Brass Ladders???

Best to make your own, with .032 strips, drilled #65, and .032 dowel.

I make a wood jig of the appropriate width with notches for the rungs, and solder.

If you need the arch at the top, anneal first, then bend with round nose pliers, or even needle nose.

If you are older, use magnification for center-popping and drilling.

Bob Delbridge posted:

Anyone make/offer brass  tender ladders that are 1/4" wide?  The PSC catalog doesn't include measurements, just P/Ns and 3/4 views.

That's a pretty narrow ladder - 1/4" wide - only 1 foot?

Thanks Bob, I've actually begun cutting strips of brass just in case I couldn't find/buy any!

Martin, I have slim railroad men with small feet employed, that's all they need (and all the room I have on either side of the coal bunker)

Bob Delbridge:

Martin, I have slim railroad men with small feet employed, that's all they need (and all the room I have on either side of the coal bunker)

No doubt little orange immigrants from Loompaland...........

The Precision Scale 40935 measures 19/64" on centers, 9/32" between the uprights. I just made a pair of caboose ladders 1/4" wide but used wider strips then milled down except for the top turn in. Rungs are .032" music wire.

Pete

OK, here's my 1st try at making brass ladders.

I cut the ladder sides(?) from some .020" thick sheet brass, the rungs came from a length of .020 brass rod.

The holes were easy enough to drill, what made it easy and less time-consuming (besides having a sharp drill bit) was I had a jig for a Mullet River Southern caboose ladder and simply cut slots for my 1/4" wide ladders to fit in.  Once in the jig I drilled the holes.  Then I inserted the brass rungs and soldered from the outside of the ladder sides.

Cleaned up most of the outer sides of the ladder and presto (well, presto might not be the most accurate description).

Anyhoo, it didn't take long to make 3 ladders, two 6-rung and one 4-rung.  Nothing to write home about and it got easier from one to the next so I may try making a few more before I'm satisfied.  I'm tempted to use the ones I made, not perfect but better than I had thought they would be:

I think if I can straight the wobbly looking sides up a bit they may work fine, although there's at least one rung that's a little cattywampus.  Clean some more solder off and I may be able to say PRESTO!!!

Have you thought about looking at PE for 1/48 scale planes and military armor?

Here is my caboose ladder. When I made it I only had another brass model to copy. After completion I got to see the prototype and found the top bend differed from the model so modified mine after the fact. I didn't use a jig. Just laid out a center line along the sides, then used a divider to set the spacing. A carbide scribe was used as a center punch using only hand pressure as I didn't want to distort the sides. Holes were started with a 75 drill then enlarged to the rung diameter. The sides were cut as wide as the top bend, then used a nibbler to reduce the width except at the top.

This is still a work in progress.

Pete

Looks fine Pete!

VGN64 wrote:

"Have you thought about looking at PE for 1/48 scale planes and military armor?"

Good idea, there's plenty of 1/48 armor upgrade kits around.

I found that my "jig" has a bit of wiggle to it, hopefully that's what caused all the wobbly/shoddy workmanship and not the workman   Plus, I cut the sides out of a piece of sheet brass, should go the the LHS and buy the correct size to start with.