Garden Railway Forum

I was looking for wooden crates for wagon loads and to generally have stacked about. Cast resin offerings are pretty much out of my price range, but what I found is that many of the cheap plastic military sets with jointed figures sold in $2 shops also contained things like ammo crates and general crate like objects intended to be used as cover or whatever. Some are a bit cheap and plasticy, but given a weathering wash and stacked together they look ok. Some other plastic crates are nicely moulded and look very good. Most will have some kind of military markings on the top, but turning them upside down takes care of that.

Wooden ones (solid, not ply) from a doll-house size laser kit, stencilled using reversed photocopies as iron-on transfers, one weathered with tea-iron mix and a knife.



I don't have any of the kits left, but a 1/24 one is on my Laser List.
While wire binding is easy enough in 1/12 scale, I imagine it would be a challenge in 1/24 scale!

David

Houston Gate Locomotive works does custom crates........... http://www.hglw.co.uk/ and go down to "Accessories"............

Fancy you popping up, Brian, just as I was remembering your request (long ago) for 16mm crates for your B.E. Cheeseworks!

David

Wow! laser cutting definitely looks like being the future. Hurry up someone and buy my lathe so I can get myself a laser cutter

So do you make those crates on your own laser cutter David? They are very nice and I definitely wouldn't mind some 1/24th sized ones. Aging them with that tea mix certainly looks effective.

Thanks for the hglw link Brian. Custom made crates with custom marking sounds interesting as I wouldn't mind having some crates lettered for the Kotanga Valley Posthole Mining Co.

These are the crates I've picked up here and there in the bargain shops by the way.

MDLR:115699 wrote:Houston Gate Locomotive works does custom crates........... http://www.hglw.co.uk/ and go down to "Accessories"............

Erm, not sure where, but I can't see them under accessories??

Klick the 'kits' link first and then you'll find the accessories link.

Annie, a laser cutter will set you back at least USD 3000. Do not be tempted to buy one of the cheap lasers from Ebay. They are cheap for a reason. High failure rate and terrible software. I'm on my 4th laser cutter so have some experience with them.

Annie:115702 wrote:Hurry up someone and buy my lathe so I can get myself a laser cutter  :)

Annie, my first thought was that you must have one hell of a lathe for sale! But the latest little laser-diode cutters are indeed comparable in cost with a hobby lathe, though they won't make anything much bigger than these match-box sized little crates. Worth noting that they will definitely do black "stencilling", though not colour.

So do you make those crates on your own laser cutter David?

I'm afraid not: I was given a few flat-pack kits by a kindly 7/8" fan in the USA, and started by experimenting with distressing, weathering and printing - all in the flat:



The tricky bit is gluing such a beast together without the glue showing. (Of course it doesn't matter if you are going to paint it, but it matters a lot if you are going to stain it or leave it bare.) I carefully coat the contact surfaces ONLY with cellulose Balsa Cement, wait for the glue to dry thoroughly, then dry-assemble fully. I use a paintbrush to flood each joint in turn with acetone, which welds the cellulose inside the joints.
  This leaves no glue deposit visible, inside or out, other than accidental over-spill.

Ageing them with that tea mix certainly looks effective.

For thousands of years, European inks were made up of minute specks of dark iron compound trapped IN the fibres of the page rather than laid in the surface. We can use the same chemistry by soaking tannin-bearing woods (oak, walnut etc) in gardeners' ferrous sulphate lawn treatment. Because these boxes were made from a low-tannin wood (lime = basswood = linden) I upped the tannin by soaking in strong cheap tea. Don't mix the solutions together - bathe the wood in them alternately so that the iron pigments are created IN the wood fibres, not merely in the soup. That's why this method gives greyer greys than the old modellers' standby of India Ink diluted with alcohol. (India Ink = Chinese Ink is basically soot suspended in glue, and far older and blacker than Mediaeval Ink.)

I now have access to a school evening-class laser cutter. It's absolutely hammered by the school pupils, so its alignment is all to pot, and of course I have to share it with the rest of the class. I've made a start with simple shapes in MDF and acrylic. Cutting thin veneers is on my future list of things to experiment with.

I like your Crate Collection for its variety of shapes and sizes.

David

Busted Bricks:115708 wrote:Annie, a laser cutter will set you back at least USD 3000. Do not be tempted to buy one of the cheap lasers from Ebay. They are cheap for a reason. High failure rate and terrible software. I'm on my 4th laser cutter so have some experience with them.

Thanks for the warning, - it's much appreciated. My lathe is a nice old Myford so I would have in all innocence gone and purchased a cheap laser cutter after I sold it.

Thanks for the information David about aging/staining as well as that trick for keeping joints clean of glue. I must say though that the work you've done on those crates is absolutely superb.

With cheapie plastic toy shop crates it's just a case (no pun intended) of keeping my eyes open. Most of the bagged sets they were in were only $1-$2 each so they are cheap enough to buy. The left over bits and bobs I put to one side and when there's enough I pop them in a bag and take them down to the local church thrift shop.

Hi Annie,

When I got my laser cutting done I asked the chap who ran the workshop how he got into the laser cutting business, and he said that he'd simply always fancied owning a laser cutter. He'd bought a cheap one at first but found the sort of problem David mentions - so I'd echo his concerns! You can get CAD software for free though, and then send your designs to be cut...

Love your crates David - I've used a vinegar/wire wool solution for ageing wood, but I like yours better so I'll give your technique a trial...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Vinegar+wire wool gives you a suitable iron salt, and you can then use tea to darken the effect by adding tannin. Our ancestors used to ferment oak leaf galls, and our Colonial Cousins favour walnut hulls.

David

Excellent, thanks David - I'll add tea to my weathering arsenal! I've had some pretty good results from the wire wool and vinegar solution but it sometimes comes out an almost bluey silver. I shall raid the teapot...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Another suggestion: have you ever tried a very dilute wash if Indian ink? I keep a small pot in the workshop and it only takes a moment to "splash it all over" any wood that needs to not look new.

That's a traditional modellers' trick that works very well, Brian.

The two effects are similar but subtly different, with the ink being quicker and cleaner to apply, but generally allowing more wood colour to show through.

Any technique that involves water will raise the grain of the wood, which is why American modellers dilute their ink with alcohol.
What I do is wet all woodwork with water before weathering or painting, then sand off all the 'whiskers'. Then there are no more whiskers to raise when wet-treating the surfaces or using water-based paints.

David

The HGLW Link to the crates is: http://www.hglw.co.uk/Lineside_Accessories.html

Custom named ones no problem




Regards,
David H.

Brilliant, David !