I know I have seen this thrown out here before but when I went searching for rolls of shim stock I am met with a very wide assortment of materiel. I want to make corrugated metal roofing from steel shim stock so that I can let it get naturally rusty.
What thickness and temper should I be getting to run through my friskers paper crimper. I see it down to .001 thick and up and in various tempers. What should I order or buy
Should have searched first. I see that at least Dan used .002 steel and had no trouble through the crimper.
Beer cans… empty …
That’s a good idea, but I haven’t found anywhere that sells empty beer cans.
Lou Luczu said:
That’s a good idea, but I haven’t found anywhere that sells empty beer cans.
Why we sell them for 5 cents …
Aluminum flashing in roofing dept. of the big box stores.
Lou Luczu said:
That’s a good idea, but I haven’t found anywhere that sells empty beer cans.
Send the full ones to me. I’ll send you back the empties…(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
Or, you can get just about anything you want at McMaster…always a dangerous place to visit (for my wallet, anyway…)
Sean,
I have used the aluminum pop can. I refuse to drink beer from a can; I am a snob that way. But I want to try an actual mild steel product to see how it looks after it rusts naturally compared to apply paint or ?? to the aluminum to make it look rusty.
Devon,
I will be interested to here your results. I think Bob did this on the mine structure at Majestic. not sure but I do not think it was weathering evenly, but this may be due to other weathering attempts as well.
one thing I would like to here about is how do you get the crimper to give you consistent results? I find I run the pop cans thru several times, I precut my stock to a specific size every time, but still have varying sheet , and more importantly overlap problems.
AL P.
Wasn’t Schlitz made out of steel once ?
Sean McGillicuddy said:
Wasn’t Schlitz made out of steel once ?
The can was…not sure about the beer. (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)Most cans used to be steel…it was something to crush one way back when. Not so much with today’s aluminum cans…
Al Pomeroy said:
Devon,
I will be interested to here your results. I think Bob did this on the mine structure at Majestic. not sure but I do not think it was weathering evenly, but this may be due to other weathering attempts as well.
one thing I would like to here about is how do you get the crimper to give you consistent results? I find I run the pop cans thru several times, I precut my stock to a specific size every time, but still have varying sheet , and more importantly overlap problems.
AL P.
I cut mine, roll it through, and just before it comes out the back I reverse it. I squeeze as hard as I can and then go back through forward again. Seems to come out fine, maybe I am not picky enough. Not as nice as Dave’s Taylor Tin but it works just fine.
Devon Sinsley said:
Sean, I refuse to drink beer from a can; I am a snob that way.
I only drink from a glass pint .
This way … it’s hard to tell glass/can…
Never understand why people drink directly from a bottle or can what with the possibility of rats and mice and cats “p” ing all over them when in the store(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
(I have a railroad modelling book kicking about that describes how to make a “press” for making corrugated sheets from flattened aluminium such as drinks cans…Quite simple and effective.
Dashed if I can find it for its title and author BUT he has featured in GR a few times
I used to be a snob like that. I still don’t drink beer directly from the can, but some of the better breweries are only producing cans now. Getting a small brewery set up for canning costs tons less than a bottling line. With the linings they use on aluminum it tastes just as good as from glass.
Important things first … I’m with Devon and guess a snob, but I don’t like drink beer from a can either. Actually don’t really like drinking it from a glass. I only buy beer in bottles, glass bottles and maybe its just me, but it has a much better taste coming from a bottle. Now, I’m not such a snob that if you’re buying I will say no to cans, but if its my money, its a glass bottle. I have a good friend who only drinks from cans … he says bottles make his trash to heavy (https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Now to Devon’s original question … Devon, I used 0.002" Rockwell B90 hardened steel shim stock from McMaster-Carr on the cookhouse I built last year for the challenge. Now, I did weather it myself because I did not intend for it to stay outside long enough to weather on its own. The used the Fiskars (sp??) paper crimper with good success. I think the key is making sure the stock is perepnedicular to the rollers when it is run through. It took a couple trys, but once I got the hang of it, it generally came out just fine. See below.
All of my local breweries are bottling in cans. The real micro brewery don’t even sell cans. Bring your growler to the brewery (or in my case to my local Fred Meyer) and get beer from the keg.
I had success annealing my aluminum cans first.
Devon,
I never have been able to get a good job from a Friskers. I have one with plastic rollers and one with metal, both are inconsistent, maybe it is just me that is inconsistent(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif).
I went to a press a long time ago, using aluminum beverage cans and have lots better results.
Using steel shim stock could be expensive, I would suggest nothing heavier than .010 and as soft as you can get.
Natural rust can be a little out of scale and uneven as was mentioned. One of those artsie rust painting kits sold at Michael’s
and other places can work pretty good.
Here are a couple pictures of the presses I made and some roofing from them.
The press on the left is 1:24 scale for a 3 X 10 sheet and the one on the right is 1:20 scale for a 3 X 10 sheet.
You just cut your beverage can pieces to size, lay in the press, put the top piece in place and whack with a hammer.
Use a waste block between the top mold piece and the hammer
The 1:20 scale roofing from beverage cans produced in the mold. I don’t remember if this batch was just sprayed with rattle can
cold galvanizing or was treated with board etch.
Just what works for me
Rick
Rick,
How did you make your die set?
Taylor Tin uses a matched male / female roller system, with the prototypical number of ridges per scale foot.
I tried any number of metals. The Shim stock by it’s nature is very hard and resists crimping, plus it’s expensive.
The only thing I could get to be prototypical profile was Annealed Alum. Most all Steel sheets, are way to thick, and “crack” at the folds due to there “Hardness”, Annealed sheet steel products are not available in any thing close to consumer qualities. Buying a 36" x 1200 meter roll and having it shipped from Japan isn’t an option. I attempted to anneal drink cans myself, using my wives Kiln. wasn’t very successful, Andused a bunch of power.
IMG_2726 by Dennis Rayon, on Flickr
IMG_2725 by Dennis Rayon, on Flickr
Ms 2 by Dennis Rayon, on Flickr
I personally like a little larger ribs on mine,
I use .004 steel shim stock, I set it of with muratic acid, let it get rusty then wire brush off with a dremel where i want it to be less rusty.
I find it easier to remove unwanted rust than to get rust in certain areas. Then coat with a couple coats of good Matte clear UV protective
spray to stop the rusting, at least for a year or two.
Sheet roller by Dennis Rayon, on Flickr
Someone will ask what I roll steel with, I have used the paper crimper with .0015 or one and half thousaths , still tough to get pretty deep crimps.
So I built this, bought the pinions from McMaster carr, handles .004 very well, I can reduce the depth of corragation by the bolts on top.
Sheet roller by Dennis Rayon, on Flickr
