The December 2014 MR has an article by Jim Gore on his really neat On30 “Chili Line” Branch of the D&RGW, “A Tall Tale Come True.” A side bar on page 62 discusses how he makes adobe buildings out of balsa. I’ve wanted to build some similar buildings for some time and Jim’s work inspired me to get to it.
My adobe buildings are in HO, so I changed a few things. I used 3/32" basswood. For HO, it’s less grainy so the texture is better matched. It’s often cheaper than balsa these days, too. I painted mine with Rustoleum PaintPlus Satin Fossil and skipped the step with adding sand, as it’s a texture too coarse to work well in HO, at least what I have on-hand.
For the vigas – the poles that support the roof which poke through the walls, I used 1/16" hobby sticks, staining them, breaking them in half, install, clip off extra length inside, then glue permanently with CA from inside the structure. Keep space for them in mind as you lay out your walls. There needs to be space above the often high set windows and below the roof you install to fit a row in without it looking squeezed.
I mostly used a file to work over the basswood, with a final smoothing with sandpaper. I used Titebond to make the main wall structure tight and strong, but reelied on gap-filling CA to speed much of the other work.
One key feature of this sort of architecture is that windows and door are insent into their openings. In fact, I turned some doors around because it looked better with all these installed from the inside of the stricture. So how about some pics? I failed to really take many construction pics, but I will take some inside pics and post them later.
Think of arranging them like building blocks to help you plan. I made one single unit and another that was L-shaped, with a second floor. Together they’re
And thanks for the detailed info how you did your building.
I have some Piko “adobe” buildings on my G scale outdoor layout and also an adobe house on the HO layout. I can’t remember the name of the company that made the HO house. But they offered lots of HO scale adobe buildings. Sadly they went out of business.
Thanks! yeah, too bad about losing that option in HO. There’s not a lot of it out these in terms of models, considering it was a distinctive and widespread regional design.
Walthers offered a Santa Fe station and frieght depot in Mission-style in addition to the huge Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal. Beyond those I don’t recall others, but if people do know of kits past or present, that would also be approprirate to post here. Even if a kit is no longer available, a little documentation on it can still give ideas that are useful.
I’m kinda kicking myself for not taking pics as I went along. Having too much fun I guess. But these interior pics pretty much show the tale, so here we go.
An overall shot with tops off
The single unit dwelling I made first. My model “vigas” or poles didn’t quite reach so I just doubled them up. I didn’t glue these, so they can be slid out of the way to get inside, except for the couple I attached the LED to, which I glued together.
A reverse angle shows how the windows are installed from the inside. Some model windows are made this way. Other need to be adapted. Either way, they are so deeply set they don’t need to be perfect, as they’re a little hard to see anyway.
Inside the front of the two story, multi-unit building. Note that I set the LEDs far back in the building, as that best obscures the fact they’re largish. Since the small windows are hard to see into, the interior will be minimal when it happens, but will take pics.
Note that the interior walls, as well as the reinforcing posts in the corners and elsehwhere, help set the roof height. You want it down far enough to form a modest parapet , then there’s the thickness of the roof, then space for a row of vigas, then the doors and windowsare below that. Plan accordingly for the extra space. In my case, each story is 11’ high.
On this building, I decided to just cut the vigas off flush inside, then apply some CA to fix them in place, which worked well.
In the next shot is shown the relationship between the wal
Actually, this is over near Dove Creek, so down outta the mountains. Otherwise, there could be trouble. That may have been one reason they liked to build in cliff overhangs, as that protected from the worst of the elements naturally.
Here’s a photo on my HO layout that shows the adobe house I mentioned above. Interestingly enough, the building on the bottom left is the Citrus Exchange you linked to.
And small world dept on the citrus exchange. Some years back, I met Ed(?) Suydam’s son at a National Narrow Gauge Convention. Right now, can’t remember his first name, but nice guy and apparently a talented musician, too. Another year I gave him a ride to a couple of layout visits out in the sticks and he regaled me with tales of the family kit business. Lots of work goes into those kits, even when they seem simple.
Oops I hope my humor wasnt coming across the wrong way. No voice in text. Just cheering things on. Kind of like Viva Vigas! Good work.
But it does remind me of a story: My dad designed this great house in Denver (Lakewood) we grew up in. Contemporary, fantastic view of Mt Evans and Pikes Peak. (We were house rich but cash poor). Nevertheless, it had a flat roof - with generous artsy overhangs. My mom would get nervous after those occaisional heavy snows and sure enough, we were up there shoveling snow off the roof. Most people would shovel their driveways. We shoveled the driveway and the rooof! Fun times.
Anyways, those stout vigas should hold up just fine!
Oh, no problem, I can understand you asking about that if you’re not familiar with the exact geography of my layout[8-|]
Beautiful house,[C):-)] but I guess you mom didn’t trust dad’s architecture? Good thing y’all didn’t live in Buffalo, where it seems like everyone was shoveling their roof this weekend.
Been working on the adobe buildings little by little over the last couple of days. It reminded me about something I wanted to say about doing these adobe buildings. They make a great first time scratchbuild project. First of all, you are basically just building a box. Throw in some architectural details like the parapetted flat roof, deeply recessed dors and windows, no visible foundation and protruding vigas and it’s real easy to create a credible model. Don’t fear, the water is warm and inviting[&]
Here’s how things looked after I got everything dirted in.
An early morning shot shows some changes…
With the sun up, we can see this is turning into a family of pinto bean farmers, who are members of the Anasazi Bean Co-op.
They even have one of the modern city amenties, running water.
They look like fun to build! I never knew that real adobe has straw added to the mixture and has to be coated over with another layer of adobe often (was told once year). On my trip last month to Colorado amd New Mexico we saw a church in Taos Pueblo that was real abobe and old, you could see the straw in the mixture. Santa Fe has building codes that require structure to be no more than 6 stories and made to look like adobe structure, although I believe most of them are made from concrete, now.
The straw component is important, as it’s the binder that holds things together once the adobe is dry. It may not be that walls exposed to the elements, generally those outside of the dwelling, require repair every year, but they would require inspection. While the climates adobe is used in are generally dry, it doesn’t take much rain working its way into adobe before it could start causing problems, so you wouldn’t want to go through the rainy season again without repairs.
Definitely anything over maybe three stories high (maybe only two?) would not be adobe. Like bricks, there are structural limits to how much weight the lower courses can support. Higher structures would typically be concrete or other materials made to look like adobe.
I managed to finish major work on this project with the barn I will detail in pics below, although still plenty of detail to add as I get around to it. The barn is one step up in difficulty from scratchbuiling the adobe dwellings, but still pretty simple stuff. Here are the 4 walls cut and laid out. This was easy since there are no windows and the doors are all done as surface appliques over the wall, so no need to cut openings in the walls for them
If you have a sloped roof like on the barn, it’s helpful to cut the side walls a little shorter that the end walls where they join. This is to allow the roof to sit all the way down. The “recess” is just enough so that when the roof is on, the overhang fits without being blocked by the sidewall.
The small bit of glue showing is covered up by corner trim. For the primary joints like on the walls, I like to use Titebond III. I glue a side and end wall together to make an L, then do the same with the other two pices, doublechecking for squaren
