New and interesting ways of simulating damage

How about a heat gun to soften up the plastic and then press against something hard while using a knife blade to get some sharp folds where it might have hit something solid and wrinkled the metal.

To replicate some battle damage on this Panther A, I thinned the right front "fender" with my motor tool and then heated it with a hairdryer until soft and used pliers to bend it upwards.

goldhammer and texgunner, I like your ideas! I'd been using a soldering iron as a heat source, but the problem there is you practically have to lay the iron on the plastic to get it to deform, and you lose a lot of detail that way. Plus, it tends to  make the "metal" look melted rather than dented.

You could also replace some of the simple flat panels with thin metal sheets like brass, copper or heavy foil.  That way you could bend/damage them like real metal.

I tried googling "diesel train wreck" and all I got was photos of weed.  Apparently I missed a memo.

Have any pics of what you've done so far?

Well, that didn't work... Let's try this.

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That worked. Yay! And here's another:

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And here's a couple works in progress. These are more experiments than anything else, just to see what I can do. I know the Navy never had any GP 38s in their roster that i know of, but I happen to have a dozen shells that I acquired somewhere, long ago and I wanted to see what one might look like. The wrecking has yet to commence. I'll probably open a couple doors on the Navy loco, too, as I'm liking that look a lot.. Maybe put a couple askew, like they were bashed out of place by a rollover or something.

[View:http://s376.photobucket.com/user/jim_nelson1/media/IMG_20150115_165045661_zps014d004c.jpg.html?filters[user]=142284974&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=0:600:0]

Hey ;

     Here's a story about one that resides on our museum layout . It's a GP38 that got " T " boned at a crossing . Source one heat gun , lotsa Evergreen chotshkis and plenty of loose looking stuff too . Back of diesel is sticking out of the shell through what were service doors . Rest of train is all over the place ! It's on a siding so it's out of the way . Aluminum was cut with louvers then cut to size of the doors on the body then crumpled in our hands .Hey , it worked. 

     Frame was re-built as a simple rectangle and bent in the middle One fuel tank was crushed and the other sits a scale 60 feet from the site .The other train was a steam loco . Smashed right up to the cab and firebox .One set of drivers is scattered by it as it leans ready to fall over . A double layer of baking foil was formed over a pvc pipe of the right size and crushed to simulate the damage it sustained .I didn't build it .I just saw the progress !

tankerbuilder-- I'm going to try something like that this weekend on the shell I hit with a hammer, if I can get my computer problems solved first. Nothing like a crashed hard drive to put thoughts of any other crash on the back burner!

goldhammer

How about a heat gun to soften up the plastic and then press against something hard while using a knife blade to get some sharp folds where it might have hit something solid and wrinkled the metal.

trouble is hot plastic doesn't bend like metal.

i did it that way about 10 years ago on my damaged mustang, and recently replaced some panels with heavy foil.

before

after

Agreed, nothing sims bent metal like bent metal, but that is why I suggested a sharp knife to get tighter sharper bends in the plastic when heated up.

Nice job on the fender by the way--from an auto body tech.

I took OctaneOrange's advice and used heavy duty foil to form the rough body shapes and then basically annihilated them to simulate catastrophic damage to both ends of a diesel locomotive. So far, wowsers! It looks fantastic! I'll post a pic or 2 when I get it finished.

Thanks to OctaneOrange, here is my latest and greatest wreck yet:

Meaning no disrespect, but what is it?

That's what's left when a loco is sandwiched between an immovable object, like another train for instance, and the freight cars behind it. In other words, lots of wreckage!