The most common plastic used is styrene. You can buy it in 4’ x 8’ sheets from plastic wholesalers. There should be one or two in the larger cities. Buying it in 4’x8’ sheets is very economical. It comes in a variety of thicknesses. Dr. Wayne uses .060" thick sheets.
You can also buy it in smaller sheets from companies like Evergreen Scale Models. In addition to flat sheets they offer a number of patterned sheets as well as strips and moldings in different shapes and sizes.
You can also buy textured sheets like brick and cut stone walls from a variety of companies. The best place to see what is available is to go to the Walthers online catalogue.
You will need some glue. Most modellers use very thin styrene cement as opposed to the thick stuff that Testors sells in a tube. The thin glues actually weld the styrene together. You can also use MEK (methyl ethyl ketone). It is cheaper than the purpose made hobby cements.
Styrene is easy to cut. All you need to do is score it and then bend it and it will break along the score line. You will want to have a sharp knife to cut it. Most people use a #11 X-acto blade but doctorwayne recommends a carpet knife (box cutter) because they are easier to hold on to. I have just started to follow his lead and I much prefer the larger tool.
If you are going to be doing a lot of windows, a nibbler shear is really handy.
Dave has pretty-well covered that for you, Tommy, so there’s not much I can add.
I was in the midst of typing a how-to for making those hydrant/hose sheds or for the even simpler pumphouse sheds for wooden water towers…
…and a closer view…
…when everything just disappeared. So, I’ll instead offer a link to a thread which shows, in not quite how-to form, the construction of those crossing shanties for the watchmen, which I posted earlier.
For representing wooden structures, the method of using strip material as internal bracing/contact points for cementing the walls together, and smaller square strip material as external trim for the corners is pretty-much universally useful, no matter how large the structure. This fairly large icehouse was built the same way as the small shanties in the link (but without so many windows)…
[bow] Thanks for the suggestion-Imgur_ I will give it a try, anyway to post pictures would be great. Not all of us I guess can do what Dr. Wayne does, but sharing ones work is good for others, it is a way to get ideas. Thanks.
I guess I should bring up my own kitbashing plans I am starting on. I got a hold of a used Bachmann 2-8-0 from a small hobby shop up in the Seattle area during my Thanksgiving break up there. Similar to this one:
I want to strip off the domes, add a rear headlight and other prototype specific details to transform the Bachmann Baldwin looking model into my hometown ALCO Brooks 2-8-0:
I’ve never done a kitbash like this before, but I have a few friends who have so I will be pestering them for their guidance. [:P] In particular one of my friends (Facebook Tintic Range Railway) stripped down his Bachmann 2-8-0 and turned it into a RGW ALCO locomotive, and the success he has had with his project has inspired me to give it a shot myself (I have an image linked to a photo of his semi-finished engine below):
I agree with Ed, and the Bachmann Consolidation is a good choice for customising, as it’s a good runner and solidly-built, too. I have five of them in-service, modified only slightly…
…but I have another three that will be converted into specific CNR locomotives. All of the parts are on-hand, the work started, but not enough time currently available to work on them.
[:D] Track fiddler, I built those telephone poles and wired them up. They are posted on ‘Layouts and Layout buildings’, the other forum with an explaination as to how I built them.
If you are referring to the DPM townhouses, then…no, they’re appropriately sized. They’re 2.5 by 4.5 inches, so that makes them a bit more than 18’ by 32.5’. The very rowhouse I’m sitting in as we speak is almost identical: 16’ by 33’ (stretches out to 40’ if you include the addition on the rear). Even got three floors (although in DC they’re configured so the first floor is a one bedroom apartment and the upper two floors make up a two bedroom apartment).
If they’re not for you, they’re not for you. But they’re not “somewhat appropriate.” They’re dead-on accurate for what they’re supposed to be. Those rowhouses are all over the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic in exactly those sizes and configurations.
