I want to make my own builing from plywood or craft boars from Lowes or should i buy building already made from hobby stores. Any suggestions. Gary
Make your own.
You will need tools.
If you’ve never built a building, then I would suggest you start with a simple kit or two from the hobby shop to get your feet wet. As you gain some experience, you’ll start picking up the skills to build something out of raw materials.
Hello Usher,
Depending on a few things,such as era,scale or what type of structure are you planning on building ? I build structures alot…one on the drawing board right now is a Basic oxygen furnace building. A HO building 3’ X 4’ X 2 1/2’. Made with using old projection TV sceen cover.The reason I use this stuff is …first its free…secondly it looks like HO scale sheet metal siding…and thirdly its very easy to use.
If building a wooden structure,try using wooden coffee stir sticks from your local gas station. I’ve used these on a number of projects. Stain them first with indian ink and alcohol mix,let them dry and then split them down the middle. Speaking of lowes,now heres a place to buy all the wooden dowel one would ever need.
Let us know what type of structure you plan on building.
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
What scale are you working in, “plywood from Lowes” sounds a little extreme for smaller scale models?
As someone who has recently started to make my own structures, I would say that it is a very rewarding part of the hobby. I agree that making some inexpensive wooden kits from companies like JL Innovative is a great way to get some ideas of construction methods. The neat thing is that you can improvise and use card-stock and strip-wood and all manner of different techniques. I would recommend it to anyone.
Gary,
Are you asking about scratch-building structures for your layout, or an actual building to house your layout? It’s somewhat unclear when you use the phase “buil[d]ing from plywood” and “building already made from hobby stores” in the same sentence.
Tom
I’d agree that the best way to get your feet wet is to get a kit. That will get you started on the fundamentals of gluing and painting. Build a few, and then move up to getting the raw materials, typically sheet styrene from Evergreen Products or Plastruct, and design the whole thing from the ground up. If you’ve got a good hobby shop, they can advise you on a good starter kit. Get cheap acrylic paints from a craft store for these. Don’t spend the money for expensive paints for structures, in general.
What scale are you working in, “plywood from Lowes” sounds a little extreme
Not if your doing 1:1 or 7.5".[;)]
There’s quite a bit of middle ground there. You can scratchbuild buildings out of just about anything (although plywood from Lowe’s is a bit rough to work with): cardboard, plastic sheet, basswood, etcetera. You can also build kits from the hobby shop, rather than pre-built structures, if you’d like to try building a kit before making them from scratch. The hobby shop (assuming it’s a half-decent hobby shop) should carry most if not all of the supplies you’ll need for scratchbuilding, as well as kits, and the tools you’ll want for kit building and scratchbuilding, which are basically the same: X-Acto knife, razor saw, glue, plastic cement, paint and brushes, modeler’s sandpaper, tweezers…plus more, depending on how fancy you want to go.
I want to do scratch building for either HO or N Scale
Save your money . Get an exacto knife,a pencil, a sheet of 1/16th balsa from the hobby shop a small bottle of Elmers, and a cereal box for the cardboard and have at it. Oh!you might need a ruler too. I’m serious. Its a good start and will test your creativity.
I couldn’t find a barn I liked in the plastic kits so I went to the LHS and bought a bunch of thin wood strips (they specialize in RC Aircraft) and basicaly built my barn out of them. Drove around and got some ideas as to which barn I would like to model, figured out the basic dimensions, and built it.
It turned out to be quite passable for a first time effort.