Best wood for footboards?

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Yak18pilot
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Best wood for footboards?

Post by Yak18pilot »

Hello;
I'm cosmetically restoring a 1.5" scale 7.5" gauge live steamer. The locomotive had foot boards on both the pilot and rear of the tender. The tender footboards were partly missing when I purchased the locomotive. Does anyone have any good suggestions on the type of wood to use to replace the footboards?
TIA
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Dick_Morris
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by Dick_Morris »

My local box stores offer poplar in small pieces. I haven't used any yet, but bought some for a future project as it seems very suitable. It has a straight, consistent grain that isn't too pronounced and is a little harder than pine.
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Bill Shields
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by Bill Shields »

Cannot co wrong with oak or teak

Not like you are going to need more than $200 worth at today's prices for a few square inches of what amounts to a square of parquet flooring..

Think about it..
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JBodenmann
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by JBodenmann »

Hello My Friends
It depends on what you are going to do with them. Are you going to leave them natural or paint them. On a model you also may want to use a closed grain wood like maple, or poplar. Wether or not you plan on a natural finish, or if you plan on painting them. An excellent wood for use in models is beech. Beech has a very fine closed grain structure, is pretty hard, and best of all for models, is that the grain structure and appearance is that of miniature oak. Looks just like miniature oak. For running boards I have used this and then colored it with Rit dye. I mixed up some mostly dark brown with a small amount of black. This is dye as opposed to stain, they are completely different. This will leave the grain structure un obscured as opposed to stain which has ground up pigment that makes the grain muddy. Hit them with the dye two or three times, letting them dry and then sanding between treatments. Lastly give them a coat of lacquer sanding sealer. This will give the running boards an almost black satin finish, but it will still be apparent that they are wood. Or you could just paint them. :D
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Yak18pilot
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by Yak18pilot »

Thanks for the advice so far. I plant to paint them. Agree the price of wood is currently insane. I built a wood test stand (my welding skills are marginal) and it cost me over $300 in wood & supplies....
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Bill Shields
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by Bill Shields »

Then beech is a good choice.

You can get pieces at hobby supply stores that are nice and straight grained
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Glenn Brooks
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by Glenn Brooks »

Can’t beat teak. Cleans up easily with a bit of a scrub with a brush and some dish soap after a season outdoors, and takes a nice sheen with teak oil.
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gwrdriver
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by gwrdriver »

Oak is an obvious choice, attractive, wear-resistant, plentiful, relatively inexpensive, at least in my area, but it has a drawback - it's naturally acidic and will corrode steel and brass. I use Red Oak in the workshop for lots of things, for its hardness, but I never allow it or its dust to sit on bare machine surfaces because in the morning they will be black from the beginnings of acid etching. (Don't ask how I know.) The etching occurs slowly of course, but if you can tolerate/manage that behavior Oak is hard to beat.

Poplar (also plentiful in my area) is a bit too soft for my liking so my tendency would be to use hard Maple or Teak. In my area any production cabinet shop will have scrap bins of kiln-dried Oak and Maple. I acquired a small supply of low-grade teak when someone tossed out a broken deck chair.
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Dick_Morris
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by Dick_Morris »

I've found that oak has a couple of other drawbacks. The course grain can look wildly out of scale unless well sealed, and then you lose the wood look. I've also found that the grain makes it hard to drill accurately. For accurate hole placement it needs to be clamped down when using larger drills so the grain doesn't cause it to move around, and smaller drills tend to wander around the harder parts of the grain.
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LVRR2095
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by LVRR2095 »

The best “wood” to use is aluminum. Once you paint it black nobody will know it isn’t wood. And the aluminum will withstand a minor derailment better than any wood.

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neanderman
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by neanderman »

I agree that teak is probably the best choice. Second choice would be white oak.
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Glenn Brooks
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Re: Best wood for footboards?

Post by Glenn Brooks »

One other issue with oak, is that it weathers poorly - turns almost black as the tannin in the wood oxidizes. It’s very hard to sand off as the staining goes deep into the grain. If you paint it, you don’t get the benefit of the natural wood grain... that’s why I like varnished or oiled teak for exterior trim - it looks as wonderful as it performs...

On the plus side, cured oak is tough as nails. Literally, almost the same hardness as steel. We once owned a wood 63’ loa sailboat with oak ceiling timbers - the oak had been in the boat for 45 years when we owned it. Couldn’t drive a bronze nail into the wood. They would bend and double over. Had to drill pilot holes to put in a fastening of any kind. Very tough stuff. I still have a few pieces of that oak out in the shop, left over from ratlines off that boat. Wonderful stuff. Although not suitable for outside exposure due to its weathering and staining proclivity...

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