Basswood


If you have access to a band saw cut up paint stir sticks.

The larger (5 gallon) are about 3/16 to a 1/4. The common
(gallon) size are around 1/8.

I use both sizes for wall bracing.
Still one of the "free things" in life.
 
ctclibby +

I have a cricut and I'm not very computer literate.. So I'm about one or two steps above useless.
Here are two excellent videos on designing and cutting HO structures on a Cricut;



For the past few months I've asked staff at Michaels and JoAnns if they have a "tape" like the
frog tape you use for painting. I want to make stencils and want a gentle tape to minimize bleeding
and won't pull all the roof shingles off....
Cricuit offers a transfer tape thats used to pull and hold positive numbers off a sheet so you can
transfer the numbers to a mailbox or whatever. That transfer tape is aggressive and about 3 notches below the
"tears paint off" chart. Just asking that perhaps your daughter might know of such a gentler tape....
 
Haven’t tried my Cricut like machine yet on wood. I use it for cutting stencils and masks, but have made card stock cutout houses for the grandkids. I wonder if it could be used to peel off more or less dimensional lumber? Makes great numbers and letters
 
@wombat457, the OP: Are you looking for these patterned basswood sheets in order to build multiple buildings, or just one or two? If it's the latter, even as a former HO scale modeler, I'd suggest just going ahead with laying up the clapboard siding one over the previous one by hand, the same way you might put a row of shingles on a roof. After all, the building was originally built that way in the first place, and if you can put a strip of wood over the next strip in a reasonably straight fashion, and are doing only a few buildings, or even just one, it would save you time and gobs of effort over trying to find milling and cutting tools. For a one-off structure, you won't want that, IMO.

Now...I'm THAT guy who often says "when you are trying to build something, think like a manufacturer." And I do that myself, but only if I'm trying to make multiple copies, or near copies of something over and over again. I tend to lose interest if I have to do multiple copies of even a short run of whatever it might be if I have to do them five at a time, etc. One? Two? OK. But five? My eyes start to glaze over and the quality of my work starts to suffer.

However, and if it's just a one-off. Heck, man! Just scratchbuild it, old school style, right down to the individual plank of siding. I've got just such an HO building I found about four feet from me, and it's so quirky and unusual you would never want more than one of them on even a large layout.

In fact, in the case of this particular strangish structure, I laid strips of cut paper...sheets, and not wood, to represent clapboard, because it scaled out more accurately than did even the thinnest basswood sheet's I could find. And that was in HO. In N-scale, paper is almost always the way to go, IMO.

Of course, it you want to build fifty and sell them as a kit builder, well...then you WOULD be a manufacturer...in which case machine cutting solutions are, indeed, what you want.
 
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MOWboss said:
ctclibby +

I have a cricut and I'm not very computer literate.. So I'm about one or two steps above useless.
Here are two excellent videos on designing and cutting HO structures on a Cricut;



For the past few months I've asked staff at Michaels and JoAnns if they have a "tape" like the
frog tape you use for painting. I want to make stencils and want a gentle tape to minimize bleeding
and won't pull all the roof shingles off....
Cricuit offers a transfer tape thats used to pull and hold positive numbers off a sheet so you can
transfer the numbers to a mailbox or whatever. That transfer tape is aggressive and about 3 notches below the
"tears paint off" chart. Just asking that perhaps your daughter might know of such a gentler tape....
Click to expand...
Mowboss: Asked her and she does not use 'tape' per-say. After chatt'n about it, we both came up with the same possible problem: getting the cut tape off the CriCut without screwing up the edges by stretching or bending. We also thought about putting painters tape on wax paper then cutting. Somebody more knowledgeable might have more insight.

She does however cut some material that has a backing ( think vinyl ) and she says setting up the machine just to cut through that top layer is not to bad, but a PITA when you try to separate the backing from the wanted material, especially if it is really small and detailed. It can be done though without much colorful language.

I explained how 'silk screening' works and for the small stuff she does is gonna look into that. She usually only does one color, so screening/painting one color on her material should be pretty easy. When I detailed cars way back when, I did find out that vinyl and paint lasts about the same time before needing new. So that is a wash on the material you choose and probably does not matter as your stuff is not out in the real weather. Multiple colors are a new can-o-worms, you just need a template/jig to keep registration in-check.

You probably have a business somewhat near you that screens t-shirts. Go and see if you can watch the process. You might even ask them for ideas after telling what it is you have and want to do so they know your are not going to compete with them.

I think that if it were me, and since there are somethings you just can not decal, I would try a mylar stencil and rattle-can or air brush a very light coat sprayed further away from the target multiple times. That idea is not gonna go around curves or the like though.

I don't know if I helped with your dilemma or not, but might be some insight.

Later
 
747flier said:
Haven’t tried my Cricut like machine yet on wood. I use it for cutting stencils and masks, but have made card stock cutout houses for the grandkids. I wonder if it could be used to peel off more or less dimensional lumber? Makes great numbers and letters
Click to expand...
747flier: Give it a try and report back. I have been wanting to do the same although not with a CriCut. I remember reading in MR about Campbell; at that time they cut all the dimensional lumber with Sugar Pine on a standard table saw. Thinnest saw curf that I can find is 3/32, so there is still a ton of waste. I can just imagine the hoop jump to get the saw set up and nailed down! I have a couple of blades that do not have a curf used for masonite and thin tile. More or less an abrasive blade. With the small stuff we do that might be the way to go. Same problem with the saw; have to get it dialed in and nailed down so nothing moves. This is one of the reasons I want play with a laser cutter, very little waste and since the material does not move around when cutting, setup should be a breeze. Might be the way to go.

Later
 
ctclibby Thanks for the feedback.

Your reply got me to thinking....
I recently did a piece about Aleene's "Tack-it" (over & over). Searching for NOT glue

Reading your article got me to wonder about smearing a sheet of
acetate with tack-it and sticking it to wax paper and then on to the
cricut mat. (Can't recall if wax paper will hold on a cricut mat)

There are several you tube articles how cricut mats are renewed by applying
tack-it on them. I think the acetate would be strong enough to hold its form
and the tack-it would be strong enough to stick on material. Tack-it leaves a
sticky film like a post-it note. The trick has to be keeping the tack-it and the cricut mat
separated otherwise they would bond like two sheets of contact cement.
Appreciate your taking interest in this idea. Sadly I'm in the middle of three builds and stencils
aren't required at this time. I will keep this idea in mind. Never miss an opportunity to learn something new.
 
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