I am planning a flatcar load using a dummy unit such as an Athearn SD-something and I want to make it look like it has been in a wreck. Some accident photos show a unit hit by another unit such as a head-on, or derailed and slid a few yards along the ballast, the cab or hood has been mashed in on one side, or the nose pushed in, etc.
My thought is to heat the plastic some way and press on it with some wood to deform it then tie it, minus the trucks that are on an accompanying flatcar, to a flatcar as a unit being returned to the home shops for repair accessment.
Has anyone tried to model such a load and how would the heating work without melting it down competely?
Well, i have done something like that to a freight car. Use a heat gun and keep whatever you are using to deform in prssing down, as soon as the plastic gets soft turn off the heat. I think micro-mark sells a heat gun but im not sure.
On a box car, if you could get a horizontal cut line started, and then heat it with the heat gun, I’ve seen plastic LOOK like torn metal. The plastic at the cut line starts pulling away from the cut and sometimes rolls a little.
I’ve tried this a few times, and due to heat and other vaiables, it works well, or I get a molten mess of plastic.
If you check a magazine index for wrecked units, or flat car loads, Dave Hussey did a wrecked GP unit as a flat car load. It was basically the cab, and walkways. Not too difficult a project, I think…
If you look at www.finescale.com That is the finescale modelor website. You will see some great ideas on how to model damaged aircraft. Some of those ideas would definitely help you on your damaged loco project. Good luck.
I did something similar a few years back. I used a propane torch set real low, heated up that plastic in NO time. I then took a #11 X-acto blade to the sides and a small chunk of wood and beat it. Looked pretty convincing, I wish I had a picture to show you. There was an article in MR in the mid to late 80’s on this.
jeff
Certainly go to the fine scale modeler sight, it sill shoe you some good examples, I’ve not done this sort of thing with rail models but when I was younger I used to to model tanks etc and tried to do some convincing “battle” damage, usually with a low wattage soldering iron. You could try cutting open some of the hood doors than aply light heat and work from there you should be able to get some convincing torn and twisted metal effect, that in conjunction with a good weathering and you can make it look convincingly burnt out. TB
Thanks for the tips. I hadn’t thought of the heat gun. You are talking about the type that is used to make heat shrink tubing, shrink? Surely not a hair dryer.
Havn’t done a wreck for a flat car load but i did a wrecked GP unit that had fallen off a deck girder bridge into the river, i took all the bits off that would be canibalised if a real locomotive had gotten itself well and truly stuck in the mud, then i took a saw to the bodywork and cut it diagonally front to back. What you see is just the top of the hood at one end and about half the hood at the other, some very heavy weathering has been added like a tree growing in the cab now all i have to do is add the water to the river and it’s finished), it gave my boys a laugh when they saw it