I just got back into this wonderful pastime and am in the process of adding buildings to the 5x8 layout I’ve put down. Like my restart with the rolling stock, I started after picking the type of building/structure I wanted, by sampling the various Manufacturers. So far I’ve tried DPM, PIKO(sold thru Model Power or Con-Cor) and Korbel.
I’ve identified buildings I want from Blair, IHC, and Walthers Cornerstone but due to the learning curve problems I experienced with the previously mentioned manufacturers, I thought I’d seek out any comments others have about these suppliers.
I did run a search of this forum and found a topic from last September entitled “Who makes the best buildings?”. Neither IHC or Blair show up. I was a little leary of Walthers as their builtup Route 66 Motel while the right theme for what I’m doing looked too artificial.
Any comments would be greatly appreciated.
George
I like the Walthers kits. they are well designed and easy to put together, and with the proper weathering they are very realistic.
Most all are fairly nice buildings. I built my own buildings from photos and what I remember from the 50-60s. These are actual buildings in my area. Most are long gone but if your modeling a certain place maybe you might want to look into doing this yourself. Its not real hard, and I think the cost of the items you’ll need per house come out to be about the same as the Walthers structure costs.
If I have to pick though I would go myself with Walthers, ConCor Heljan, DPM , and maybe a couple others. I myself wouldn’t buy IHC, Atlas, Model Power, LifeLike. I think they just seem to be a low grade model. This is just my opinion. So those of you who like them its just my thoughts on these items. Don’t go over the edge on me [:)]
[#welcome] back to model railroading!
It’s a lot like yellow fever, you’ll never be cured of it.
Structures? In my opinion most kits and built ups do look too artificial as you say. But with a little weathering! I recomend taking a look at 222 Tips for Building Model Railroad Structures (click on title)
Then there’s craftsman kits. [tup]
In my opinion, if you don’t mind the European look, Faller uses the best quality plastic and excellent overall quality. But is still needs paint and weathering.
Thanks for the comments. The Book sounds like a good step at this point. I’ve read various posts on painting, weathering, etc. of structures but this probably is a better consolidation of all the tricks of building structures.
I was very pleased with the DPM kit. I chose to start with their Modular Learning Kit and was pleasantly pleased with the process and outcome. Easy to assemble, good instructions and pictures, and nice detail.
I next started on some industrial structures from Con-Cor. I found that these models are actually made by PIKO from Germany and also sold in the U.S. by Model Power with different names for the buildings. The plastic in these kits was very different from the DPM models and reacted very differently to the plastic glues I had used with DPM and other plastic items I’ve built before. Also the instructions left a lot to be desired. If you didn’t have the picture available from the box cover it was a challenge to figure where some of the parts belonged. As a matter of fact, I posted both on this site and with the Atlas forum attempting to identify where some parts go. I’ve also contacted both PIKO(by Email) and Con-Cor (by phone) but still have not received an answer. Finally, yesterday I went to a local hobby store and took digital photos of the box covers of the identical models from Model Power. Hope that will help fini***hese kits.
The last kit I tried was from Korber Models a division of Scale Modelers Ind. Found the kit while on a business trip and it reminded me of typical buildings where I grew up and of course, just had to have it. The material used in this kit is some type of composit, plastic and fiber. Had to resort to “Super Glue” for bonding and found this less than desireable. Also nothing was square or straight,. This manufacturer suggested painting the structure before assembling whereas DPM recommends the opposite. I learned that painting before generally means a lot of touch up afterword as much gets nicked when you’re trying to "squar
I also got back into the hobby (about 4 years ago) after a 15 year absence.
One of my most pleasant surprises was how many nice building kits there are around, espcially anything that is laser cut. I will especially recommend “Saulena’s Tavern” from Bar Mills. Also recommended from Bar Mills is what they call “The 1 Kit” which is basically a bunch of wall sections with window openings for which you can choose size and locations, plus a bunch of laser-cut frames. Its great for a first project in scratch building. Check out their website: http://www.barmillsmodels.com/