Was curious about how many folks here have done this. Am starting HO narrow shelf switching layout. Three of first five trackside industries I’m using, will need this done or they won’t fit my 18 to 24"-depth areas. Have seen some Great background buildings on really Impressive layouts! Luckily have a few good HO masonery structure kits, which should lend themselves nicely to my upcoming project. TTFN…Old Tom aka papasmurf in NH
I suspect you will get a better response if you repost your message to a Model Railroader forum
Welcome to the forums.
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Is your question, has anybody cut down an already shallow building? Though I haven’t, I have seen some that protruded from the back drop less than 1", so it can be done. Can’t remember any that looked like just a front attached to the backdrop, usually have a little depth. Some of them are donel in front of a photo of other such buildings on a backdrop. Another thing I have seen done is to put the building at a slight angle. for some reason it seems to make it stand out a little more. In all cases I don’t know whether they started with a full depth or shallow building. Could have been modular parts too.
Where are you in NH?
Good luck,
Richard
I am starting to experment with forced perspective on an HO shelf layout. I picked up 3 N scale buildings at an auction. I simply cut them in two with a saw and ended up with six fine background buildings. I will do more as the scene develops. I also went the other direction and took a three sided background model, added a back side and got a great between the tracks building. All was easy. Let your imagination go wild. As Bob Ross says, there are no mistakes, just happy accidents. Good luck.
Hi papasmurf:
I will have (when I finally build my layout) about 20 feet of background buildings, most of which are already in various stages of completion. They average about 2" deep. I have made most of them from regular structure kits. Lots of kits like the Walthers Merchants Row series will yield double their original width because you can often incorporate both the front section and the back section into the scenes. I also rebuilt the City Classics Smallman Street Warehouse so it is only half of its original depth and used the leftover parts to make it taller. I plan to use other City Classics kits as well by reducing their depth but also adding additional kits to increase their heights. I have also built Walthers Modulars and other kits to fit into coved corners. Anything is possible. My one suggestion, as someone has already suggested, is not to make them too shallow.
Dave
I “unwrapped” a Walthers American Hardware Supply for a background building, and am planning something similar for an Atlas Middlesex Manufacturing Company. The Walthers gave me over 3 feet of a 1.5" deep background warehouse, and I’m thinking about 2 and a half feet for the Atlas. Really easy to do, though you need to put a roof and a few other details on the stretched-out structure, but they work well. (Hint: Paint the pieces before assembling them.)
I just got this background building from Walthers:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-3173
Since I like boxcars, I’ve been searching for structure kits that would be appropriate to be serviced by them. Time period will be the late 60s-early 70s. I will letter this building to be either a freight distribution center or a wholesale furniture business. I haven’t decided yet.
This is designed as a background building. It’s Walthers “Arrowhead Ale.” I made my own decals for the Strumpet Brewery.
It’s not actually a background building as installed, because this section of the layout is now a peninsula, and the back of the building is visible from the aisle. So, I used my computer to print wall and floor graphics, and added some interior structure with scraps.
DPM Modular sections are nice for background buildings, too. This one is a combination of DPM sections and some Walthers brick sheet styrene.
Sorry for the poor picture. That edge of my layout butts up against a 45-degree roofline, so I have built a few structures with triangular sides that fit in under the overhanging wall and disguise it.
This is another DPM modular creation, and another poor picture. Here, I angled the building to make it more visually interesting.
A nice thing is you really don’t need to kitbash, Walthers has a number of “background building” kits that are low-relief buildings designed to go along the backdrop. I have six of them currently in use on my layout. They often come with extra parts so you can make the building in different ways; in fact the Red Wing Milling kit includes both the front and back walls so I ended up fabricating some narrow sidewalls from styrene and making two backdrop buildings from the one kit.
You can check them out on the Walthers website.
If the structures are positioned right next to the backdrop, the appearance of that backdrop becomes more important. There have been recent articles in the model railroad magazines about (a) the effectiveness of just a small 1" or so gap between the scenery and the backdrop to soften the “edge” and (b) how to utilize photographs of downtown areas or streets disappearing in the distance to fill in the backdrop where the “street” intersects the backdrop.
I have a very small downtown area where Cornerstone and DPM kits were shortened to fit such a space. I found it effective to use a piece of left-over brick wall from an industrial building against the backdrop at the end of a small alley between the buildings. I have an assortment of trash and trash cans in the alley, and that brick back takes away the image that the world somehow ends right at the end of the alley.
I am thinking about places where I might be able to find older warehouse-style brick buildings without a lot of modern cars parked on the street for some photos that could be altered to add depth to where a street intersects.
Bill
I’m actually in the middle of scratch building a storage/warehouse background structure that will be served by rail (boxcars and maybe reefers). It will consist of a “building” which is 3/8 inch thick foam board (you can get at Michaels) with 6 loading doors and a loading dock running the length of the building, which is 2’ long (174 feet in HO). The shallowness of this structure relies on the use of dock details as well as scenic features (trees, background scene, etc.) to disguise it. The building will be a concrete, rather than a brick or masonry structure. I will attach pilasters (styrene strip) at regular intervals to represent individual panels in the concrete. There will be an awning over the dock; V-channel roofing (Evergren sheet styrene). The building part will not have much of a visible roof so not much in the way of detail will be possible here. I’ll have to think of something for that.
Walthers used to have a ton of background buildings…
But they are quickly killing off the line. For example, you can no longer find reliable storage warehouse. (seen below) You can still find many available on eBay
In my Greenvale Junction town scene I have used both background building kits, have kitbashed others and designed buildings with a program called Model Maker. In this overall photo, the Country Kitchen bakery (the yellow building) is a Walthers Centennial Mills Background Building Kit 933-3160. I found the kit had both a front and back wall, so I used both to expand the width of the building. The gray building is a Walthers Heritage Furniture 933-3164 that I built as designed. (both if these are currently out of stock).
On the right in the above photo is a Walthers Merchant’s Row I 933-3028 that I split into a front and back sections abour 1/2" and 2" thick, respectively. This is an in-progress photo. IN the end, I did not use the building front section as it did not fit scene well. I used buildings I designed using Model Maker, printed on photo paper, and glued to the backdrop.
This is the Evan Designs / Model Maker website http://www.modeltrainsoftware.com/ The product I used is Model Builder under the Modeling Software section.
I used a couple of the full-size Walthers warehouse kits to make this background structure - the walls were used only on the visible side, with .060" sheet styrene making up the unseen portions.
The depth of the visible end wall was shortened somewhat
And the whole building was tapered to accommodate the nearby mainline trackage, which is not parallel to either the backdrop or the layout fascia:
Here’s an over-all view of the area. While it’s a fairly generous 3’ deep, space is still at a premium:
This icehouse provides a good backdrop for the nearby engine facilities:
…but a view from the air shows it to be somewhat less than it appears. (Layout depth here is only 30"):
Here are a few scenes at GERN Industries, the largest single customer on the line:
Hi everyone!
WOW! Lots of great ideas here. Well done all.
Dave