Does anyone have any experiences - good or bad - with cardstock kits? Would you recommend them or not recommend them? I have noticed some of these for sale on eBay recently, but I don’t know much about them. They are inexpensively priced, which makes them enticing, but it also makes me wonder about the quality. I cannot ascertain their quality from the photos I’ve seen on eBay, and I have not seen any photos of them on an actual layout.
Joe, I must start by saying that I have not assembled one of these, but have made my own. That said, I have seen some incredible examples put on other people’s layouts. From what I have read and seen, you can get some fantastic looking kits and then some not so fantastic. I think in the pages of “Railroad Model Craftsman”, I read some article on some of the great samples that are out there. Also, I think CTT did a article some time ago. I would start off with a inexpensive kit to get your feet wet with assembling one of these. Then, move up to more expensive, yet better detailed kits. One of the companies has a free sample you can download and print if you have a printer capable of handling heavy gauge paper. Or, you can print off the best quality paper sample, use spray adhesive to mount the paper on card stock and then you can complete the kit.
I posted most of this in September on another thread: really REALLY old school model railroad layout building, and since I’m lazy and didn’t feel like typing it all again I just went and copied it here:
A few notes for anyone who’s never built a paper model. There’s a plethora of paper models out there on just about every subject you could think of and a lot you wouldn’t! A lot of them are free to download but some aren’t, like the excellent models at scalescenes dot com. They have bridges, roads, abutments and platforms along side their stations, factories and houses. (Well worth looking at even if you’re not buying. And no I don’t get a commission! ) Last week (September) I downloaded and enlarged from HO to G a photorealistic model of Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield Ill house from build your own main street dot com. Generally all you need is Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is free, and a printer to get started.
Although it’s no longer maintained, Peter J. Visser’s “Iceberg Links” is THE best list of free paper model kits on the web. This is a list of links, you have to take the time to sort through the individual sites to see what each has available today. The second list I would recomend is at spacestation 42 dot com. However the ss42 list is much shorter than the iceberg list especially when it comes to architecture. Check out the crafts pages at Canon too, the Japanese version of the site has a paper GG1 and 2 Japanese steam locomotives along side famous buildings. If you want a great station, there’s the Disneylad Main Street Station at the disney experience. You could change the signs from “Disneyland” to whatever you want by simply making your own. However I left it as-is and I use this 3 foot plus model with my Standard Gauge layout.
OK, back to building.
Printing: Laser printers are best. But if you’re like me you have to make do with an inkjet. Just know that the
When you fold cardstock along a score line, the white inside will show through. Having a collection of artist’s color pencils on hand is a good idea. I use Prismacolor or DeWent pencils since you can usually buy them individually at art supply and craft stores, but they also come in sets of various sizes.
Thanks for the replies Dennis, Jim, and Becky. Your responses have given me confidence about Cardstock models. I am hoping to find some row homes that do not take up a huge amount of space. I will visit the websites you all referenced to see what I can find.
Becky - I am going to cut and paste your tutorial to a Word document and save it. It was an amazing lesson.
Something else I thought of since yesterday. Many papermodel designers create their kits based on ease of construction rather than scale dimensions. Depending on the format of the files, altering the size can either be as easy as cutting and pasting jpegs or as difficult as printing “current view only” in Adobe Acrobat Reader till you get the size you want. The Disneyland station I mentioned is closer to small G scale than it is to O gauge. Similarly the Haunted Mansion models at Ray Keim’s haunted dimensions site look better with S gauge. So you have to take a lot of them with a grain of salt.
Also, check out the construction tips my friend Bob has over at his site: the disney experience dot com since he works strictly with 20 pound paper. His models are phenomenal!
) Last week (September) I downloaded and enlarged from HO to G a photorealistic model of Abraham Lincoln’s Springfield Ill house from build your own main street dot com. Generally all you need is Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is free, and a printer to get started.