Corrugations made easy

[CarLos]

As a lover of Golden Age aircraft I was since a long time confronted with the problem of simulating corrugated metal sheet in 1/72. Junkers aircraft are the most known users of this kind of covering but not the only one - many other manufacturers, some obscure, others famous like Ford, used corrugated metal sheets to provide resistence with a low penalty of weight.

Both Evergreen and Plastruct have in their catalogues sheets of corrugated plastic or metal, but these ranges are directed to architectural and railroad models so the sizes are not the most interesting to aircraft modelers. From time to time the problem arises and in a recent discussion in the Wings of Peace Yahoo group someone mentioned some dies that a guy named Tom Fassett was selling in Ebay. He uses a stiff brush, or two dies one against the other with the metal in between to form the corrugations. I promptly ordered one each of the two smallest sized dies (2.6" corrugations in HO and S scales) and received them today (6 days from the USA to Portugal). Tom Fassett's page can be found here and here is the Ebay store.

Here´s what I received: the dies measure 4.5 x 3.5 inches (about 11,5 x 9 cm) and are made of high density ABS, CNC cut.

The back:

I used two thicknesses of aluminium sheet: I only could use the thickest one (a little more than 0.05mm, from a food container) in the coarsest die. The wooden toothpick I used to form the corrugations was too soft to push the metal into the finer grooves without sliding; may be with another tool I'll be able to use the thicker metal. With the thinnest sheet I could make both finer and coarser corrugations, using the same method. The metal is just a bit thinner (0.04mm) but it is much softer. I took it from the metal seal of a butter container. In both cases, taping the metal to the die makes the things much easier.

The thinnest corrugations are about the same size as the ones in the Heller Junkers 52 (I measured 7.2mm across 10 corrugations); the bigger one makes corrugations about 1.1mm apart (good to correct the Contrail HP 42).

What to do with the corrugated sheets? You may glue them directly to kit parts (for example, to simulate the interior of a Ju 52) or you may glue them to plastic card and use the sheets to scratchbuild your own Junkers G31 of Guinea Airways! I used epoxy to fill the inside of the corrugations and to make them stronger - and it works very well!

With care, you may simulate the end of the corrugations in a very realistic way.

You may even curve - carefully - the panel to make a leading edge of a wing.

Of course you can't uncurve the panel after!

In short, these are great tools for the scratchbuilder. At last we may simulate corrugated metal sheets in a easy and fast way. As you may see by the titles in the Ebay pages, these are sizes made with the railroad modeler in mind, but may be Tom Fassett can be persuated to make different sizes.

One thing I would like to try - to vacuform plastic over these dies. The thinnest corrugations I have seen in kits are vacuformed (in the Kask Tupolev kits) so it can be done, most probably. But it will require a better setup than the one I use currently for canopies and small parts.

I have no connection with Tom Fassett aside from being a satisfied customer.

Hope you find this useful!

Carlos

[spaceshiprepairman]

I'm wondering if he could make the kind of die which would simulate the ribbed appearance on the Kalinin that we've been discussing, as this was not quite corrugated, although it resembles it somewhat.

How much did his dies set you back, I'm asking out of curiosity?

Y'know, a toothpick would be too soft. Couldn't you use a piece to brass rod of approximate or smaller radius than an individual corrugation? Brass is a relatively soft metal(but harder than the wood of a toothpick), which would be fairly easy to work as well.

[CarLos]

How much did his dies set you back, I'm asking out of curiosity?

If you mean the cost (sorry, English is not my mother language) I paid US$ 17.92 including $5.94 for S&H.

Y'know, a toothpick would be too soft. Couldn't you use a piece to brass rod of approximate or smaller radius than an individual corrugation? Brass is a relatively soft metal(but harder than the wood of a toothpick), which would be fairly easy to work as well.

You may be right. I'll try later with a piece of brass rod.

Carlos

[CarLos]

I used some pieces of the corrugations made yesterday for an experiment: making sharp corrugated trailing edges just like the real thing. You must have a wing core (or aileron, or rudder...) sharp like a knife, and then is just a matter of care and patience.

It's difficult to focus properly, but you get the picture.

Depending on the angle and on the thickness of the metal you must prevent an extension to the chord dimension. In this case it is about 1.5mm.

[Dave Fleming]

Interesting, I wonder if it oculd be used to scratchbuild ailerons for the J F13

[CarLos]

Interesting, I wonder if it oculd be used to scratchbuild ailerons for the J F13

Dave, for that you don't need a die, just use the kit corrugations. A friend used the same softer metal of my example to make exactly F13 ailerons.

The big advantage of those dies is when you want to scratchbuild something bigger and need longer sheets. If not, you may use any piece of corrugated plastic from a kit with the same results (providing there is one with the pitch you want).

[Ed Russell]

Tom Fassett deceased 2014.

http://www.railroad-line.com/discussion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=42364&#691154

Are there any alternative corrugation templates?