Evergreen siding/sheathing...

[tac foley]

In a fit of genuine annoyance, I've just written this letter to Evergreen Plastics over in the USA -


Afternoon/Mornin', Evergreen - I've been a happy customer of Evergreen plastics products for MANY years, and have build countless models using your shapes and sheets.

However, now that I'm starting to build vintage, ie pre-WW2, railroad rolling stock in 1/32nd scale - Gauge 1 - I'm encountering a little bit of a problem with your product, and one that as far as I can see it is insurmountable.

Y'see, in all my 73 years, at least seventy of which have been spent looking at and playing with trains of one scale or another, I've yet to come across a railroad car in which the sheathing goes along the sides, rather than from the top of the car to the bottom - just like the one in your website.



You would imagine that buying a 24" x 12" sheet of V-groove siding - EVG14125 - would enable you to cut a pair of sides of the suitable length. There are few, if any, wood-sheathed-era railroad cars that are 64 feet long, right?

And yet the grooves on 12x24 inch sheet of Evergreen car-siding goes ALONG the length of the 24", rather than UP and DOWN the 12" dimension.

This means that when building US rolling stock that you have to SPLICE two pieces together to get the length of the car - VERY annoying, to say the least..... No matter how you 'cut it', the two pieces are never the same as a single piece, and I am one red-hot modeller, I can tell you.



Just leaving you with that thought, while I sit here shaking my head...

tac

 

[PhilP]

Tac,

Do they sell a 12"x24" sheet, by any chance?

In the 'wood trade', the first measurement is 'along the grain', on sheet material. - It works for wood, I guess these are cut from something bigger?

But I do feel your pain!

 

[tac foley]

This IS a 24x12 sheet.

£33.

Ouch.

 

[JimmyB]

I think what PhilP is trying to say is that 12 X 24 as opposed to 24 X 12 would have the V groove running in the other direction.

 

[Bill Barnwell]

I don't have a problem using the small sheets and joining the together, here is the picture of a diner I did for the Mik challenge and the back wall was made with 4 pieces of siding, old let over pieces, and glued with model masters glue then primed with rattle can Krylon and then painted with Krylon color the from side is about 3 -4 pieces of 2 different sides of a Bachmann combine and when glued it's hard to tell where the seam is. Plastruct also makes sheets but have never used there product, all in all I have been very happy with evergreen and the smaller sizes are usually $5.00 to $6.00, Bill

 

[tac foley]

I understand about the 24" square, but that is not generally available here in UK.

Good post there, Bill, and very effective, too. I'll have to do the same as you did, and join up bits. Luckily there is a set of double doors on each side, and I can use the door surrounds to conceal the joins..

 

[tac foley]

'kaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Now well on the way, having built the 'box' - and right now I'm putting the unbelievably expensive styrene siding on - some I bought here in UK in a 12x24 sheet from Elite Hobbies, and the rest is coming from my old pal. Ken Brunt, over there in PA. Details parts that I need - door latch system and roof hatches et al - are coming from Precision Scale/Ozark in the US of A, and trucks courtesy of EbayMike. So far it's looking good - I might do a narticle for the magazine, if pushed...

 

[Blackreed]

I have the opposite complaint about wood, it’s always scribed in one direction and that alway causes everything to be pieced together, the wood is usually the opposite direction, no matter the length, I end up cutting pieces. This has led to me making most of my wood myself, and for me, as I do not usually use much plastic, get frustrated when I am using metal, just yesterday I was looking for dies for the milling machine so I can cut the widths of my corrugated metals before I put (destroy) the ridges.
You know it’s kinda nice that our complaints are so simple.

 

[tac foley]

Hiya! A while back, Accucraft, famed builders of some excellent models in a number of scales, produced a Climax locomotive to their adoring fan club. It was, in almost all respects, a VERY fine model of this peculiar-looking but quite successful logging locomotive, although the prototype was not devoid of build-in problems. At at around 12mph the entire locomotive began to 'hop' in a very unpleasant motion - one example on the Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad in Washington state, was nick-named 'Hopping Henry', as a result of its track antics.

However, this did not happen to the model - it was FAR worse.

Look very carefully at the running boards...






You will notice, I hope, that whereas the GRAIN of the planking goes ACROSS the loco, the DIRECTION of the planking goes ALONG the length of the locomotive.

Doh.

 

[trammayo]

Hiya! A while back, Accucraft, famed builders of some excellent models in a number of scales, produced a Climax locomotive to their adoring fan club. It was, in almost all respects, a VERY fine model of this peculiar-looking but quite successful logging locomotive, although the prototype was not devoid of build-in problems. At at around 12mph the entire locomotive began to 'hop' in a very unpleasant motion - one example on the Mt Rainier Scenic Railroad in Washington state, was nick-named 'Hopping Henry', as a result of its track antics.

However, this did not happen to the model - it was FAR worse.

Look very carefully at the running boards...

View attachment 255515

View attachment 255516


You will notice, I hope, that whereas the GRAIN of the planking goes ACROSS the loco, the DIRECTION of the planking goes ALONG the length of the locomotive.

Doh.

Should that not be the the Direction of the planking is across the loco whilst the grain goes along the length of the loco - or should I stop going to Specsavers? Either way, it spoils things.

 

[tac foley]

Should that not be the the Direction of the planking is across the loco whilst the grain goes along the length of the loco - or should I stop going to Specsavers? Either way, it spoils things.

!OGNIB

Yup, the grain SHOULD go along the plank, and not across. Talk about spoiling the ship etc. Pal of mine over in USA provides a set of replacement overlay wood planking that hide the uh, faux pas.