12-06-2009, 10:13 PM
BTW, use a high wattage iron if you decide to solder the building together, your typical iron you would use for soldering track feeders and rail joints, usually around 25 watts, isn't hot enough to solder these kits as the large sheet of metal will draw the heat out of the iron faster than it can pump it out and will result in poor or cold solder joints. A soldering gun or an 80 watt or higher iron will remove most of the frustration from assembly and I would recomend the soldering gun as most guns have a two step trigger for medium and high heat. Solder and fluxes used for plumbing is recomended as these are designed for soldering metal together and will provide a stronger joint.
When I started working in hobby shops back in the late 1960's the Suydam kits were readily available and fairly inexpensive for the size of building you got for your money. I built the Black Bart Mine as my first kit and when I changed from modeling steam and diesels to traction I sold off all of the mines and sawmills I had built for a decent profit. Word got around that I did a great job building the metal kits and I was able to pay for a lot of college textbooks (and trolley books too) assembling the kits for my customers at the hobby shop. I built jigs to hold the parts while soldering and I got to the point where I could knock out a completed and painted building every couple of days mainly because I usually left any weathering for the owner to do to his liking. I've never left a Suydam building bare metal because they are too shiny, every corrugated building I've ever seen never was shiny, even when freshly built because the galvanizing leaves the metal a dull gray. Krylon or Rust-O-Leum light gray primer works well on the models to simulate this look according to my customers opinions.
One word of caution when using acid flux, make sure you get all of the residue left on the models neutralized and removed from the model, leaving even a little bit can allow the metal to rust completely out of scale in those areas over time (been there, done that. :oops: ) and in extreme cases could possibly cause the joints to fail.
Greg Melby
Seattle, WA.
When I started working in hobby shops back in the late 1960's the Suydam kits were readily available and fairly inexpensive for the size of building you got for your money. I built the Black Bart Mine as my first kit and when I changed from modeling steam and diesels to traction I sold off all of the mines and sawmills I had built for a decent profit. Word got around that I did a great job building the metal kits and I was able to pay for a lot of college textbooks (and trolley books too) assembling the kits for my customers at the hobby shop. I built jigs to hold the parts while soldering and I got to the point where I could knock out a completed and painted building every couple of days mainly because I usually left any weathering for the owner to do to his liking. I've never left a Suydam building bare metal because they are too shiny, every corrugated building I've ever seen never was shiny, even when freshly built because the galvanizing leaves the metal a dull gray. Krylon or Rust-O-Leum light gray primer works well on the models to simulate this look according to my customers opinions.
One word of caution when using acid flux, make sure you get all of the residue left on the models neutralized and removed from the model, leaving even a little bit can allow the metal to rust completely out of scale in those areas over time (been there, done that. :oops: ) and in extreme cases could possibly cause the joints to fail.
Greg Melby
Seattle, WA.