I am interested in scratch building structures. Who are the major suppliers of building materials? I would like to get their catalogs. Besides the Kalmbach book are there other good books? Any blueprints? I want to start with blueprints or plans and then free lance. Thanks.
There are a lot of different suppliers depending on what materials you intend to use and most have online catalogs. Not sure about books available, but I’ve found a lot of great instruction, inspiration and ideas in Model Railroader Mag. and on this forum over the years. The magazine used to have a monthly feature with scale drawings of various structures.
regards, Peter
Yeah, I miss having more scale plans in MR myself.
Kalmbach (and Carstens) have published a number of books of scale plans and how-to guides over the years. An easy way to find these is via abebooks.org or another online used book finder. Here are three classics:
Bridges and Buildings for Model Railroads, Willard V. Anderson, ed., Kalmbach
Easy to Build Model Railroad Structures, Willard V. Anderson, ed., Kalmbach
Structures of the Early West, by Joe Crea and Elwood Bell, MEGA Publications
Plans will get you started. I also suggest moving on quickly to freelance. Build what you want or need to build. The best way to work for me is from pictures. A plan is a good supplement, but the pics are vital, especially in color if possible. Getting good at estimating overall measurements from door and window size is a good skill. There have been several articles on doing that and developing plans from them in the press over the years that can help with that.
EDIT: Another good place to get inspiration, plans and lots of leads to suppliers of scratchbuilding supplies is the Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette. We narrowgaugers tend to do more scratchbuilding as a % of our numbers simply because we have to to get the stuff we need. Clover House is one supplier I’ve used. Mt. Albert Scale Lumber has a good rep. Northeastern Scale has lots of lumber. Evergreen is good for plastics. Plastruct will get you all kinds of exotic stuff, much of it used by architects and engineers to build models.
Grandt Line and Tichy Train Group make door and window details.
Evergreen and Plastruct make plastic sheets and shapes.
Northeast Scale Lumber makes wood products.
Walthers has brick sheets.
It’s only “sort of” scratch building, but DPM Modulars allow you to mix-and-match components to make brick buildings.
Don’t forget chain craft stores like Michaels and A.C. Moore. They carry balsa and bass wood, all sorts of paints and brushes, and a big selection of glue.
Most of the major suppliers for materials have been mentioned above. The same for the publications. But I would like to add MicroMark to the list for all kinds of scratch builder tools and paints as well as some supplies like texture paper, milled basswood etc.
Enjoy! I find scratch building to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hobby. And don’t be discouraged if your first attempts are a little rough. With patience and practice, you will improve!
Good Luck!!!
There is usually at least one “blue print” in MRR and instructions along with a materials list.
I haven’t bought one lately, but the Walther’s catalog used to have a scratch building section. Also their web site search function has a scratch building category.
Over the years MR has done many scratch building articles. You might want to search out some back issues or buy the MR DVD that covers the first 75 years.
Good luck
Paul
The Walther’s catalog is the best source. It has all the scratch building material suppliers along with detailing parts like windows, doors, trimmings etc.
Moses45,
A lot of good advice and suggestions, has already been given, so I will just add: a General #1251,Model Railroad Reference Rule and how to get a free catalog and news letter:
http://www.micromark.com/emailrequest.aspx
Excellent resource, for tools and such.
Cheers, [D]
Frank
As for blueprints, the back issues of MR is the best resource. You can buy the DVD of the first 75 years of MR. It has a searchable database. I have built at least 10 structures from plans from MR. The drawing details are excellent, and most of the designs will give you a bill of materials.
Scratch building is a fun part of the hobby. All good advice so far. I’ll second the Gazette as a source of plans. Another good source for plans are the CDs produced by Jack Burgess for sale on his site. While the drawings are for YV prototypes, they can easily be adapted to most other roads.
http://www.yosemitevalleyrr.com/yosmtmdl.htm
I would also suggest buying an NWSL chopper as a handy tool.
Guy
I pretty sure Walthers flyer has a section where they sell scratch building supplies, you can just go to their website. You could get plans off of an article and then search the parts on Walthers flyer and buy them, they usual have a sale on things so of you can wait they might have christmas sales.
Hello,
Excellent suggestions by all. If I might add another. If you are into N scale, or can do a little math, Railwire recently had a lot of simple construction plans that would be a good way to break into scratch building. Back when there was a nearby hobby shop I used Evergreen and Plastruct. Good stuff for making details to existing kits too. I’d try a couple of these simple ones before getting into the ones in the back issues of Model Railroader. But that’s my 2 cents.
Happy building,
Bob
Thanks to one and all. Plenty of info to get started.
If you do not have a Plastruct catalog I urge you to get one. They have a lot of interesting and useful products that are not likely to be on the shelves of even a well stocked hobby shop. It is money well spent. So is investing in Dean Freytag’s Cyclopedia of Industrial Modeling, which is a sort of “applied” Plastruct catalog.
Even if you use Evergreen styrene, the Plastruct catalog is very useful to have. You should also investigate what is available in scale lumber particularly siding and what sizes and spacings of siding are right for your scale, as well as what various angle shapes you need (T, U, C, H, I shapes) in wood or styrene.
Both Tichy and Grandt Line have very full lines of plastic window and door parts - so many in fact that your head spins wondering which ones to order or to buy. If you are serious about future scratchbuilding of structures, then Tichy offers boxes that contain, in essence, one of everything they offer in windows and doors – not to be used in the model, but as a perpetual resource to know what to order to use in a model. Best of all, sometimes MicroMark has them on special sale.
By all means jump right into scratchbuilding, but I would say some kitbashing experience is helpful in getting a feel for how a model structure comes together from parts, with the added feature that with kitbashing you take more responsibility for the overall project so you do not have the comfort of knowing that everything has been done for you.
My first scratchbuilt structure was made easier by learning how to think “if there WAS a kit for the building I want, what would it look like?” and then setting out to build those parts: sides, ends, roof. Where would the edges meet, and are they to be beveled to meet as kit edges meet, or does an L shaped piece of styrene cover the butted edge as with many frame houses? That in turn controls how you measure lengths of si
Mt. Albert for scale wood and sideings.
Here’s some generic advice from an avid scratchbulider: 1) Download the PDF versions of Evergreen, Plastruct, and Tichy catalogs- Tichy supplies lots of window and door sets, as well as multi-part “grab bags”. Some of those HO windows and doors- if complex in appearance- are very difficult to reproduce from styrene alone in a quality manner- easier to get a molded window or door! 2) Cruise E-Bay before buying styrene flat sheet goods from a local source- I recently picked up 3 sheets of HO brick sheet for about $12.00 (incl. shipping) where one single sheet would have cost about $10.98 by itself at a local “national chain” hobby store. I would do that regularly before beginning a project, so you can more efficiently spend your hobby dollars. 3. The same advice (#2) goes for specialty fittings, such as rooftop AC and venting parts- accurate scale repros of such things may be found on E-Bay as well- basic stuff may be devised by hand, but scale parts already exist for this stuff as well. 4. Invest in Zona hand saws- they are sturdy, have a fine “tooth-per-inch” ratio and will work far better than an flexible xacto saw blade (the one you screw into a holder). You can use them as pull saws or as push-pulls- their rigid back frame will help keep your cut work straight. 5. A flat piece of thin sheet steel (or an uncoated steel cooking pan) and a set of those metal support magnets (Micro-Mark) will help with both wood and styrene glue ups where you need to keep parts togther for a while. 6. A green cutting mat, a 1/4" small piece of tempered glass (such as a glass kitchen cutting board) will help with working surfaces that are durable and easily moveable (you can work at the kitchen table with these, if necessary. Cedarwoodron
Moses, I’m not trying to encourage you to be a builder of railroad structures, like all of the people that are here in this forum. I WILL try to bring you down to reality. This is just my own opinion, and you can take it or leave it. I’ve been scratch building railroad structures now, for over 30 years. Most of the advice you’re getting here is positive and that’s fine, if you’re just planning to make structures for yourself. If you’re planning to build structures and make a lot of money selling them, that’s a different story. For some reason that I learned quite a few years ago, you either have the talent to make railroad structures, or you don’t (as far as building structures, and selling them to make money goes). If you check out the train section on Ebay, you’ll see that there are very few people selling train structures. If you do find some, usually they look pretty amateurish and usually, no one buys them. Presently, there are just a handful of builders out there who are making money at it, such as Bar Mills, but they’re the cream of the crop! So Moses, you’ll be able to build structures alright, but you’ll soon find out if you have the natural talent and ability to make and sell them, big time (if that’s what you’re planning to do)! -artguy
Moses,
I haven’t seen anything to tell me what kinds of structures you have in mind. There can be a lot of different choices depending on your era, locale, specific railroad prototype, preferred industries, etc. I can think of a few very specialized sources of plans, and have even drawn up some plans of my own based on prototype structures, but these might be totally wrong for you. Can you be more specific about the geographical area you have in mind, era, etc.?
Tom
MILLIONS of plans are available to you free, now that the government sequester is over.
They are at Library of Congress online.
then click “American Memory”
Then select Architecture/Landscape… opens 9 collections.
Then select “Built in America: Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey, 1933-Present”
1933 refers to when they started measuring, drawing scale drawings and photographing buildings and works of engineering. The collection includes building BUILT before that date, maybe centuries before, and data collected SINCE that date.
Once in collection, enter a search.
I tried “coke oven” and got 109 items. The ones labelled “Built in America” usually include scale drawings, multiple photographs from different angles and explanatory text for each identified building or complex.
Happy scratchbuilding.