Freight Car Siding (1,0 x 1,69)

The thickness decides what the sheet will serve for

The grid here is as wide as on its thinner sister, but the material under it is twice as thick. A millimeter of plastic no longer bends under its own weight, it holds its shape even over the area of a palm, and the edge after a cut looks like a proper beam rather than a film. Anyone building a structure from scratch will appreciate exactly that: the walls are glued straight to each other butt to butt and need no frame inside to hold them straight.

Replacing a whole part

This comes up mainly with older kits, where half the doors are missing, where a molded wall is warped out of the mold or where a previous owner mislaid a part somewhere. A thick textured sheet makes it possible to make the missing piece in one go, including the openings for windows, and the result is stronger than the original. Latches and hinges are added from offcuts of profiles.

The grooves and how to read them

A distance of 1.69 mm between the lines corresponds to the thicker boards of the kind used on cargo beds, fences and barn doors. The larger the reduction the modeler is building at, the slimmer the board that comes out of it; in a build at a ratio of 1:35 the texture reads as closely laid laths.

Cutting and the surface

A thicker sheet does not snap under a knife so easily, so it is safer to run the cut several times and then finish it from the other side. The end is trued with a file. The surface holds acrylic and enamel paint alike, and a wash in the grooves suits it, bringing out the lines. The 15 by 30 centimeter format is enough for several walls, and because the grooves run along the whole length of the sheet, a wall can be oriented horizontally or vertically according to how the real subject was boarded.