connecting linkage < 1.80
For a total of less than $5.00 and about an hour of labor I get a custom-fitted, derailmentproof turnout good for decades of trouble-free service. (My oldest, even cheaper then, were built in 1980.)
I have a backdrop right up against the edge of the table.
I didn’t like the look of just putting some bushes to cover the seam so I decided to make a fence. I took some craft sticks and glued them together. Then I scribed lines since the craft sticks looked too wide. Hit it with some alcohol/india ink and presto! Instant fence.
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