Things You'll Need:
- Hobby Paintbrushes
- Hobby Paints
- Wood For Jigs
- Glues
- Pushpins
- Rubber Bands
- Rubber Bands
- X-Acto Knives
- Miter Saws
- Mitre Boxes
- Sandpaper
- Sandpaper
- Rubber bands
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Step 1
Design the bridge.
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Step 2
Assemble the parts you need. Generally, real railroads use steel for their truss bridges, but tiny steel beams (with tiny rivets or arc welders) aren't practical.
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Step 3
Use brass, wood or plastic structural parts for your model railroad bridge. Plastruct makes a whole range of structural parts out of styrene or ABS.
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Step 4
Get a good miter box set so that you can cut the beams accurately and squarely.
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Step 5
Make one or more assembly jigs if you can, because most truss bridges consist of repeated floor and truss "panels."
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Step 6
Get a supply of pushpins - these are good for holding things down.
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Step 7
Trim and sand off burrs and other cut remnants.
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Step 8
Paint your bridge and "weather" it (make it look old) after it's built.
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Step 9
Add the finishing touch by modeling the river flowing under the bridge.








Comments
Anonymous said
on 8/8/2006 Dust a little baking soda where you want a strong CA glue joint.
But, be careful, it acts fast.
CA loves moisture, so spritzing the powder is even faster.
I use this for "welding" corners of structures together. Believe me, they "weld."
Anonymous said
on 3/11/2006 Dust a little baking soda where you want a strong CA (cyanoacrylates) glue joint. But, be careful, it acts fast. CA glue loves moisture, so spritzing the powder is even faster. I use this for welding corners of structures together. Believe me, they weld.
Anonymous said
on 2/21/2006 Plastic cloths pins act as small clamps-- larger clamps for the big sections. CA Glue with a zip kicker will set up the joint very fast. Paint with airbrush and poly paints or acrylic paints, diluted when using plastistruct materials.
Anonymous said
on 2/12/2007 Visit http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~heller/Workshop/Bridge/
for a detailed writeup on building a large model railroad bridge.