10,000 Toothpick Model of a Bridge! What Do You Think?

Wow that's a lot of toothpicks...and a handsome project.... You might try steaming and bending a piece of wood for your next iteration....

I have never tried that. That may be a good project idea for me! What tools do you need?

You just build a wooden box(or other suitable containment method) that fits your pieces of wood to be bent and feed steam in the box.....You will also need a jig to form the wood when it's ready....so use hard wood, clamps, steam.....2hrs for every inch thick...

Wood is good.
Del

Nature's composite material.

I count 10,017 toothpicks.

Darn, somebody just had to divulge the secret.

You are now rechristened Andrew Rainman.

Yep, think to are right. Think I want to invite him to Vegas.............

Again, very impressive young man.

How I wish I had the time for something to build other than work stuff. I would like to wind my own fishing poles, noodle rods. But working 7 days a week and the thyroid issues that are not going so well, I may never get back to building my own stuff.

I envy you, and I encourage you to keep doing the things you love, life is short, you have to make the best of it and it looks like you are. Keep it up.

ditto.

By the way, it's 10,033. Don't mean to be an arse, but you need to count again. Doing many things to keep my mind off of other things, and I counted 10,033, 4 times.

You had 10,017, I come up with 10,033. 40,123 too many says he used -30,000+.

As always, I love your heartfelt comments.

Would you like to help me with a bridge on my HO gauge railroad layout?

Not really. Fine modeling, indeed. Wood glue is slow - that took some serious patience and much clamping, no doubt.

I have built some "N" scale bridges, what help do you need? Maker could probably do it for you......

I have a set rule on my layout - EVERYTHING custom build or at least a very thorough kit bash. No having people see my layout and say - "that's a Walther's (whatever) isn't it? Plus no kits actually match what I am modeling, as it is based on real buildings and associated fixtures. Now the layout is totally imaginary, but sections are actual towns and plant facilities I have lived in or near to and photographed and are personal to me, such as my Father's hardware.

So, I have the ability to do such and don't really need help, although I'd choose styrene as the media and MEK as the glue. That was just a way to get Maker's attention, before complimenting him on his skills, as it looks like he could apply it to train modeling. There are plenty of modelers out there who can't do this sort of thing.

Do you have any pictures? I have always liked model train sets. I have an electric one that is a model of the polar express.

Yes I do. At least what I had before I started tear down to move to a larger space out in the garage. The layout is less train and more scenery as that is my interest. The train is an excuse to build buildings and do scenery.

This probably isn't the place to be posting them. I don't have a blinkin one here at work though. I will try to get some in here later.

When did you get interested in scenery making? What is your favorite building style?

I am a bit obsessive/compulsive, so this is an area that allows that rather easily.

My first layout was years ago and was when I was still in the "oilfield" who moved me at least every year - so no scenery and nothing large or bulky. I spent my free time doing repainting and super detailing of engines and freight cars. I even sub-contacted to the local train store, in the area where I was located, to repaint and decal customer's trains for the store. Best one I did was a brass model of EBT #18. Free time though, was very skimpy in that field of endeavor, so I packed it all away.

Finally about 8 years ago I decided to get the RR stuff out of storage, and most was deteriorated from storage in less than ideal climes. By that time, detailing of rolling stock was largely unnecessary, models had greatly improved, and even small local railroad stock was available, complete with unique detailing.

So I built another small layout devoid of scenery and saw that I really needed some. Once I started, the same obsession that drove my rolling stock detailing hit, and I couldn't stop. Available space limited how much scenery I could add, even after quadrupling the layout size, but the buildings..... You don't actually need somewhere to put them on the layout, so I have about 300% more buildings than will fit on my layout.

I've stepped away again for a year, and am spending money/time in my other obsession restoring and modifying bicycles, (I have 17 now) but once I get moved to that garage out back, with double the available space, to be done after retirement next year, the obsession will start again.

My favorite building style. Do you mean the type of building I am modeling, or the type of construction needed to model it?

No, I mean the style of the building, the era.

Well that covers a broad range, as I'm modeling sections of towns and work places in the late 1970's. Home was mostly Victorian era buildings. The oil field, actually out in the field, is mostly galvanized siding on wood framing from the 1940's thru 1960's. Buildings in the refinery are from 1920 through the late 1970's. My oil field job worked out of a typical industrial cement block building with a newer pre-fab metal addition. My current workplace, an OEM manufacturer, where I'm doing the first location, was a pre-fab type of metal building tacked onto an oil field galvanized metal over wood type building.

Probably the most fun is doing the various well sites found here where the oil field has run since 1880. The older collection tanks, for the rod line run jacks are wooden, while the newer ones, for electric motor run walking beam are steel. The newer sites will have banks of tanks with plumbing between, as the current process actually catches the brine in a tank after separation, instead of in a big pit, and separates the gas and uses that as well instead of venting to the air. That separation means has about a dozen varieties to it, all still present out there, and at one time there were more than a dozen manufacturers of the walking beam type jack all with a twist on how to build these. I'm modeling some of them. Makes it easy when you can still walk out back with a camera, a sketch pad, and a tape measure and record the actual dimensions of each part. Got one field, way up on a ridge you can only reach on mountain bike, where they began collecting other producers used jacks and have a nice variety of jacks sitting there for photographing and measuring. The oil field power house is also a hodge podge of designs. That one on the ridge has an old Chevy Blue Streak engine for power, while the one behind my house ran on steam through a Bovaird and Seyfang steam generator and engine.

I would like to see pictures also. Although I don't currently have a train layout, I was into "N" scale for quite awhile.

My dad had a large "HO" layout in the basement when I was growing up.

Yes - N scale. that is where I started in the late 1970's, for easy transport when being moved every year in the oil field. I switched to HO very quickly when I decided detailing was the best I could do with the 100 hour work weeks in the oil field, and little time to prepare for the yearly move.

The oil well jacks I do now would be impossible in N scale - at least the shallow well ones we have here in NW Pa. The main beam would only be 3/4" long and be of 0.05" H beam (probably do with plastic 1/16" H beam) with a supporting frame of 0.0125" angle (do they even make a plastic angle smaller than 1/32nd?) - that would be a bit tough to handle with 60 year old eyes. That angle size would also be the main casing for our older wells here. The surface casing would only be 0.025". The sucker rod would have to be basically the thinnest hair one could find. A bit tough to handle - heck - a bit tough to even see.

Yes - that is a fine scale if you want maximum operational ability in minimum space, but for scratch building any structure, that would take a person with the abilities of a watch repairer.

I keep forgetting the pictures when I get home in the evenings - my bicycle obsession takes over, as I have a couple of new frames to outfit and...... I need to get them to a flash drive to bring them here to work.

Do you have any Schwinn bikes? I have one with a stick gear shift.

I have one of those "stick shifted" ones, waiting for time to restore. Since I probably won't try riding it, this one will sit for a while. This one is for sure a USA built Schwinn.

I have a mid range road bike from 1983 (not sure of model) that I rode for a while, but it is one size small for me and spray can painted. I have the frame now hanging in my work area. Some of the parts found their way to the Le Tour mentioned below.

I have a 1987 Le Tour and a Prelude, both occasionally ridden. The Prelude was a great find - 100% original with only a good polish to make it presentable. From the wear, or lack of, it obviously sat for most of the 30 years in a nice dry area. The saddle is like new, but definitely original. It even had the original cabling which still worked. that I changed for safety. The Le Tour has a custom powder coat in a non-stock color with Velocal decals from that model, and a new Selle Royal saddle. All aluminum parts, even the rims, were polished to a shine by myself before re-assembly. I had the wheels rebuilt with original rims and hubs. Now, I know that late 1980's road bikes really aren't Schwinns, they are Panasonics badged as Schwinns, but they still are nice to have.

On the totally fun side, I have a Mesa Runner from 1988, powder coated bright orange and back dated to early 1980 mountain bike style with a bullhorn bar, friction shifters, and bright green cabling, pedals, and grips. I kept the 5 speed freewheel, but had new rims and hubs built into a wheel set for this bike. I saw the weight of the original owner and thought this to be a smart move. This one I ride quite often in summer. This one is in reality a Giant badged as a Schwinn.

Do you have any mountain bikes?

Those bikes are the exception in my collection. Most of my other bikes are for off road. I live in a very rural area where the roads are posted 55mph, but should be lower, and red necks in pick up trucks prevail. They really don't like bikes on the highway. So, 90% of my riding is on old oil field lease roads, which abound around here, some more than 40 years old and well weathered. Even my cyclocross bike has mountain bike sized tires.

Besides the Mesa Runner turned mountain bike, I have 2 Trek Farleys (one for winter / one for riding through swamps in summer), a Trek X-Caliber, a Specialized FSR from 1998 with more modern suspension parts, and a 29" Gary Fisher whatever (got it from Fisher with no name on it as a replacement frame for a broken Fisher Cake). The remainder of bikes are my SOMA Double Cross cyclocross bike and older frames turned into a variation on a cyclocross bike, with off road tread and plenty of tire volume. When summer comes and the lease roads get hard and dusty, I go to a cyclocross style bike to go as fast as possible on those roads. Averaging 15mph on a rutted old dirt road is a lot better than 20+ mph on blacktop.

I bought my son a fat tire bike for his birthday last year. It's not a classic or anything but it is pretty cool. Goes through the snow, really well. Mongoose.

I ride a 25+ year old Univega aluminum mountain bike and love it, still have the original Rock Shox from when Rock Shox were starting to become popular. When I was your age, I had a Team Mongoose with Skyway Tuff wheel II's from the early 80's (When the Mongoose name actually meant something). Would have kept it but somebody stole it.

I actually used this bridge with my model train set at home. The train struggled to get up the hill, so I had to make the climb more gradual. I did not use and clamps in building this bridge. I built it upside down and just used gravity.

Try using the spaghetti and other spaghetti forms. It builds great bridges, easily shaped and of course the long thin strips form lovely planking that can be painted with acrylic paints. The round spaghetti can be used for fencing, tubing, pipes and anything else you fancy. Linguine for planking and spars when glued together. And it fits HO and N gauge

https://www.pecorama.co.uk/

http://modelrailwaylayoutsplans.com/jacks-progress-on-his-railroad-layout/?inf_contact_key=47e245b6713abf438fbcb521862186308198b8ac7ea343dc3056f0335f0aafe1

al@modelrailwaylayoutsplans.com

Never tried it, but it sounds interesting. You must use a non-water based glue. The wood glue Maker used for tooth picks would soften the pasta. I have to ask - does it have a problem with mice trying to eat it? Sounds a bit like a big beacon to call them in for dinner. My layout is about to move to a large garage out back of my house where the pesky critters have free range currently.

That sounds like an interesting build, but I prefer to build things that are not fragile. Do you have any other types of building?

Are there any specs on the toothpick bridge (TPB)? Max load per foot, stuff like that and how it would compare with an actual bridge?

I only have measurement specs that I put in the above description. It held 70 pounds, but I don't want to test it any further. It is not really intended to be very efficient. I made it solid for ease of build. I plan to build a more efficient bridge in the future, that uses less toothpicks, and holds more weight. This bridge was build more for fun than for an exact science.