Brass Truss Plates
A s you've probably seen in recent blog entries, I'm still working on the homemade truss bridge I designed and built for our little garden railroad. Although this bridge is looking pretty good, I felt it was still lacking something (see photo at right). After painting it a few different colors and thinking long and hard about what is bothering me about it, I had decided to add some details in the form of truss plates and bolt/rivet details. I thought about making these truss plates out of wood but cutting wood as thin as I would need would make them very susceptible to warping and splitting so I ordered some brass stock to make these truss plates. I also ordered some round head brass nails to make bolt details. I'll drill holes in the plates where I want the bolts and then glue everything in place. The brass stock I had ordered earlier in the week arrived on Thursday. So, yesterday, I cut the shapes needed for truss plates. Although brass is a rather soft metal,