Hi friends. I thought I’d share how I make steel 55 gallon drums in 1/25 scale. This may be useful to someone.
a by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
b by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
36 gauge aluminum foil from Amazon. I measured the real barrels and converted them to scale. Using these strips, I embossed my lines on the back with an old ball point pen. Made the lids out of heavy paper stock (cereal box cardboard here), no use wasting styrene here. I made a generic ribbed pattern, but you can use whatever patterns you need or want.
c by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
Red oxide primer. The train yard’s refuelling tank in the background.
d by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
Acrylic paint. Any decals are definitely gonna need some solution to help set.
e by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
f2 by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
g by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
h by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
I made some tops from the cereal box cardboard and some punched styrene discs for the lids.
i by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
Some rust paint.
j by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
I rust the bottoms more; they take the brunt of the damage and wear.
k by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
Some generic rust color acrylic on the lid tops, followed by some gloss oil wash and floor shine (Future, but I used another brand and it works fine).
l by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
m by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
n by Jason Stoots, on Flickr
That’s pretty much it. All of these materials and techniques can be done many other ways, but this is how I do it.
Thanks for looking.
J