Rob Pulham
Western Thunderer
While at a recent show (O gauge North West at Manchester I think) I noticed a demo of a Gent making a timber load from strips of Microstrip which looked quite interesting. It gave me an idea for a use for a box of coffee stirrers that I bought from eBay a few years ago.
Before seeing the demo to make such a stack of timber I would have cut some coffee stirrers to length and then glued them all together into a stack. What this gent did was make a hollow stack with short pieces in place at the ends. In terms of what I planned it would not only use less coffee stirrers but also allow me to make use of the cut rounded ends which would otherwise be surplus.
I started by using a 7mm scale rule and a square to cut 14 stirrers to a scale 16’ long (they were a scale 20’ overall allowing for 2’ to be cut from each end. These were then stuck together 2 high by 7 wide to make a base. To glue them together I used Crafters Pick PVA superglue. This is much thicker than normal PVA and gives a good grab for all sorts of things.
Next using the cut rounded ends and some lengths of some sticks that were not straight/flat I built up the ends and some inner supports
Finally finishing with a lid the same as the base.
The stirrers that I used for this trial scale out at 11” wide boards and I plan to make some more with smaller scale boards using the same techniques but scoring the top boards and the ends to represent narrower finished boards.
Before seeing the demo to make such a stack of timber I would have cut some coffee stirrers to length and then glued them all together into a stack. What this gent did was make a hollow stack with short pieces in place at the ends. In terms of what I planned it would not only use less coffee stirrers but also allow me to make use of the cut rounded ends which would otherwise be surplus.
I started by using a 7mm scale rule and a square to cut 14 stirrers to a scale 16’ long (they were a scale 20’ overall allowing for 2’ to be cut from each end. These were then stuck together 2 high by 7 wide to make a base. To glue them together I used Crafters Pick PVA superglue. This is much thicker than normal PVA and gives a good grab for all sorts of things.
Next using the cut rounded ends and some lengths of some sticks that were not straight/flat I built up the ends and some inner supports
Finally finishing with a lid the same as the base.
The stirrers that I used for this trial scale out at 11” wide boards and I plan to make some more with smaller scale boards using the same techniques but scoring the top boards and the ends to represent narrower finished boards.
, even us southern softies are known to relinquish fast food stores of their stirrers 
