Brass or plastic

[brianmcs]

Hello all , if a fella was thinking of scratch building some rolling stock and wanted it to last a very long time , would he do it in brass or plastic ?

any thoughts ?

[Noel]

53 minutes ago, brianmcs said:

Hello all , if a fella was thinking of scratch building some rolling stock and wanted it to last a very long time , would he do it in brass or plastic ?

any thoughts ?

The old adage "whatever tool you know how to best use today is probably the right choice of tool for a job today", I guess the same for materials, whichever medium one may already be familiar with may apply. 

[Galteemore]

Depends what you want to build and in what scale. I have used both plastic and metal. Properly treated, plasticard is very robust. What are you thinking of building ? 

[brianmcs]

19 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

Depends what you want to build and in what scale. I have used both plastic and metal. Properly treated, plasticard is very robust. What are you thinking of building ? 

Hello Galteemore, it will be some  00 coaches . perhaps the question is , will brass outlast plasticard ?

[Galteemore]

The raw material is stronger, but a lot will depend on how it’s put together. If you’re building 6w coaches I’d use plasticard - much easier to build up the panelling etc. 

[Dhu Varren]

Providing plasticard of a reasonable thickness is used, it will last a lifetime. the attached picture has three scratchbuilt locos in plasticard, the 0-6-0 and 2-6-0 (tender is RTR) n the front row, and the 4-4-0 in the centre row. All scratchbuilt some 40+ years ago, and still going strong, although could do with more detailing. The two 4-4-0s in the back row are modified RTR.

   

[Noel]

19 hours ago, brianmcs said:

Hello Galteemore, it will be some  00 coaches . perhaps the question is , will brass outlast plasticard ?

The thing with plastic card is to protect it from warping over time due lack of structural support, against heating and excessive exposure to UV and sun light. But if it is structurally well supported it should be as stable as brass. Even some IMP RTR coach models end up with a noticeable hint of banana shape after 15 or so years with a slight droop in the middle between the bogies. Drives me nuts, something off square even at 20yard visual range pokes my intermittent OCD.

[David Holman]

Scratchbuilding panelled coaches in brass will be a bit of a nightmare and even flush sided ones will require a huge amount of cutting out, so much easier to do in plastic, though etched brass kits do much of the hard work.

 In 7mm scale, I've built at least 20  coaches, both bogie and six wheelers, panelled and flush, etched kits and scratchbuilt in plastic. At shows (remember those?), I occasionally ask people to spot the difference and the fact is that from normal viewing distances, you can't tell once models are painted. 

 Thus far, haven't had any issues with warping and some models go back over 20 years.

 As others have said, more a case of choosing what you are comfortable with, but the late, great David Jenkinson always made his coaches from plastic sheet and he built hundreds, in both 7mm and 10mm scale, which is good enough for me.