car damage

i was going to suggest heating the plastic to warp it however you wanted to simulate smashed in front ends and such, but oldhooker beat me to it lol

Here's a little tutorial about the process described above by Tinker that uses heavy aluminum foil instead of brass for 1/87 scale vehicles but can be done with any scale: http://www.horailroad.com/clinic3/cl3_02.html

Related to the above is using fine grained sugar to simulate the broken glass often found in and around junkyardsand the cars occupying them.
This is the glass which breaks and turns into small pieces about the size of gravel.

Also worth thinking about is the volumes of fluids leaking from damaged cars like radiator coolant in that luminous green colour , oil and transmission fluids in a dirty red colour and so on.

HTH, Cheers , Pete.

Scale Auto magazine had an excellent article in it several months ago showing how to scratch-build a replacement car hood using brass. The same technique could be used to make other panels from some light sheet steel that could be placed outside your house and allowed to rust for the truly authentic look. An excellent way to get a supply of very thin steel sheets is to recycle the containers that McCormick brand black pepper comes in. My pocket magnet varified that those cans are made of steel; not aluminium. I would use that steel instead of heavy aluminium foil because the steel would be able to hold whatever crumpled and battered shape you worked it to a lot better that the flimsy foil. An additional feature of the pepper cans is that they are already shaped to give you flat pieces of material. A round can would have to be flatted out , OR the round shape could be a good beginning for the tops of fenders or a replacement roof skin. Let your immagination soar.

thanks frank tips have been most helpful. heavy duty aluminum foil is somthing i really never thought of but its a grate idea that im going to use right away.

How are you this morning, fatman,

Here's some ways that I've done it, but certainly not the only ways... experiment with the ideas you'll pick up here and see which one works best for you.

You can simulate rusted out panels by grinding away plastic on the inside of the body with a Dremel grinding wheel attachment. You just make light back & forth motions until it starts breaking through, leaving rough edges around the hole, then weather it to a rust finish when you're working up the setting.

You can heat the plastic, then compress it with something, to simulated a wrinkled body panel, but practice first because too much/too little heating will cause it to look like melted plastic instead of bent metal. An alternative, is cut away body parts, and replace them with heavy duty aluminum foil, which offers all kinds of possible damage options.

FSM has had several articles pertaining to this over the years. It's an interesting technique that produces some very realistic results.

Good luck,
Take care,
Frank