In the previous post I had shown how I had used some steel drain pipes in a scene. These are commonly used under railroad tracks and roads and come in a range of sizes. The ones in my scene scale to about 18 inch diameter. This post is about how I made them.
Starting out with 1/8 inch diameter Evergreen styrene tube, I use a 6-32 die to turn threads on the outside of the tube. Because the die cuts through the plastic easily I was able to turn the die by hand without the die handle.
To make the ends appear thinner I turn the pointed end of a # 11 hobby knife blade around the inside a few times.
I used Model Master acrylic aluminum to paint these. After painting I noticed that the threads seem too sharp so I sanded them just a bit to make them rounder and then added another coat of paint.
The unpainted part is just a handle and will be cut off before placing them into the scene.
With different sizes of styrene tube and different dies, various sizes of these steel culvert pipes can be made using this technique for use in models scenes.
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