Good source for O scale clutter

Schomberg is nice to deal with.  Model tech studios has a lot of cool stuff, as far as junk piles.  

I'll second Model Tech Studios as a great source of such stuff.  Plus, you can order it already painted and weathered for a very small premium (not worth it for you to open the paint bottles for the small difference in cost).

Other sources are Wiseman Model Services and Berkshire Valley.

Take apart freight car trucks  all the individual pieces make good clutter. old electronic stuff taken apart works well. just paint everything rusty dirty. Anything that is junk laying around the house, especially with a motor in it, then you get gears also.  

Over the years, I've disassembled many fishing reels. Being a packrat, all the internal parts got tossed into an old coffee can (y'all know the drill..One day that just might be the part you need to fix another reel..Nah ! Anyway, I retrieved many of the parts (gears, cog wheels, drives, cams, etc.) cleaned them up, sprayed flat black,and weathered appropriately. 

Made a "junk pile" that looks pretty realistic between a factory and rail siding or inside a low gondola. Just another idea for consideration..

appropriate size black rubber hose cut into thin slices makes good tires, and everyone has a bunch of junk tires laying around.

Jeff Horn posted:

Over the years, I've disassembled many fishing reels. Being a packrat, all the internal parts got tossed into an old coffee can (y'all know the drill..One day that just might be the part you need to fix another reel..Nah ! Anyway, I retrieved many of the parts (gears, cog wheels, drives, cams, etc.) cleaned them up, sprayed flat black,and weathered appropriately. 

Made a "junk pile" that looks pretty realistic between a factory and rail siding or inside a low gondola. Just another idea for consideration..

Jeff, I am sooo glad I'm not the only person who thinks like you do!!  One day I just might need this part and 30 somewhat years later, I just still might need this same part that I have kept for 30 somewhat years and haven't used it yet!! But the day I get rid of it. . . LOL!!

In addition to Model Tech and Berkshire Valley, you might look at the castings from Rusty Rail.

Seconded on the Rusty Rail castings, he makes some nice stuff. Here's a bunch of his castings in the shop along with a few things from BV, etc. 

In addition to some of those suppliers mentioned above, don't forget BarMills Models. Art is one of the best guys in the business and he has a nice selection of o scale details. Another suggestion for do-it-yourself scrap is to buy some inexpensive, old, non working watches and take them apart. Inside, you'll find some great different sizes gears and scrap metal parts. Just rust them up and you'll have some realistic details for engine houses, factories, etc. 

Jeff Horn posted:

Over the years, I've disassembled many fishing reels. Being a packrat, all the internal parts got tossed into an old coffee can (y'all know the drill..One day that just might be the part you need to fix another reel..Nah ! Anyway, I retrieved many of the parts (gears, cog wheels, drives, cams, etc.) cleaned them up, sprayed flat black,and weathered appropriately. 

Made a "junk pile" that looks pretty realistic between a factory and rail siding or inside a low gondola. Just another idea for consideration..

I've done the same thing with old VCRs and tape decks. Got some good can motors from them, too.

RoyBoy posted:

Jeff Horn posted:

Over the years, I've disassembled many fishing reels. Being a packrat, all the internal parts got tossed into an old coffee can (y'all know the drill..One day that just might be the part you need to fix another reel..Nah ! Anyway, I retrieved many of the parts (gears, cog wheels, drives, cams, etc.) cleaned them up, sprayed flat black,and weathered appropriately. 

Made a "junk pile" that looks pretty realistic between a factory and rail siding or inside a low gondola. Just another idea for consideration..

I've done the same thing with old VCRs and tape decks. Got some good can motors from them, too.

My attitude towards stuff like that was always if it was dusty or I had it 6 months and didn't use it was throw it out. Now I see the error in my thinking since I just spent a lot at at Rusty Rail and Schombergs and it won't even put a dent in what I'll need.

joe

 On the ground set an old gondola body, torched open, and/ or with seperation walls added etc. , to form bins. It's prototypical in a way,  fills space now, and you can slowly fill them as you find things that work out. 

  Old broken loco shells can be hacked upfor larger pieces that can eat space, a pilot, cab, dome, or truck or two set near the wheel pile.

If you eat out a lot , skewers, or tooth picks of assorted types can give you iron bars, pipe, etc in different sizes and shape to add to/around the big stuff or piles.

Models or toys with a straight engine vs a V8, even in the wrong scale can easily pass for an industrial block.  

Same for wheels, tires and internal gears from wind up toys (by the wheels since not many have keys. ) Off the vehicle, their scale is variable by the things around it -. E.g. Industrial loader tire or an off-road pickups? With a RR truck nearby it's a loader's tire.

Stop at a brake shop and ask for scrap tube for a pipe  pile ( new scraps.) 

Flea market misfit toy box and the dollar stores. Space ships often have electrical cabinets you could slice and dice. The very bottom of the box is home of the cast off items. Usually interesting at least as kids will save a cool cast off too

Sheet metal, in plastic like a q-tip box or thin metal flashing. Just a few on a pallet or leaning against something, It might bow

A board walk or mud sled /bridge over the ever present huge puddle that nearly every yard has.

A boot, or new tennis shoe stuck in the mud nearby  would be funny .

A RR executive with a lost dress shoe would be funnier.

 Anyone make an "oops I stepped in doody" figure? It would be the right pose. 

I busted up an empty butane lighter for the Flint, one of the cheapies that sell for 50cent-$1. The safety feature on this one is two small thumb wheels on either side of the standard thumb wheel. Well sitting on the table they look like two gears, and are just slightly larger than a scale brake wheel. Drilling a few holes they could be made to appear as different types too. Everytime I'm at a gas station or party store I see a couple empties laying in the parking lot. Not a quick fix, but one more slow hunt beats no hunt.

(  "Pitch-in"..if you don't get it, Google it , and " Help keep America beautiful" both. I think it's time we are all reminded of the 60s and 70s garbage issues again. I'm sick of it..,,again)

I view clutter as the final resting place for all the useless, mismanufactured, deformed, out of scale, broken, unidentifiable stuff that I slowly accumulate over time. The day it all finds it new home is whenever I am in the mood to do something that doesn't demand careful measurement, detailed painting, or any sort of assembly. The attached photo show the results. The provider of all this stuff is everyone's imagination accompanied by the occasional vendor of such whatnot.

Bob

flanger posted:

I view clutter as the final resting place for all the useless, mismanufactured, deformed, out of scale, broken, unidentifiable stuff that I slowly accumulate over time.

Yup!  That shoebox of "stuff" that's too good to toss in the trash but not good enough for.....

One sees stuff like this on tables at meets and most turn up their noses and ridicule the seller, but what they don't realize is that they are passing up on good scenery materials...

Don't rule out the free stuff!

Railroad ties from broken track

cut small rectangles of white paper and paint with india ink - great newspaper lying on the ground.

2 rail code 100 rail, paint rust / brown and lay against the right of way

cut small pieces of styrene into squares to represent discarded rail plates

Bass / balsa strip wood- weathered and split

strip some thin copper wire and roll it in a hooped circle - paint it grey/black

look for 1/43 scale military details at a trade show.

locomotive handrails

I used to see these trucks a drugstores for 3 bucks... make great rusted vehicles along the right of way...

J Daddy posted:

Don't rule out the free stuff!

Hear! Hear!

The LAST thing I wold pay for would be model junk. 

The pile of nondescript scrap in the corner of the fence was made from that plasticized silver stuff that they use to seal coffee containers: