Mold making and casting Part I: Why we need castings/Bob Walker H
ave you ever pushed yourself back from the workbench and screamed (either in your head
or out loud) “I hate model railroading!” Perhaps you’ve muttered something even worse. As much as I enjoy scratch- building, there are times when certain aspects of a project become a royal pain. Some component of a particularly aggravating undertaking just makes me want to throw it against the wall. Some day I am going to write a column on the modeling version of “things that go bump in the night.” Just think, I could become the Edgar Allen Poe of model railroad columnists.
Making anything in multiples be- comes more like factory piece work than model building, and this is supposed to be a hobby, and therefore fun. For any given project, most things, such as doors, windows, details and the like, can be pur- chased as parts. There will come a time, however, when you will have to craft some commercially unavailable widget in multiples. It will be complicated, and a pain where I described above. Going a step further, you may need some sort of structure in multiples. Company houses, water towers, and handcar sheds come immediately to mind, and I’m sure I could come up with a few more given the time. Being as this is a column, and not a feature, I do not have the time. But, speaking of handcar sheds... In the distant past, a club I was asso- ciated with needed about a dozen and a half handcar sheds. They would be of the “standard” variety to retain that family look of company buildings. Eighteen is a lot of handcar sheds, but they were to be scattered over a size- able layout. When it came to struc- tures, the general consensus was “Let Walker do it. He likes that sort of stuff.” GEEZ! With 72 walls, three dozen roof halves,
and eighteen
scratchbuilt doors, what a thrill! At least it got me off the wiring detail. Building one of these things could be as simple as four walls of scribed wood, some sort of commercial door and a small window, plus a roof consisting of two sheets of wood covered with strips of masking tape “tar paper.” Add to this 16 wall braces, four roof braces, and that’s it...under 40 pieces, and likely done in an evening. Wait a minute here folks! We ain’t talkin’ about just one. While plotting the lazy man’s way out of 18 evenings of repetitive and boring
70 ing to make them nice!
Scratchbuilder’s Corner
work, my pride took over. No, dog gone it (not really what went through my head, but far more printable), I’m go-
Now those 18 evenings were starting to look like a whole lot more, as I was thinking individual boards, and individ- ual shingles, plus a board-by-board main door. I was thinking along the lines of two or three full days each. Since I was working a real job at the time, we were talking
four or five months, and a lot of work. Grandt Line
TWO PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
After making an RTV mold, a wall is poured and the resultant plaster wall is pulled from the mold (top). After it is painted (above), it can be used for the side of a structure. The author is pictured (right) with the beautiful 1″ scale model of RGS No. 20 that he scratchbuilt.
NOVEMBER 2013
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