Hi Guys,
I recently discovered that the Walther’s “American Hardware Supply” building kit can be easily made into two buildings. It turns out that the back of the building, along with one narrow side panel on each side, is EXACTLY the same three sections that you get when you buy the Walther’s “River City Textiles” building kit. In other words, if you buy the American Hardware Supply kit, currently on sale on page 40 of the Walther’s December flyer for $31.98, you can build the American Hardware Supply building AND the River City Textiles background building. Think about it…the River City Textile background building is on sale in the same flyer for $28.00. Why buy the two individual kits for a total of $60.00 when you can get both out of the one kit for $31.98.
Of course, because I built the River City Textile building using the parts from the American Hardware Supply, the American Hardware Supply I subsequently built is 7" deep instead of the 9" it would have been, but who cares. Also, I had to trace the back of the building onto some plain styrene plastic in order to create a back for the building. I often do this with kits anyway because the back of the buildings on my layout are generally not visible because they’re against or near my backdrop. I also cut a plain piece of styrene for the back of the River City Textile building and it turns out that you don’t get a back wall anyway when you buy the actual River City Textile background building kit, so I would have had to do that anyway.
I hope I’ve not confused anybody. If you are confused, don’t hesitate to email me and I’ll clarify.
The Cornerstone building kits really lend themselves to the type of project you’ve described. I’ve also found that they can often be “bashed” into very, very realistic if not downright impresssive structures by combining 2 or 3 of the same kit into one large building. Put together 3 Railway Express Agency buildings end-to-end and you have yourself a convincing REA building or big-city freight house.
I recently “bashed” 2 American Hardware Suppply buildings into a big, L-shaped background factory. I needed to fabricate a new, custom-fit roof from a large sheet of styrene, but otherwise everything I needed for the project came from the 2 Walthers kits.
Sounds like an awesome looking building (the one from the American Hardware buildings). Ever think about writing it up and sending it in to MRR? I really do miss the structure kitbash articles that used to be in the magazines (Art Curren rocked!).
I like to kitba***all buildings using those cheap model power Mt. Vernon Manufacturing Buildings…the building is very square in appearence and can be stacked one on top of the other …Chuck
Actually, I hadn’t thought about doing an article. Like you, I really enjoyed Art Curran’s project, so maybe I should get busy to revive that sort of thing.
One thought to add regarding this topic: The building I built, and several other background structures on the club layout I contribute to, have been constructed so that they are on an angle to the backdrop–and (sometimes) to the tracks running in the foreground. The effect is much better than if the buildings were parallel or perpendicular to the backdrop.
The two-for-one method first suggested on this topic definitely lends itself to this way of arranging the finished structures.