correct size for steel beams

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**amrogers3**

Trying to pick up some I-beams for basing. Anyone know what is the correct size for 40K?

They come in 6mm, 4mm, 3mm

**insaniak**

Correct size for what? Steel beams come in a rather large range of sizes, depending on the application.

**greatbigtree**

As above. I had a house, with an exposed I-beam in the basement (support for the main floor). I believe it was around 16” tall by 8” wide, give or take.

My estimation for 40k is somewhere in the 1/36 scale area. 1” = 3’ in real life. 3” make for realistic floors in a ruin, being roughly 10’ high in real life.

Soooo... slightly larger than those options at 10 mm x 5 mm. Ish.

That’s a main house support beam though. I’d say 6mm for stronger supports, 4 mm for less-so. 6 mm would be roughly 8.5” x 8.5” beams

**Excommunicatus**

I'd buy a few different ones, try 'em out.

**Duskweaver**

For basing, I'd get the 6mm ones. 3-4mm will look too small. I actually use 5mm ones myself, but nobody seems to sell that size any more. I've bought some 6mm for when I run out of 5mm, and they look OK.

**queen_annes_revenge**

Yeah, I don't think it matters as I beams come in different sizes in real life too.

**Crispy78**

In my 40K world they use beams that look remarkably like model sprues.

**Rybrook**

+1 On the sprues.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
+1 On the sprues.

**bubber**

as a rough guide, the depth of the beam should be 1/20th the span of the beam.
EG, if the distance between supporting structures is 20cm, the beam should be ~1cm deep.

**Flinty**

The top bridge in this pic has a 6mm deep beam under it. If you zoom in you should be able to see it

This is the same depth of beam on a shorter bridge, just upside down.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Almost forgot... for basing my Viking counts as dread I used some scrap model railway track. Definately too.small.to be structural beams but you cam twist and distort them nicely and they still get across a cladding rail feel.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also also, standard structural beam sizes go from about 100mm deep all the way up to about 1m deep. So anything from ankle height to waist height on a model is "realistic"

You can get deeper beam up to any height you like, but they tend to be welded together out of individual plates rather than standard rolled sections.

**JBSchroeds**

.

**amrogers3**

Flinty wrote:
The top bridge in this pic has a 6mm deep beam under it. If you zoom in you should be able to see it

Thanks for the pic, that helps with size comparison.