Modelling in tinplate

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
Excellent stuff, having driven the real thing ( The Merc.) I can vouch for the acccuracy of the  models.

Tin plate can be a cheap sorce of material for scratch building, it solders well and is easily shaped. How about some steel minerals, covered in rust... luverly.

Colin.
 

Pugsley

Western Thunderer
Impressive stuff, thanks for the link Graham.  I can also vouch for the accuracy of the models, everything that I'm familiar with, there, looks exactly like it's supposed to.

Edit - As an afterthought, where would you get tinplate from these days?
 
G

Graham Powell

Guest
It is actually quite difficult to get hold of decent tinplate these days. I used to use 12thou material from 5 gallon cooking oil tins cleaning the paint off with Nitromors.
I noticed the other day that on the inside of the boiler on my first 8F its says Castrol GTX!.
One gallon oil tins are still around. Tate and Lyle syrup tins use a soft tinplate that will bend round anything . Its ideal for GWR fireboxes etc.  The actual tinplate coating today must be extremely thin as my phosphoric acid flux will take it off if I'm not careful. Nowadays I use nickel silver but on the broad gauge trains I made I used tinplate for the underframes on the coaches. I've also used 18thou to make frames for two small tank engines ( ex Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds circa 1912). Tinplate is a much underrated material as it solders very well, takes rivets very well and the car paints ( which are designed for steel bodies)  go on easily  and what is more important, stay on. rgds
Graham Powell
 
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