The door tracks probably will be printed. First step is to see if the door idea even works. Honestly I think this is all probably a big waste of time as the door opening isn’t really accessible on the layout anyway.
It was more of, I’m finally sitting on the couch this evening and have a few minutes to relax before bed, let’s see if that’s enough time to draw up a part. And clearly it wasn’t because I didn’t finish.
Just imparting my limited knowledge but resin printing and “snapping into place” and “flexible” are not synonymous. Resin prints are notoriously brittle. Just a thought.
The more I ponder this, I think I’m just going to go simple. Either model it with the door closed or open and call it good.
Or as the thought just popped into my head, mount some strong magnetics on the door and the interior. I think I have some laying around. Removal of I want to stage photos (but again access is an issue). Even with the lead photo of the truck being loading you can’t see the angle of the door.
I also want to add some working lights to the building so my energy is probably better going into that instead.
Now that this is done…
One more Awana Derby in the books.
They already want to start building for next year.
Here’s all 4 cars from our house. My wife raced on of her old cars as well. Left to right, mine, 9 yld (Log truck missing the logs we added for weight), 8 yld (pickup truck) and 4 yld (fire Chief pickup truck). The 9 yld made it into the sweet sixteen for the first time as was pretty excited.
And 4 of the 5 adult ones. Ryan who made the green car wants to do an unlimited class next year for adults. Basically go way over the top.
PS, I can see why Eric likes doing the MIK build (and the rest of the railroad) with his kids. We had fun building together.
I need to find something that’s not trains to build with my boys. Sorry the trains are for “serious” modeling only. No “napkin builders” allowed in my shop. 
On a serious note, I’m selfish and want my hobby for me. I’ll find something else we can build/create together. Maybe rockets?!
Got the two end walls glued up. For the “nice” side facing the street I ended up using Evergreen strips. .060 x .060 seemed to look better than the
.040 x .040 I used on the back wall. Makes it a bit easier to cut as well.
Hopefully tonight after the boys go to bed I can deal with the mess of taking a sheet down from deep storage. Of course the 1/8" sheets are at the bottom of the pile.
Photos as promised.
Bottom is the nicely cut and prior purchased styrene. Top is the hand cut stuff. I think I’ll try cutting on the saw next as it seems to get better results with thicker stuff.
And I was able to dig out a partial sheet. This should be more than enough.
All those strips to cut, space and glue on has to be tedious but it is looking really good. That stripper tool is neat. I didn’t know such a thing existed.
The stripper tool works really good for .020 or thinner but the thicker stuff it struggles a bit. It’s not always perfect and I’ve noticed every dozen or so runs I have to go back with a straight edge make a smooth edge again.
I more precise cutting method is probably better long term but this works.
And honestly with a push stick, I can cut just as thin strips on the mini table saw. It makes a lot more plastic dust.
Ideally, I’d set up a Cricut or similar and use that to cut my own strips. I think that makes the best of both worlds.
15 minutes is 15 minutes, well more like 30 between when I got home from school before I get to pick the boys up. Scored and snapped the remaining styrene.
I’ll respond for him. If you live somewhere that has a larger plastics distributor it is not that expensive to buy a 4X8 sheet. For what it costs to buy a couple packages of styrene sheet from say Evergreen, you can buy an entire 4X8 sheet.
Bill,
About 15 or 16 years ago I embarked on my first attempt at scratch building in large scale. The project at the time was a grain elevator that I had read about in MR in HO. It was a simple affair, just two silos with a small office and elevator leg. The whole thing would have been about 8’ tall at the highest.
As part of the “small office” area, the author mentioned he used sheet plastic. I think it was .060 or .080. I got the crazy idea that I wanted to build it in 1/29. I bought a 14’ 8" PVC pipe and started looking for a supply of sheet styrene. Low and behold about an hour away was a major plastic supply house and they had 4x8 sheets from .010 to .125.
So I bought 3 or 4 sheets of .125 and some thinner sheets and started building. I haven’t stopped since. In the meantime, a few hobby shops have closed and I’ve stocked up on strips.
I currently keep the following 4x8 sheets on hand: .125, .060, .040 and .030.
Added to my styrene addiction was my great uncle closing out his plastic supply business a few years back. I grabbed probably 2 dozen sheets of .060 ABS. I wish I would have taken more as he had some thicker stuff as well.
I still haven’t bought ever size but the plan is to eventually get 2 to 3 packs (20-30 strips) of each size on hand. I think that if I can cut them with a Circut it will save money in the long run and I can also make scale 1x, 2x etc sizes as well.
For the shapes like H, I, C channel I’m slowly stocking up as well.
I really got addicted to building with styrene and then started watching Adam Savage Tested videos and he extended my love for scratch building in styrene. A lot of the ILM builds from the 70’s on are styrene. And apparently they had quite the “hardware store” of supplies. That’s my eventual goal as well.
So yes, I’m addicted to styrene and it’s my choice material. When I get buildings done on the layout, I will use it for rolling stock.
Craig you make me wanna run out and buy some sheets of styrene
Styrene, some MEK and #11 blade can build you a lot of things!
Me too and a 55 gallon drum of MEK.
What size is the most versatile in your opinion, not gonna go crazy and buy a bunch of different sizes
Depends on what your plans are for it?
Buildings I’d say 1/8 (.125). For rail cars, I bet you could get away with .060. Detail parts, anywhere from .020 to .060. It just kinda depends.
Problem with hording styrene is once you get the size or shape you think you need, you end up needing a slightly different size so you buy that next…
Yeah what I was afraid of, turn into a plastic warehouse in my garage, who is already a cutoff lumber warehouse in my garage
Just start small… But seriously anytime you want a piece bigger than little sheets Evergreen sells, it’s much cheaper sq ft wise to buy from a plastic supply house if you can find one locally.
Or a sign shop might have cut offs.
I really wish I could get PVC sheets for cheaper than $25 a sq ft here.
