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How to Make Inexpensive Corrugated Metal Siding:
The Key word here is 'inexpensive'. The outcome is not
necessarily to scale, but after the initial cost of the crimper, the
rest is cheap!
If you plan on doing a lot of metal siding for barns,
industrial buildings, scrap-yard fences, etc., this might be the way
to go.
The project on the left is a typical 'pole construction'
equipment shed. These buildings are often completely finished in
galvanized metal, so it makes a good example for this procedure.'ép.
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HO Scale Equipment Shed
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- This is a Fiskars ® Paper Crimper found in the
scrap-booking section of a Michael's store. With a 40% off
coupon it cost about $10, and handles foil paper quite well. The
foil paper panels will be fragile, but will produce nice results
for very little cost.
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- This is the building material. As you can imagine, the cost
of the raw material will be insignificant.
- For more rigidity, on smaller projects, you can use the
peel-off tops of coffee cans.
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- Since this is a pole-construction building I'm using 1/8"
dowel rod for the vertical columns. There will be three
rows of wood columns, so some type of jig should be used to cut
each group of columns the same length. The 1/8" hardwood dowel
pushes the limit of the chopper, but razor blades are cheap.
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- To begin assembly I placed the HO scale shed template onto a
scrap piece of foam board.
- Ordinary sewing pins make a handy re-usable jig for holding
small and irregular shaped parts while gluing.
- Placing pins right on the lines will help to align the
components. Place a few pins on the opposite sides to hold
things securely.
- At this stage you're only needing to tack the pieces
together. Remove assembly from the jig to finish gluing.
* To prevent gluing to the template place a sheet of wax paper
over top of the template.
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- Use a chopper or cutting jig to make diagonal braces fro
each of the columns.
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- Pole-construction buildings are typically strapped with 2 x
6 running perpendicular to the pole columns. Strips of
.017" to .020" veneer will scale to 1 1/2", the actual thickness
of a 2" x 6". This wood strip cutter is available from
Micro-Mark.
- An alternative method of cutting uniform strips is to use the procedure shown in
our
Corner-board tutorial.
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- Careful placement of the pins will hold the assembly in a
vertical position.
- You can use diagonal braces to help hold things in place.
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- One of the financial benefits of a pole structure is that
you could get by without having to use sheathing plywood as in a
conventional building. The building got it's rigidity from the
corrugated metal panels.
- Place the veneer strips, (strapping) along the roof joists
as well. Strapping was typically placed on 24" centers, or to
save money, on 32" centers.
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- The finished panels will be fragile so it's best to cut them
to the correct height before running them through the crimping
tool.
- Make sure that the foil sheets are fed in to the crimper at
precisely 90° so the finished pattern
will be perpendicular to the edges. You can re-do a piece if it
doesn't turn out right the first time.
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- Here are the finished pieces. Trim with scissors or a razor
blade.
- Scissors will flatten the corrugations, but you ran
carefully run the piece through the crimper again to correct it.
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- Use craft glue along the veneer 'strapping' to hold the foil
panels in place. Lightly run your fingers along the surface of
each panel to level things off.
Get this scale plan FREE in N, HO, OO, or O
scale.
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A complete HO scale Structure for $1.19 in
materials!
The most expensive part of this building was the dowel. If I
hadn't specifically wanted a pole-type building to replicate the
original one I could have used basswood or balsa and built the
entire structure for 30 cents!
1/8" dowel
.99
foil paper
.05
balsa for beams .10
veneer for strips .05
Total costs of materials: $1.19
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