dumpsters

[Gary S]

What you see by now is glued together from styrene.

That's the tutorial I want to see! How do you make the joints so perfect? How do you cut the styrene so squarely?

[nachoman]

This thread reminds me of an episode of the Simpsons:

Bart: Otto-Man? You're living in a dumpster?
Otto: No, man, I wish. Dumpster-brand trash bins are top-of-the-line. This is just a Trash-Co waste disposal unit.

Actually, I wikipedia'd "Dumpster", and as it turns out the word "Dumpster" was apparently trademarked at one time.

[SP1]

That's the tutorial I want to see!

You'll get the tutorial tonight, I just came back from work. At first I need a fresh coffee....

How do you make the joints so perfect? How do you cut the styrene so squarely?

Shown below is one of the dumpsters I made on Sunday. This is what my joints look like. I cut every piece sligthly larger than needed and let them overlap a lil' bit while gueing them together. Then I use putty (grey) and sanding paper to give the model a smooth appereance.
I dont think my styrene is cut extremly square. I mark the shapes on the styrene sheet with a pencil and cut it with a ordinary cutter. I don't even use a steel ruler! I just follow the line. Again, files and sanding paper does the rest.
For more delicate parts or shapes I use my cnc-driven router. But I don't fire up the system for a few rectangles.

   

[SP1]

Guys,
I have to get up very early tomorrow morning, so I am heading for my bed now. I'll add a describtion later.


   

   

   

[P5se Camelback]

... as it turns out the word "Dumpster" was apparently trademarked at one time.

The Dumpster ...

Developed in 1936 by the Dempster brothers ...

Patented in 1937 as the "Dempster Dumpster." ...

The first system of picking the Dumpsters up was rather primitive …


… but then …


The Brothers developed the "Dempster Dumpmaster" in 1955, the first front-loading garbage truck, with a pair of arms to pick up and dump the trash into the truck.


The name was colloquialized as a "Dipsty-Dumpster" at some point in the late 1960's ...

...and the term "Dumpster" is currently a "genericized trademark," used to describe all manufacturers’ large refuse containers that can be picked up by a specialized refuse collection truck., much as "Kleenex" is now synonymous with "facial tissue."


That’s probably more information than anyone here really wanted to know …

… but I got curious.

[ngaugingnut]

Wow, that is some great work from both of you guys. Can't imagine doing that in n-scale.

I did make a dumpster from a paper model printout scaled to n-scale as I mentioned above. Here it is (looks like the recycling company needs to pick up the contents!):
   

And from the same sheet I also put together this container.
   

Very fiddly cutting and folding and I didn't do that great of a job - I also realized I need to seal the paper with something so that the inkjet inks don't bleed when I use water-based scenery. Next ones will be better.

[Gary S]

SP1, I salute your dedication! I certainly don't have it in me to put that much effort in! I am still amazed at how perfect they look.

On another note, I was at the LHS today, MicroScale decals on sale for half price. I thumbed through them and found several sets of container and trailer decals that will serve as fakes on my dumpsters. Various logos, lots of different signs and warning labels. No, they aren't made for dumpsters, but weathered and the with the 3 foot rule, no one will notice that they aren't made for dumpsters.

ngn, the container and dumpter look convincing in your photo.

[nachoman]

LOL, biL - I got curious the other night, too, and did the same search!

[SP1]

... and found several sets of container and trailer decals that will serve as fakes on my dumpsters. Various logos, lots of different signs and warning labels. No, they aren't made for dumpsters, but weathered and the with the 3 foot rule, no one will notice that they aren't made for dumpsters.

Sounds very reasonable. Maybe I should look through my old decal sheets.

[Sumpter250]

" Ummm... sort of misunderstanding. I am still building the master, no casting made yet. What you see by now is glued together from styrene. "

:oops: I got fooled !! :oops: I honestly thought the dumpsters in the photo were the castings. That's some precise cutting and fitting of styrene !

[rrinker]

Well now seeing the date on that front arm truck is 1955, I guess I should look into seeing if I can build something like that. Although I doubt out in what was then rather rural PA they had any of those.

--Randy

[P5se Camelback]

Randy ...

My family had a Summer Cottage in the Pocono Mountains, at Lake Wallenpaupack, that my Dad rented out for the last three weeks of June, the months of July and September and the first two weeks of October, with our family getting to enjoy it for the month of August (my Dad's "Escape from living next door to the Church.") There were not a whole lot of cabins/cottages built back in those woods called Paupack Gardens at that time ... maybe 10% or 15% of the lots were built on then.

The guy who came around each week in the early Fifties to collect the garbage had a regular old late '40's vintage faded green Chevy pick-up with the sides extended upward by a half of a 4x8 sheet of plywood on each side and another piece between the bed and the cab. That was it! He would then drive about three or four miles up into the woods going away from the lake on what people called "the old logging road" to dump the garbage back in the woods. Some of us kids, in our daily explorations, followed that old road back into the woods a few times. We were more of the opinion that it was a road that used to go back to what was at the time a dilapidated, falling down ruin of what may have been a homestead or a hunting cabin in a previous lifetime.

Eventually, after a couple of decades, the "environmentalists" discovered the garbage man's dump site and went to court to have it closed down. (By this time, he had acquire a couple of regular garbage trucks a couple of drivers and helpers.)

Well, the court shut his dump site down. He then had to truck the garbage 40 miles to the nearest "approved" village dump, the cost of garbage collection almost doubled (as he then had to pay to dump it there.)

But the BIGGER problem was ... hock: hock:


... several generations of Black Bear had never eaten anywhere else except at this man's dump site way back, deep in the woods. They got humgry when their source of food ceased! We had often seen White Tailed Deer, a doe and a fawn or two walking down the road during our evening meal, when it was very quiet back in our neck of the woods. But one evening, sure as shootin', here comes a Momma Black Bear and two cubs, strolling down the middle of that dirt road looking for some dinner! hock: hock: hock:

They spotted our garbage can next to the cottage and began to empty it ... all over the place! Our big German Shephard went crazy barking; the bears departed quickly.

But the next day, Dad had to drive into the town of Hawley, 14 miles away, for a new garbage can ... ours looked like a crumpled piece of aluminum foil!

All that excitement because a group of people had nothing better to do but stick there noses into other people's business!

The garbage man's dump site is still there, way back up that now overgrown dirt road ... no attempt was ever made to remove the stuff that's just sitting there being reclaimed by Mother Nature ... maybe the tree huggers went back there and were greeted by hungry Black Bears ... who knows.

[dirtyharry]

Gary, Sorry to hear you were down in the dumps...............ters.
Nicely done !!! maybe one of the open ones could be a "mini ecosystem" as in perhaps a Racoon perched on the edge of the opening, "feasting".
Dumpsters, as a detail addition, definitely dates the era as more modern.

Great job I should put one in my driveway.

[Ralph]

So I guess maybe rural PA didn't have those kinds of dumpster then? The dumpsters pictured in this thread are so cool though that I think I'd add them any way Randy! Maybe add a bear or two prowling around them.

bil, I enjoy your posts and stories and even manage to temper my knee jerk Liberal reaction to your occasional subtle editorial remarks. Gotta say though...your folks probably got a good deal on garbage collection because the guy with the pick up didn't bother taking the time to investigate approved sites or thought he'd skirt the rules the rest of us agree to follow and just dumped crap wherever he felt like it. The later increased rate was probably what they should have paid, I imagine. As for the bears...I'll bet they liked that source of food which they wouldn't have come by in Nature and which disrupted their normal scavenging, so sure they'd come lookin' elsewhere once it was gone. So, yeah, when we mess with Nature we tend to pay for it. I'm kind of grateful to "environmentalists" who appreciate that and try to advocate for more thoughtful use of resources.

Mostly though I think with envy about what a lucky kid you were to have a cabin in the Poconos!

Ralph

[rrinker]

I could probably sneak one in at the cement plant, being a large industrial concern - however I suspect much of their trash was probbaly just dumped in the flooded and of the quarry.

--Randy