Making Louvres in HO

[sswcharlie]

Are there any tools or ideas available to press louvres into styrene with real vents ?

Charlie

[ssgburme]

Plano sell's early gp#461, and #14612 for switchers. Detail Associates has # VT1905 louver's, if you can find'em.
Karl

[sswcharlie]

Thanks. I will follow up.

Charlie

[beentherecnthat]

Here is a technique I have used several times for louvres that are a different size from anything commercially available. These are thin enough to be surface glued and once painted, look as convincing as Plano.
Start with Campbell Scale models corrugated siding which is a formed metal product. Measure out the width of louvre set you need and using a straight edge and a ball point, draw a line centred on the edge measurement down the siding. This will flatten the corrugations and represent the curved end of the louvres. Do this for both sides of the louvres. Then using a sharp x-acto and the straight edge, cut down the middle of the pen line to separate the lovure. The height can then be cut from this strip by following the valley between the ridges. Apply to the model with CA along the edges.
I first used this technique on a custom job CN RS-18 I did for someone, which has a bunch of non standard size louvres on the engineers side of the short hood.

[sswcharlie]

Ingenious.

Thanks

Charlie