More modelling tips from Alan

Alan, who got in touch last time with some wonderful tips, has mailed some more.

But this time, we can help him too. Any ideas anyone?

Best

Al

“Alastair,

When I sent the E-Mail yesterday I forgot the most important part.

Does anyone have a suggestion as to how you can make Corrugated Iron in OO/HO???????????????

I have tried Aluminium foil between old fashioned butter pats, E flute corrugated cardboard with no avail. They don’t look right.

I have used Wills sheet in the past but it is too thick to give a realistic impression of bent, twisted and holed sheeting on a derelict building.

Flat sheeting is easy just using an aluminium baking tray, cut it up, paint and twist it etc. and stick it on with Super Glue.

I forgot 2 tips yesterday:-

1. When I had a box full of plastic sprues I noticed little tags attached to them showing the part number. Simply cut the tag off, paint it and you have a house number.

2. A further inspection of the sprues showed that nearly all of then had a piece running off at 90 degrees forming a “T” junction. Cut the “T” off about 5-6 mm from the junction. Take a car mechanics hole punch (used to puch holes in gastet paper) and punch out a round piece of stiff aluminium foil, paint it and super glue to the bottom leg of the T.

Turn upside down and you have a control valve for water, oil, gas etc. Drill out the ends of the T top and it looks quite good.

I look forward to reading hundreds of ideas on how to make realistic corrugated iron. I have trawled the model shop in Oz. but can’t find anything suitable. Though I suspect that not every manufacturer exports to Australia.

regards

Alan”


A big thank you to Alan.

I enjoyed his tips and judging by the comments below, so did you lot.

That’s all this time folks.

Please do keep ’em coming

And if today is the day you decide to get started, I suspect you’ll love the Beginner’s Guide.

Best

Al

PS Latest ebay cheat sheet is here.




89 Responses to More modelling tips from Alan

  1. Vic Pompa says:

    For corrugated iron, try Northeast Scale Lumber clapboard or grooved sheets. The grooves are differnt widts, suitable for any model rr scale. Paint them aluminum and rust.

  2. paul starr says:

    The punch is called a Wad punch, they come in metric and imperial sizes
    from very small to 2″ to3″.They can be bought in sets also.

  3. Gary Davies-Jones says:

    Corrugated Iron.

    Visit a card art shop. There you will find corrugated paper. It may have a smooth backing, but if you wet it it will let go. Some of the form may be lost during that process, ideal for battered sheet. Then out wioth the water colour, and hey presto corrugated Iron.

  4. DUDDITS says:

    IN HO SCALE YOU CAN TAKE CORIGATED CARDBOARD AND PEAL OFF ONE SIDE OF THE PAPER …. OR YOU CAN ALWAYS GET SOME ONE SIDED CORRIGATED CARDBOARD FROM THE GROCERY OR LOCAL STORE

    PAINT THE CARDBOARD AS YOU LIKE
    OR
    YOU CAN USES TINFOIL AND FORM IT TO THE CARDBOARD
    I WOULD RECOMEND HEAVY HEAVER GUAGE TINFOIL TO HOLD THE SHAPE BETTER IF YOU CANNOT ACHIVE THE SHAPE YOU WANT YOU CAN ALWAYS APPLY A BALAST GLUE MIXTURE TO THE EXPOSED SIDE OF THE FOIL AS U MOLD IT TO HOLD ITS SHAPE

  5. Tom S. says:

    Corrugated Iron Reply: If you are talking about corrugated sheet metal as in barn roofing and siding, try making a press with thin wooden dowel rods for the bottom and top then place the material between them and press to together. Size and spacing of dowel will produce differents effects.

    Tom S

  6. Tom Hudson says:

    Hi Alan

    This side of the World we have Craft/Hobby shops that stock corrugated paper in varying degrees of thickness and colors etc also I save the corrugated paper from some types of chocolate cakes etc and these are not to bad a Scale etc and are mostly plain white.
    Best of Luck my friend

    Tom

  7. Rob says:

    I used corrugated card as a tin roof for an old shed. I think once painted rusty red and brown, it really does the job.

  8. Paul says:

    The cardboard sleeves that go around a hot cup of coffee or tea when opened up make for great fences or cat walks. The sleeves from 7-11 are excellent for this, and most of the time they are brown. Hopefully, you have a 7-11 or a chain that uses something similar near you. Good luck!

  9. Don says:

    I would use Evergreen Styrene sheets. They have several styles to choose from. Thier is also a gentlemen on Ebay that sells molds for corrogated Iron. Im unclear of hios name, but if you type in the search mode, Iron or metal molds, it will pull all that are associated with it.

  10. Richard Standing says:

    Wills also do corrugates glazing sheets, which are thinner and more flexible, and of course can be painted to look like corrugated iron!

  11. jim says:

    It is simple you walk to where your wife keeps her scrapbooking stuff you pull out the heaviest piece of paper you can find and I am not sure what the tool is called but it makes corrigated paper beautifully. But it is located with the scrapbooking stuff.

  12. Paul Otway says:

    Hi I find that corrugated cardboard, which you can buy from a craft shop
    can be used for corrugated iron.

  13. kym says:

    Hi

    Try looking up steam in the bush on the net.Good luck

  14. Carl Halgren says:

    Corrugated cardboard makes a good garden or farm, nicely spaced furrows. It is already brown and rough enough to loo9k like dirt – just add some colored push pins for pumpkins or green stuff for lettuce, cabbage, etc.

  15. Bill Antonette says:

    O E Bay I found a set f 2 pieces of plastic 1.02×3.15 (approx. 7×23 feet HO scale) with .03 grooves on one side. the seller suggested compressing a piece of aluminum between them. It produces a pretty good corrugated panel. I’m 76 and don’t have time for that level of detail. I cut a strip of 18 in. wide Reynolds heavy duty aluminum wrap across the sheet and lay it across a piece of Evergreen styrene with a matching pitch. Forcing the foil into the big sheet with the ribbed end edge produces what looks like a 7 ft wide panel by keeping the following set of corrugations adjacent to the previous set and keeping them parallel. Hope this helps.

  16. Ian says:

    i wanted to know also about corrigated roofs some great ideas i really enjoy reading
    these helpful hints

  17. Tommy pelley says:

    Try running the aluminum pan pieces through a press used to get all the paint out of a artists paint tube. They leave a nive corrugayed, patten an tje material

  18. Scott - Florida USA says:

    try corrugated cardboard which comes as a packing material in many small items. no cost except to paint.

    also, free ballast. try used, dried coffee grounds.

  19. Hello Alan,
    I recommend getting two sheets of Evergreen corrugated iron-textured plastic sheet,

    http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/Sheets.htm#Corrugated%20Metal%20Siding

    backing them up with epoxy putty to make two halves of a press, then sandwiching thin sheet metal (such as lead or even thick aluminum foil) between the halves. The result should be suitably fragile for distressing and thin enough for scale. A more durable press can be made by making a mold of the sandwich halves, then casting new impressions in shore 80D resin. That should last quite a few buildings!

  20. rex hatton says:

    a few years ago here in Victoria i was given a bottle of dedorant and the packaging was just like corrugated iron in HO scale. i dont remember the brand but it was a good brand name and the cardboard box it came in was pefect for corrugated iron. i still have it packed away somewhere and even though im in N gauge its too big i felt its too good to throw away as its identical to Corrugated iron so go looking at a Chemist who sells Dedorants and look at the boxes

  21. ken back says:

    buy a set of miniature screw drivers and make rollers out of them to get very good looking corrugated roofing or siding.

  22. ken back says:

    lay heavy duty foil on a soft surface to roll siding or roofing.

  23. Jeff says:

    First time posting because this topic caught my interest. Anyway…

    Corrugated sheets – I figure for N or smaller scales you could scape a fine-tooth hack saw blade across plastic modeling sheets.

    Misc. boxes and “stuff” – take electronic components off of bad circuit cards and broken hard drives. The drives are also a great source for magnets.

  24. Alain says:

    Here is my French technique
    I use the thick aluminium foil used to cover TV dinner (standard packing aluminium foil for wrapping food is too thin) that I apply on a sample of (expensive) corrugated styrene sheet. I brush the foil until it fits the corrugated shape. The thicker the foil thickness, the hardest the brush to be used for that purpose (for instance nylon kitchen brush) . I bought samples from corrugated styrene sheets from several model manufacturers to have a diversity of scale patterns and to avoid uniformity.
    One trick: when gluing aluminium sheet on styrene or thick cardboard, glue only one length with small glue dots for the rest if you don’t want the whole assembly to bend after a few days.

  25. Dingo says:

    This is a great tip but there is one thing I’d like to put to Vic Pompa, how can U paint them aluminium and rust when aluminium don’t rust it corrodes.

  26. Roy Richardson says:

    Seen in Model Rail Sept 2011 page 64-66 article on How to make Corrugated Iron using Modelscene Asbostos Sheet kit 5054 [note this is 00/H0]. Interesting on how to make rotted sheets. Take a piece of foil and cut small holes in it with a sharf knife. Then pierce a lot of small holes using a map pin randomly. Then press the foil in the jig. hey presto.

  27. Alan Warner says:

    Alastair,

    I have been very impressed with Daves layout for the past few months. Where does he get his buildings from? Some I recognise but the great majority I don’t. We don’t have a great selection in South Australia. Mainly Dapol/Airfix and some very expensive European and American ones.

    Regards
    Alan Warner.

  28. IVOR HANN says:

    I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE SOME HELP WITH MY DISPLAY , THE PROBLEM I’M HAVING IS THAT MY STREET LIGHTS DON’T LAST VERY LONG, I CHECKED MY VOLTAGE ON MY TRANSFORMERS AND THEY READ 20V TO 21V AC BUT ALL OF THE ST. LIGHTS I BUR ARE RATED 14 VOLTS. ONLY ONE OF THE SEVERAL TRANSFORMERS I HAVE READ 15V AC ALL THE REST ARE BETWEEN 20VAC TO 21 VOLTS AC. I LOVE TO HEAR FROM SOMEONE . THANKS IVOR HANN. HAPPY RAILROADING . NOV.20/2011.

  29. KEN JONES says:

    Take a piece of cardboard box soak it in water, then peel of the top layer of paper and you have the corrugated cardboard exposed. Paint lt the color of soil and you have a plowed field for your farm. Paint it like rusted tin and you have a roof. Keep the trains running. Ken Jones

  30. Mark Veasey says:

    As with KEN JONES idea try using a Cat Food box ( the type you get the sachets in) the ridges are a lot smaller than the standard corrugated card

  31. Barry Pearlman says:

    Two comments to you all:

    Corrugated Roofing: I don’t know which scale you are working with, but the paper that my wife uses when she makes cup cakes to hold the dough during baking is corrugated.

    Cut off the bottom, then to size then glue the corrugated paper to something substantial. Spay with what ever color(s) or “coulours” for those on the other side of the pond, you desire :-).,

    Ivor – If you can change out the tiny lamps, why not switch over to white or whatever color LEDs. Real tiny LEDs are used on some printed circuit boards. Be careful soldering to them due to the heat.

    Then determine the correct resistor using E (voltage) = I (current)R (resistance). 10 ma. (.010 amps.) is a good number to use.

    Put a resistor of whatever value you compute in series with one of the leads.

    You might try putting a diode in series with one of the incandescent lamp leads (any direction will work) and see if the brightness is to your liking.

    Sorry to lecture, its a bad habit of mine.

    Barry

  32. Peter Sirrah says:

    Many of the tips given are useful but could I suggest subscribers say what
    country they live in so that we can all understand some of the jargon used.

  33. dewaine says:

    great tip alan

  34. My n scale train cars will not stay coupled, the only thing i can think of is my track is on my living room carpet is there such a thing as locks ?

  35. George Gilpin says:

    If you want a corrugated metal look you can use aluminum foil or thin cardboard then get the look by running over it with a screen tool…the same one you use for putting splines in a screen door or window.

  36. Gary says:

    Hi Alan,
    I’ve just had a thought, how about using floor tile adhesive. Speading a flat thickish amount on a pieceog paper and let it dry. Then get a piece of plastic and using a thin drill bit , cut groves in it to the scale you want,
    so that it looks serated, now spead a further cot of tile adhesive on the piece you’ve already prepared earlier and use the plasitc serated plastic to make the grooves for the corrigated roof panels

    hope this is of some help

    regards

    Gary

  37. Martin Gliddon says:

    In the UK, pies of every description are usually sold in corrugated foil containers. Eat the product, yum yum wash the container and cut to size. Instant corrugated sheets that are easy to bend cut and paint.

    Happy modelling

    Martin

  38. bob slusser says:

    Many, many years ago there was a line of metal kits which had corrugated siding and all kinds of metal angles which were to be soldered together, “Sydam” as I recall. Anyways I have for years since used these leftover siding pieces to make siding from aluminum wrap by placing small pieces over the heavy gauge materials and dragging a piece of balsawood over this to obtain corrugations. These can then be cut with a cheap pair of shears for the sheet sizes and glued to a cardboard backer or directly to wood framing. These are very delicate.

  39. Paul, Brisbane. Australia. says:

    This is more for the n scalers… A good substitute for corrugated iron is the parallel computer cable that was once standard on many printers and other attachments. It is flat, stiff and the corrugations are fairly close to scale. It also takes paint and glue fairly well.

  40. Duncan Galbraith says:

    I have made corrugated iron sheets with heavy duty foil spread out on a bit of foam then I run a comb down the sheet leaving nice grooves behind. My wife has different combs that give good effects.
    For iron cladding, I use foam and a flat tool with a serrated edge that came with a tin of contact adhesive ot tile grout, ( can’t remember which). It does a neat job on heavy used in food packaging we get here in Scotland.
    The tip for soaking off the top layer of paper to reveal the corrugated part of a cardboard box is a good one. Just about everything in Africa where i grew up was made from corrugated iron on wooden frames. D/

  41. Vic Corbo says:

    For the question on voltage for lighting instead of using the AC for lighting, use an extra power pack using the DC track output. You can then adjust the voltage using the speed control. Works great saving lots of bulbs.

  42. Peter Macdonald says:

    On the subject of street lighting.
    Don’t use a transformer with a higher voltage than the lamps are rated for – thats why they are burning out!
    Also be wary of lamps from China that say 12volts. Often hey are only 6 volts and they melt the lamp fixing vey quickly once turned on.

  43. Martin says:

    To make corrugated iron sheets, I run brass shim or aluminium foil between a pair of gears from Meccano or similar. All diameters and tooth sizes are available from HPC gears in the UK. This technique can be used for canal or river side piling as well

  44. David Farms says:

    Reference street lights and voltages.
    We wire them in pairs in series, this immediately halves the volts going through each lamp.

  45. Dick Lobach says:

    I use a flea comb my wife had for the dogs with heavy duty aluminum foil, works great for HO, like somebody said, over stryrafoam. Then paint with flat silver paint and dry brush with rust for weathered roofing.

  46. Neil Webster says:

    I know it is not the right size, but bean tins cut up make great Nissan huts or taller work places with brick walls, you can even make them flat with a bit of work. Not as easy to work with though. UK

  47. Roger says:

    What’s a “sprue”?

  48. DEB MORGAN says:

    In casting, a sprue is the passage through which a molten material is introduced into a mold, and the term also refers to the excess material which solidifies in the sprue passage. In sand casting, the sprue is formed by a dowel which is removed from the sand to make the hole into which the metal is poured.

  49. Dan says:

    Can use aluminum foll by placing over a file. Use a soft piece of wood and press foil into file. Use what ever size file you need to make sheet metal.

  50. Muke says:

    Corrugated Iron HO scale.
    I do not remember where I saw the idea but there is an aluminium extrusion, used in flooring I believe, which has fine ribs on one side almost perfect pitch size for HO scale. (Off Cuts from a job will do if you can find them) Cut short pieces and with a vice or clamp press aluminium from drink cans sides between them to get almost perfect scale corrugations ! (Press softly for rounder deflections – too hard will give more V shape! )
    The original article showed attaching press strips to a jig which held the strips crest above valley and I plan to use set screws to limit depth of pressing !
    ~~~Mike~~~ (Australia)

  51. RONALD CONNOLLY says:

    Do you have instructions to build a football stadium HO size.

  52. chuck67 says:

    Someone replied to the corrugated iron post suggesting to use a file. I fully agree, as files come in endless patterns (different file-different gauge). Deep grooves & shallow. I may even try small firm paint roller to in print foil.

  53. Rod Douglas says:

    I have made a roller from a dowel rod, filed grooves in it to create the corrugated roofing effect. I used heavy duty aluminum foil and lay in on a peice of foam board that will allow the roller to depress the foil slightly. It takes time and patience but the results are worth it and you will take pride in knowing that it is something you created. Best of luck with your layout.

  54. tom says:

    Hi IVOR I buy regulated transformers that put out dc volts in 3-4.5-6-7.5-9-12 rangees, just turn front knob to desired volts. This a regulated power supply rated to 2 amps. I buy them at a store called Fry`s electronics in AZ USA. The brand is LKG Industries Inc,,Rockford Il. 61109 Just trying to help be sure to put a resistor in one leg. Good luck Tom in AZ

  55. Ted says:

    Try using a curling iron that women use to form. There is a very small one that should be perfect.

  56. Rob S. says:

    Hey Alan,
    Some good heavy duty aluminium foil I use is called black wrap. I use it when working in the professional/theatrical industry. And it’s black.

  57. Hi, I know what to do.
    I wanted to have tin just like what you wanted, so I went to my mums craft box and took the smallest rippled sheet of card that she had. Then I put PVA glue on to tin foil and glued it to that, making the groove with a match stick. So any sheet with the size that you need will do the trick

  58. Edmundo Vásquez Venthey says:

    Hi.- Here, in Chile, fruit cans have corrugated sides. They are perfects for roofs, side of buildings and so on. Maybe they are aout of scale (HO) but they may be one solution. Greetings. Edmundo.-

  59. Richard Scott says:

    The best way I have found to make corrugated aluminum is to buy one piece of northeastern corrugated siding. It is wood. Cut it in half and lay a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil over it. Press into it with the other half and you have a scale thickness piece with even scale corrugations. Simple and easy.

  60. Mike chasz says:

    I own a stained glass supply and there are several clear textured glasses that have that texture. Easily cut (ask the store staff if you aren’t comfortable yourself). Colour (CDN spelling) is then easily applied

  61. Mike chasz says:

    Sorry- stained glass stores also carry copper foil in various widths from 5/32″ up to 6″ with an adhesive back which can be applied to any structure.

  62. Maurie may says:

    Hi Alan,

    I’m also an Aussie, and few years ago I read in an Australian model rail magazine, can’t remember which one, about making HO scale corrugated iron.
    The writer’s method was using cut open aluminium soft drink cans. He put suitable sized pieces of these between two pieces of aluminium step tread, the grooved angle that gets attached to the edges of steps to reduce the chance of folk slipping, and clamped it up in the vice. The result was sheets corrugated to very close to scale size. The scale of course depends on the pitch of the lines in the tread walk. I happened to have a bit just right, but I think you could find something local if you looked around.
    Cheers,
    Maurie

  63. STEVE DENNISON says:

    corrugated iron tip for allan, try IKEA,childrens dept, they do packs that should look ok when painted. I have used this, looks ok.

  64. Dan Hulitt says:

    The corrugated coffee cup liners do work well. I got that from this site. I glued them to some styrene for added stiffness, then paint to your preference. I have been using Caribou liners (Minnesota), and their wooden coffee stirrers also make useful pieces as well.

    Have not tried removing the liner from the flute (corrugated section of cardboard) but that should work as well.

    Joy in creating, but not spending.

  65. David in Ohio says:

    I recently read where a fellow used liquid nails spread on a surface and as it started to set, run a fine-toothed comb through it.

  66. Don Scharenbroch says:

    To make corrugated roofing or siding, lay heavy duty aluminum foil on rigid foam board. Use a door spring and roll over the foil while pressing the spring down with a piece of 1/2″ plywood approximately 3″ x 8″ and roll the spring over the foil. Different size springs will produce different corrugations.

  67. Thomas A Piatchek says:

    corrugated soda straws

  68. Nigel Doran says:

    ribbon cable such as you find in an old computer works well

  69. James R Hochstein says:

    I found the corrugated cardboard that wraps small light bulbs is a smaller version of the corrugated cardboard wrap you buy from UPS.

  70. Del says:

    Buy a sheet of corrugated plastic of the correct scale.
    Cover the sheet in PVA glue to the thickness you require (I use a fairly thick one coat but it’s a personal choice). Don’t worry PVA will not stick to plastic
    When dry peel gently off if you have problems then a hair dryer played across the sheet will release the sheet (not too much or the PVA will reactivate and stretch.
    Use your usual paints of choice note: Use light coats and allow to dry in between coats as you could if too wet reactivate the PVA you could use a primer coat to stop this happening. It’s never happened to me but it could.
    There you have it a cheap way of making corrugated material.

    Keep your own time ticking..

  71. Dave McLaughlin says:

    Hello Alistair I am new to model railroading and like a good sponge I am trying to suck in as much information as I can I love all the ideas I am getting from you in my studding about wirein it suggests to wire the layout for dcc so I am trying to learn all can about doc do you have any suggestions were I should look also which brand should I get Thanks Dave

  72. Wheeler says:

    Use a paper crimper machine from a craft store, Ebay, etc. Less than $20. Thin aluminum soda cans work. Hope this helps

  73. Lots of good ideas here, but mostly more usable for larger scales. I have had some success with N scale corrugated roof sheets by holding a strip of alfoil on a
    piece of felt, on a hard surface. Then get a small bolt or machine screw with a reasonable sized thread, and pull it down to make the corrugations. Try different threaded screws till you get the right size (around 0.5 mm pitch seems to be about right to me). It takes some practice but the raw material is cheap… Of course you could make a screw with a proper handle if so inclined. Maybe we’ll see your sheets on Ebay soon?

  74. Andrew (Johannesburg SA) says:

    I agree with Don Scharenbroch….Find 2 “same type” springs and insert a dowel through them. You can glue the dowels in place if you wish. Make the one dowel quite long with a hole drilled through to accept a handle for rotation. Drill two holes through 2 blocks of wood that will accept the dowels, one above the other. Fit a piece of foil between the springs when you do this. Place a strong rubber band around the two dowels on both ends in a figure of eight where they exit the wooden block so that when the one dowel is rotated, it rotates the other. You now have a small mandrel that you can role the tinfoil through. Then paste onto a piece of card using contact adhesive and cut to the desired shape. Hope that will work for you

  75. CARL ANGDAHL says:

    After reading all the reply’s on corrugated roofing etc. I’ve picked up some pointers for the same thing in “G” scale. Thank you all.

  76. Ronald Seto says:

    Bird gravel is the right size for track gravel in the smaller scales, but must be glued down so as not to get into locomotive mechanisms.

  77. Ronald Seto says:

    In the larger scales (o and G), to save the cost of track, mill up hardwood strips to rail profile and use for staging where conductive rails are not used as on storage yards. Use conductive rails up to the yard then switch over to the wood rails. Marklin and LGB track is expensive.

  78. Ronald Seto says:

    A long time ago, I saw a homemade switch machine that used a fine thread screw attached to a small hobby motor that had a nut which in turn moved the points of a turnout. It controlled the turnout at a realistic slow motion and kept the points tightly set against the running rails.

  79. Henry H. Pinkham says:

    CORRUGATED IRON?
    Most chocolate bar wrappers are made of a shiny foil which has a neat HO-sized corrugated section at the back of the bar. These make nice-looking corrugated Iron sheets, Not very wide but work well when stuck om cardboard using rubber-based glue. Build small shacks this way.

    Regards,

    Henry Pinkham Senior (South Africa)

  80. Rich Gavert says:

    I use tree bark, from various types of trees to use as the base forms for mountains.

  81. MiMi says:

    Silhouette America sells packages of 8 1/2″ x 11″ corrugated peel and stick sheets. They are made for use in their cutting machines but they can be cut with just about anything. The package I ordered had half white sheets and half the kraft brown color. They are very close to an HO scale in size. I used acrylic gray paint, let it dry and then rubbed with a small wire bristle brush along the grain. That made the strips I cut look like an older and shiny piece of metal. Very reasonable price too.

  82. Frank Serio, Bethpage New York says:

    I read most of your answers and had an idea of my own. I went out to the garage and experimented with ptwo different diameter tin cans. We all have cans that can be used. WHEN YOU CUT THE TIN CANS APART IN LENGTH AND WIDTH, BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL FOR BURS AND VERY SHARP CUT EDGES. Tear off the labels and you’ll see the corrugated lines on the TIN can. A 3” diameter can is about 9 1/2” circumference. My 4 oz. can has a corrugated section that is 1 1/2” x 9 1:2”. My 9 oz. can has a corrugated section of 3” x 9 1/2”. Tin cans are tin on the exterior and white on the interior (paintable to any color). Once you cut the corrugated area out of the can, crosscut the cans overall length. Once crosscut cut, the can is still circular. Unroll the corrugated tin carefully and slowly straighten out the rounded tin can to a flat sheet of corrugated roofing material. When you look at the short ends of the tin roofing you see the actual corrugated effect.

  83. Thomas Feagins says:

    Alan
    If you look about you can find various items that have plastic parts or sections that have a grooved surface. Some bottle caps are like this. Some plastic shields on lights and other items. I cut alum. baking foil into the size of squares I needed to add to the outside of a roadside shed I built from scratch. Cut sheets to desired size, lay on top of the plastic surface, use a dull pointed object to trace the grooves in the foil. This takes a little time but the results worked well for my shed in N scale.

  84. Gary M from Long Island says:

    Allan…..look at WOOD CONNECTORS. You might have to piece them together but they look just like corrugated iron.

    Another use would be to use the wood connector to make molds. Press into the aluminum foil or plaster and paint

  85. Will in NM says:

    Wow! So many great ideas for creating HO scale corrugated metal siding. The simplest method I saw seemed to be using two pieces of Northeastern scale corrugated siding and pressing a piece of aluminum foil between them. I’ve never tried to make my own siding — I usually just buy a Walthers styrene kit that has the corrugated siding in it. I also remember those Suydam kits that were real metal.

  86. Chris Larrabee says:

    Alan, you are in luck! There’s a shop in your neck of the woods that sells exactly what you’re looking for: Brunel Hobbies in Cheltenham, Victoria (brunelhobbies.com.au) makes the “Corrugated Iron Maker” which functions by pressing foil between two grooved pieces. For less than AU$20, it’s available in several scales, to include O, HO, N, and 1/72 (which will work for OO). Shipping killed me–I’m envious of your proximity!

  87. Steve Baker says:

    At OO scale – 4mm = 1 foot. Corrugated iron has 9 peaks and 9 troughs every 2 feet – if we round it down to 8 peaks/troughs per 2 feet (8mm) then you need a peak and a trough every millimeter. Right there – that rules out a lot of common household materials. I’ve had some success wrapping some roughly 1mm diameter copper wire tightly around a piece of plywood or something – then rubbing a sheet of aluminum foil onto it to get indentations of the right pitch and then coating the back of the foil with epoxy glue to prevent the delicate waves from getting crushed as you handle it. In reality, they make the stuff in sheets that’s one corrugation wider than 2 feet so you can overlap them every 2 feet. So I suppose you could try cutting your foil into 9mm wide strips so you can use the same construction technique.

  88. Carl G says:

    I liked all the info in the coments wery informative.
    do have a question what is a sprue that Allan talks about?

  89. Bruce J WALTON says:

    Try using a hair comb
    I got alot of aluminum foll from electrical or tele communication cable and place over comb rub over with a peice of rubber not sure what scale it is will depend on comb but looks ok New Zealand

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