Cardstock truck/trailer kits

[WVRR]

Although mainly due to the fact that shortage of funds prevents me from buying all the trucks and trailers to fill my intermodal yard, I came up with an idea that not only will benefit my own layout, but layouts all over the place. I have checked the net and no company makes N scale trucks or trailers for that matter made of cardstock. Below is the prototype that I drew up and will continue to release new trucks and trailers in the near future. What I need is input on whether this would benefit any of you. I have been a gif artist for the last three years, as most of you know by my traingif lineup and am expanding to N scale. The prototype model is partially finished below and will post the finished kit once the fenders, wheels, etc are added. This is just a black and white, but I can duplicate any paint scheme. Let me know what you think

 

[spitfire]

I think that this will be really useful Ed!

Val

 

[Lemur]

Cool :thumb:

Lookin' forward to seeing what your final product looks like. Even without an intermodal yard, I don't have enough funds for some of the trucks I have seen available. Cereal board and other cardstock is quickly becoming my favorite medium for new structures and equipment because the price is just right.

 

[shaygetz]

A terminal full of these from 2 feet away would look mighty impressive with graphics and digital reproductions of wheels...you just might be on to something.:thumb:

 

[csxnscale]

Hope I can help with this link:

http://www.sirus.com/users/sulstad/paper_models.html

He has a great assortment, just click one of the pictures (you can click on the trailer or on the truck)and a folding plan will be displayed.

Have fun.
Paul

 

[Arlaghan]

Paul, I'm building one of those... Of course, I had to go and pick the one that says "Complex Model"

I'm not putting a lot of care into it, as I just want to get a general idea of whether or not these can be used to scratch build something out of cardstock with a little more detail that "printed side mirrors" and so forth... will post here the results when I finish.

Btw, I scaled it down to N scale under the assumption that the trailer was 48'. It still seems rather large in my eyes (the truck and tires), can you tell me if that looks to be a 40' trailer instead?

 

[csxnscale]

Arlaghan,
A few months ago I emailed the owner of the website with the question how to scale his trucks down to N-scale.
He answered I had to cut and try with different dpi settings on the printer.
I have never tryed one but they look awesome.
Paul

 

[Arlaghan]

Yep, that's one method.

The one I use is keep my printer dpi settings constant and change the document dpi settings. Programs like Photoshop (which I use) allow you to do this, and when you select to print from there, it knows to do the conversion to printer dpi so it comes out to scale. In the case of the test one I'm making I set the document to 222 dpi (which would put the trailer to 48' in N scale or 3.6" when it prints out). But when I measured the tires off the print out, they were 44" high! That seems a bit big to me... I'm going to try 266 dpi for the next test... that would make the trailer come out as 3" or 40' long in N scale. That would put the wheels at 36" which seems more reasonable to me.

(As if the parts aren't small enough already! )

 

[WVRR]

I have a bit of a point to make with these scaled down models off the net, the hardest part I have found is the tabs for folding...it's sometimes hard to determine what is a tab and what is the truck itself. Maybe it's just me. Anyone else have this problem? That is partly the reason I drew my own templates, I don't have to fight with whether a tab is a tab or a part of the finished truck...LOL

 

[WVRR]

Almost there with my whole concept of easy background trucks...like I said due to the scaling and building of those on site trucks, I find it much easier to make my own templates. Here's the second attempt, almost got the whole truck down....still just a rough draft but the finished product will rival even the most detailed models.

 

[Tad]

Arlaghan,

Most trucks have 20 to 22 inch radius tires. Many have 24 inch tires. 44 inches would be about right for the diameter on the tires. 36 inches would be too small.

 

[kettlestack]

WVRR, I d/loaded the burgandy coloured semi from the the site Sir-Prize posted in your other thread. Here are some observations......

The trailer was larger in scale than the cab! Trailer was approx O and the cab was HO.

The d/loads are *.jpg files so I suggest using PSP Version 7 (or 8) to remove jpg artifact and save the result as bmp.

I guessed that the width of such a vehicle is approx 8ft in real life ... (Someone correct me please if I'm wrong). Copy a portion of the cab or trailer rear precisely at its width and paste "as a new image". Change the "ruler" to mm and the new image will indicate the width of the d/load. Go back to the overal drawing and "resize" by "percentage" once you've established the ratio of the Drawing to the size (scale) you require. My N effort turned out to be 9ft wide! but I was quessing at the % reductions to make.

You're correct about the fold tabs around a cab, man, they sure are tiny! but time spent studying the layout of the drawing should reveal which are tabs.

After cutting out the pieces but before folding, run a black (or appropriate colour) felt pen along all the edges which will be visible on the finished model. This avoids "white" edges of the paper/card spoiling the overall effect.

I was in a hurry and printed to photocopy paper which is a bit too flimsey for N scale. I will try 90gram paper next. The colour of the trailer depicted below is incorrect (cheap printer)!

Trailers will probably look better and be easier to make if the black chassis is made from cardstock and will give a degree of rigidity to the model.

My eyesight is fair but not good enough to make the tyre treads as proposed .... I would hope to find craft beads approximating the size of wheels needed. I would also make a subframe for the trailer wheels as they simply don't look right as part of the trailer sides.

I used Google to search for "Paper Models" and there are dozens of sites with advice on constructing card and paper models though I didn't open any of these sites.

I haven't made the cab yet.

We live and learn!

Errol