Q) Have you had any experience on painting styrene to look like corrugated aluminum siding? I'm curious as to color of paint and other things that can make it the most realistic.

A) Styrene, no. Cardstock, yes. I used Regular Floquil Aluminum brushed on and deliberately streaked. That happens when you overbrush Floquil paints.

It will easily pass the 3 foot rule and, in fact, you almost have to pick it up to find that it isn't corrugated. I scratchbuilt a Quonset hut Auto Repair Shop several years before one came on the market and it will stand the test against them at viewing distance.

There should be little difference between what I did and styrene. You do not want perfect coverage. It's the streaks that makes it look corrugated.

Rusty Spike Vol 29 #2 Mar-Apr 1999

I had been working on a Campbell house kit that I bashed for one of the small towns on my layout. I use Campbell shingles for many of the roofs I do since I'm modeling the Pacific Northwest and I was tired of the solid piece of tape they send as a roof cap, so I tried something different.

I took a strip of Campbell shingles slightly longer than the roof, folded it in half and put this on as a roof cap. I was going to let this completely dry overnight but overnight turned out to be over a week. So when I re-visited this project, this strip of shingles was well dried out and ready for the next step in my idea.

I took a brand new #11 ExactoŽ blade and slit the solid side of this shingle strip in the same fashion as the opposite side is slit by the company. I then used a wet finger to slightly dampen the side I had just slit and then used the blade to raise some of the edges on my new row of shingles.

Did this turn out to look exactly like the shingled cap on a shake roof? No, but it sure looks a lot more realistic than a solid piece of tape sitting up there.

Note:
Jack Pettee's HO P&SW Railroad may be seen on the web at: http://www.theramp.net/railroad/jackpsw.html

Rusty Spike Vol 28 #1 Jan-Feb 1998