Need Some Advice

[Lawton Maner]

     I am in the planning stage of building a 1/48 scale flat car to represent one of the wooden ones used by the East Broad Top Railroad in the 19th century to haul among other things tan bark from the south end of the railroad to 2 tanneries in Mt. Union.  Since I cannot find the information to build exactly the car, I'm using a stand-in.

     Now for my problem.  I am looking for suggestions on how to represent the slabs of bark.  Peeling twigs to harvest their bark looks to be like making rivets (hours of work, great looking end product) and will result in my taking the "air" in a sanatorium. Any help will be appreciated.

[Bill Gill]

Lawton, I only found one site that had a photo that looked like what I think are the kinds of bark slabs you are talking about for tanning: https://www.warrenhistory.org/Lumber/5tanning%20leather.html

If that looks right, then my thoughts for modeling them are:
Start with a good quality 90lb watercolor paper that has some texture like cold press watercolor paper or if that's too smooth, "rough" watercolor paper has more texture. (a small pad will do plenty more than you need for a single flatcar load. You can find pads and sheets at Michael's and some Joann Fabric & Craft stores and sometimes can get coupons).

The paper is tough. Each side of the sheet will have a slightly different texture, one side will be a little rougher than the other. Use the rougher side for the exterior face of the bark.

Cut the paper into long thin strips to match the width in the photo but tear the short ends to length rather than cutting them.

Stain a batch of strips by soaking in thin Burnt Sienna acrylic paint. The paper will buckle when soaking wet. A lot of that will flatten out when it dries, but wrinkles that remain will add to the appearance.

While the paper is still wet, streak and dab the rougher side with additional shades of dark brown to look like the exterior bark.

I think a technique something like that will give you satisfactory results pretty quickly and be both more durable and less frustrating to work with than trying to use real bark.

(I made a slate face for one tunnel portal on my HO scale layout by slicing and picking at and gluing together lots of pieces of pine bark garden mulch. It looks very good, but the bark will be too stiff to look like the strips in the photo and it gets brittle and crumbly and may have blotches of dry sap that won't look right or take stain.)

Here's what ARCHES rough paper looks like (There are other brands too)

[Hauk]

Now for my problem.  I am looking for suggestions on how to represent the slabs of bark.

Interesting challenge!
Do you have some protoype photos?

[Bill Gill]

Here's the photo I found online. It's from the Warren County Historical Society.

[Ray Dunakin]

Bill, there is a good color photo at this site:

https://catskillforest.org/bark-peeling/

[Bill Gill]

Thanks, Ray. That's a lot better than the one I found for Lawton

[Lawton Maner]

Bill:

I like your idea. Thanks for sharing it.

In the cabinet business there is the 3' rule there if you can't see it at arm's length it isn't a defect.  Making the bulk of the bark from your idea and topping it with a layer of real bark will make the job a hell of a lot easier.  It turns a truckload of beer task into a 12 pack one. 

While the East Broad Top left the trunks in the woods because they didn't have a market for it the logging operation at what is now Snow Shoe Ski Resort in West Virginia shipped the cores to the Luke's paper mill in Covington, Va.

[Bill Gill]

I like your idea Lawton. I did something similar with this pulpwood load. The bulk of the load is a solid, hard resin casting. I added a layer of real twigs on top and the painted the ends of the casting to match. No one has ever suspected the ruse.

[finescalerr]

I suspect a ruse .... -- ssuR

[Bill Gill]

Ssur,
Here's the first Penn gon with pulpwood. It's all real twigs. When the club gave me the second one I bit my tongue. The load took for ever to build up, waiting for the glue to dry every couple layers. 

For the second car (first photo) they offered a resin load to make it all go faster. Careful what you wish for. Whatever ever kind of resin it was, it was as hard as granite (maybe it was dental stone?). It took as long, maybe longer to fit that casting than it did to glue the all twig load into the other car.

I used this car as a guide for painting the ends of logs.

[finescalerr]

Both cars look very credible and your painted log ends look excellent. -- Russ

[Hydrostat]

I like your idea Lawton. I did something similar with this pulpwood load. The bulk of the load is a solid, hard resin casting. I added a layer of real twigs on top and the painted the ends of the casting to match. No one has ever suspected the ruse. (click the photo to enlarge)

Beautyful!

[nk]

I'm coming in late, but I wonder if using wood veneer is an easily accessible material to simulate scale bark. It looks like wood, it acts like wood...

[Lawton Maner]

I don't think veneer would work because the material to be modeled is the bark of the tree which never looks like the wood inside.  The suggestion for water colour paper will do quite fine.  I only need to find sheets which resemble the cambium layer inside of the bark so I only need to finish one side.  Wetting and wrapping around a dowel once dry will give the curl in a finished piece. 
The idea of using real bark from something such as azalea, crepe myrtle, or the bark of a young poplar for the top of the load will make it more realistic.