Availability of half-tubing

I want to create reasonably accurate rain gutters for the buildings I'm modeling. I could use some of the commercial injection moldings sold for that purpose, but every one I've seen is unrealistically thick. Which leads me to use thin-walled brass channel. That's fine for square gutters, but many buildings (in fact, most in the steam era) had round gutters so I'd need to cut a piece of tubing in half. That's a lot of precision work and before I start, I'm hoping that someone has already done it. Does anyone know of commercially available semi-circular channel? Ideally, I'd want about 1/16" diameter (which translates to roughly 6" in HO).

TIA Norm

Reply to
Norm Dresner
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You might want to try a couple of layers of foil wrapped around a dowel.

-Hudson

Reply to
Hudson Leighton

I am sure that Evergreen has styrene in half & semi circle tubing, Another ide could be to use styrene channell & sand the corner off edge

Reply to
a6et

Not in the Walthers catalog nor anything I found at the hobby shop yesterday. Not Evergreen, not Plastruct. Special Shapes doesn't have it in brass either. I'll probably use a C-channel and make it square. Sanding the corners off a 3/32" channel is a rather delicate task, don't you think?

Norm

Reply to
Norm Dresner

| > TIA | > Norm | >

| | You might want to try a couple of layers of foil | wrapped around a dowel. | | -Hudson

And then cut it in half?

I might as well use .002 shim brass sheet between two pieces of telescoping tubing with the larger's top half filed off -- sort of a punch and die.

Norm

Reply to
Norm Dresner

nope. They have tubing, but it's round, not semi circle. They have half and quarter round rod, but it's not hollow. (I'm looking at their website right now:

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Pikestuff does have something listed as "Gutters, Downspouts, Chimney & Electric Meter". The part number at Walthers is 541-3001, if you want to look at it. It's on page 1014 of the 2006 Walthers HO Scale Reference catalog.:
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Reply to
me

How much do you need? I've split Evergreen tube with an X-acto knife but only in shorter pieces.

I wonder if you could cut the insulation off of some copper wire?

dlm

Reply to
Dan Merkel

Norm Dresner spake thus:

Here's a top-of-my-head idea: how about if a guy were to take the tubing and embed it halfway in a piece of scrap wood by means of a small knife or chisel cut? Then said guy could carefully grind off the top half of the tubing, working across the length of it, say with a small wheel in a Dremel, with the tool clamped to the workbench and sliding the work past it.

It might help if a guy were to run a piece of wire (soft copper, say) through the tubing first, then grind both the tubing and wire.

It would be a pain in the ass, but it might work. The result would be pretty rough, so you'd have to clean it up with a file afterwards.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Another solution is to collect a few scrap umbrellas and use the ribs. Keith

Reply to
Keith

Norm, If you can't find thin enough half round sections that you need ( I couldn't find any ) you can make some gutters. Take a piece of wire or rod the diameter you want that's about six or eight inches long and hold it down firmly by the ends on a flat surface. Take a sheet of paper and cut a strip about six inches long and maybe an inch or so wide. Pre curve the paper strip by wrapping it around a dowel rod and then a smaller dowel rod or piece of tubing. Next slip the paper under the wire or rod and glue it so the glued edges are not quite tight against the wire. The profile of your shape should be like a tear drop. Use a straight edge with some paint jars or whatever to hold it down while the glue dries. Remove the assembly from the work bench and paint the paper area around the wire with epoxy. Before the epoxy dries slip it off the wire. Slip it back on the wire to sand if needed then cut it right along the wire. You will probably end up with a little more of a U shape than an exact half round shape. Your makeshift fiberglass like gutter pieces will be very delicate but ridged enough to work with and won't fold up like foil. Best of all they will not look over scale in thickness. When cutting pieces to fit or trim hold them on the wire to keep them from smashing down when you cut them. Bruce

Reply to
Bruce Favinger

| >> I want to create reasonably accurate rain gutters for the buildings I'm | >> modeling. I could use some of the commercial injection moldings sold for | >> that purpose, but every one I've seen is unrealistically thick. Which leads | >> me to use thin-walled brass channel. That's fine for square gutters, but | >> many buildings (in fact, most in the steam era) had round gutters so I'd | >> need to cut a piece of tubing in half. | >

| >Here's a top-of-my-head idea: how about if a guy were to take the tubing | >and embed it halfway in a piece of scrap wood by means of a small knife | >or chisel cut? Then said guy could carefully grind off the top half of | >the tubing, working across the length of it, say with a small wheel in a | >Dremel, with the tool clamped to the workbench and sliding the work past it. | >

| >It might help if a guy were to run a piece of wire (soft copper, say) | >through the tubing first, then grind both the tubing and wire. | >

| >It would be a pain in the ass, but it might work. The result would be | >pretty rough, so you'd have to clean it up with a file afterwards. | | Another solution is to collect a few scrap umbrellas and use the ribs. | Keith

Sitting in the basement using all of the remaining memory cells in my aging brain I'm trying to picture the size of the ribs and thinking that they're about twice as big as I'd need for HO: roughly 1/8" to the foot so a 1/16" channel would represent a 6" gutter. I don't believe that umbrellas are that flimsy but, hey, there are some pretty cheap ones out there. It's not a bad idea to look in the trash bin for raw materials and it could come in useful later. Norm

Reply to
Norm Dresner

If I understand your suggestion, you're using paper "soaked" in "glue" as a raw material and molding it to shape around a former. I've done this literally before, using AutoCAD to print some fairly complex shapes onto heavy card stock and then cutting them out and stiffening them with glue to represent the ribs on the underside of a depressed center flat car. But I hadn't extended this to realize that it could be used to make 3D parts as well. That's a neat idea and even if I take the lazy way out and use square C-channel this time, I'll definitely keep it in mind for future use. Thanks Norm

Reply to
Norm Dresner

You could always switch to On30.

Reply to
Steve Caple

and make a groove just slightly larger in a piece of hardwood or a metal block; preheat the edge of the thinnest sheet styrene (.012?) you can find with a hair dryer or heat gun, lay that edge over the groove and press the rod into the groove; blow cool air on it and trim out the channel; lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. Release coatings may be needed on the rod and groove.

Reply to
Steve Caple

Steve Caple spake thus:

So far, I like the formed-paper idea the best. Yours second best. Mine third. (Paper is my current favorite building material. Amazing what you can do with it.)

It would be interesting if the O.P. actually tried any of these methods and reported the results back here.

Reply to
David Nebenzahl

Steve,

I've done somethiong similar using telescopic brass tube. Get a bit of tube which has an ID = to the OD of the gutter, File it down to half diameter and solder it to one side of a brass hinge. Get another piece of rod or tube which will fit in the first piece with an allowance for 10 thou styrene, and solder it to the other side of the brass hinge so that when the hinge is shut, the rod/tube fits exactly in the other half tube. You only need to make the lengths the scale length of the prototype lengths of guttering, and you will then have to assemble your guttering much the same way as the real thing.

Cut your styrene into trips which are a little oversize in width and clamp them in the hinge and tubes and dunk the lot in hot water for a few seconds, which will set the 10 thou styrene in the shape of a half round gutter. When you take it out of the water, keep it clamped and use a craft knife to trim the overwidth margins using the hald tube edges as a guide.

Same idea as yours, but a slightly different way of doing it :-)

Jim.

Reply to
Jim Guthrie

I like Steve's idea too. I guess I don't think about what all can be done with plastic as I haven't used it much defaulting to paper, card stock or strip wood for most solutions. The plastic might make for very sturdy pieces.

I think I may try a combination of my paper gutter and Steve's plastic gutter process. I have some plastic sheet salvaged off a box with a see thru display. I originally saved this thin but firm plastic to make windows but it might make some good gutters too. I going to bend this plastic around a wire and glue the edges just like the paper and then give it some heat and cut it off. If this works it will save some time and mess and produce almost instant gutters. The last time I made paper gutters they were for some S structures and I don't have any in HO. Bruce

Bruce

Reply to
Bruce Favinger

Sure would be simpler if Evergreen or Plastruct or somebody would just make soem scale 4" wide C channel in HO, S and O - N might be too much to ask.

Reply to
Steve Caple

I've got .005" styrene and .001" and .002" brass that could be used. I could rout a groove with a small ball burr in the dremel. Sure, it works. Thanks for the idea.

Norm

Reply to
Norm Dresner

| >>Take a piece of wire or rod the diameter you want | >

| > and make a groove just slightly larger in a piece of hardwood or a metal | > block; preheat the edge of the thinnest sheet styrene (.012?) you can find | > with a hair dryer or heat gun, lay that edge over the groove and press the | > rod into the groove; blow cool air on it and trim out the channel; lather, | > rinse, repeat as necessary. Release coatings may be needed on the rod and | > groove. | | So far, I like the formed-paper idea the best. Yours second best. Mine | third. (Paper is my current favorite building material. Amazing what you | can do with it.) | | It would be interesting if the O.P. actually tried any of these methods | and reported the results back here.

I will

Norm

Reply to
Norm Dresner

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