Killing time at the craft store

[MasonJar]

1) some kind of scenic sand product. It looked like it was used for making dinosaur dioramas for kids. But, it was fine enough and the earth colors could make it suitable as ballast or groundcover. It also came in bright colors like blue or green. I am not sure what the use for those colors would be.

The dollar stores (Dollarama in Ontario/Canada) have 500g/1 lb bottles of aquarium gravel. The balck makes a decent coal pile or cinder ballast.

4) Old west unpainted figures, 1/72 scale. Yeah, they are an odd scale, but considering Harold (hminky) notes many figures are over or undersize, perhaps they are oversize enough to use for S scale.

For Christmas set-ups, the dollar store also has a decent selection (in season), including figures, lights, trees with snow, and so on.

5) various textured paper. This could be good scratchbuilding material.

Haven't tried much with paper, but interesting find!

6) various inks and paints - and silkscreen ink. I never knew what variety of inks and paints were on the market or that the inks come in such a wide variety of color.

Until I received the Bragdon weathering powders, all my weathering was with an Inkahol wash and craft paints.

7) Some kind of rub on pigment used to give things a metallic patina. It comes in various colors, but all are intended to be somewhat metallic. I could see a few areas where it could make an interesting weathering medium.

That sounds cool. Could be used to give a glint to selected junk at the scrap yard?

8) An adhesive copper foil strip used for making stained glass. I guess it is used to wrap around the edges of the glass pieces so the pieces can be soldered together. I am not entirely sure what the model railroad use would be for such an item - but a PCB-tie utilization sprang to mind.

I think I have seen this used in structure or passenger car lighting applications too, especially where there is difficulty hiding wiring or making connections as things get closed up (i.e. - you can place strips such that they make contact once the roof is secured in place).

These are just the items I remember (but didn't have the money to buy and test out). I found some textured paper amongst the christmas decorations that may work as metal siding - but I think I may try something else first. My point is, if you have time to kill it could be worthwhile taking a half hour browsing every aisle in a craft store just to get ideas for future projects.

I have this problem too - so many finds - so little time!

I mentioned in my "Not my era, but" thread that the opaque paint markers are good for grafitti for modern era rolling stock. Michael's had them on clearance for $1.99 each.

I have used the SCSI/IIDE cable to press foil between to make corrugated siding.

Andrew