I am looking for a way to add unusual buildings to my layout. Has anyone here ever mad any skyscrappers for their layout? Looking for any srcatch built or modular built structures. Sharing photos or images would be greatly appreciated.
You might want to ask this guy. Great layout he has. http://prrnortheastcorridor.com/NORTHEASTCORRIDORHO.html
Yoda?
Seriously, there are ads in MRR for HO skyscraper manufacturers.
Hi from Belgium
Scratchbuilding skyscrappers is a tedious job anyway because you need to cut so many holes for all these windows. For a decent looking skyscrapper you need a lot of windows casting which could be expensive.
You could kitbuild one by using some smallest building and attached them togheter or use them as “master” to mold them but it’s quite expensive too.
All it all scratchbuilding these towers is a great job, quite expensive and very time consuming. ( Don’t ask me how I know it!).
Looking at the invest of time and a decent result, which is not always as good as expected take a look at the ready to build skyscrappers.
They are some adds in MR like “Studio Lunde” DPM for smallest one, and the giant by www.custommodelrailroads.com Take also a look at Ebay for some Bachmann skyscrapper; they have proposed a few in the past.
Good luck.
Marc
I have visited with family Enter-Trainment Junction which is a public attraction north of Cincinnati. It has massive skysrapers included on its G scale layout. I took this photo. These are huge models.
I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the manufacturer, old age you know, but many years ago I wanted some “skyscrapers” for the Oklahoma City portion of my Santa Fe.
Now Oki City doesn’t have massive ones, but these kits, which are 15 -20 stories, fit the bill. Same company made some kits for other buildings like a tenament and apartment building, but I can’t find anything in my files to tell me what the company name was. I would guess they are no longer made, but you might find them on that auction site or somewhere else. If anyone remembers the kits and can supply a name, this gentleman might appreciate having it.
Bob
Sometime in the past couple of years MR had an article on building a large modern skyscraper. The author used rectangular sheets of tinted plexiglass glued together to form a tall box. This was over laid horizontally and vertically with, I believe, charting tape to create the appearance of the many individual windows. The overall impression was highly believable. Check around on MR’s magazine index using various combinations of appropriate words and see it you can come up with the title and issue in which it appeared.
CNJ831
The technique was covered in
Building City Scenery for Your Model Railroad by John Pryke available from Kalmbach.
Do you mean Bachmann Cityscenes? Ambassador Hotel, Trade Tower, etc.
http://www.jwdpremiumproducts.com/servlet/Categories?category=Accessories%3AStructures
Try these. Not cheap, but then there’s a lot of model in a skyscraper
http://www.railserve.com/Models/Manufacturers/Structure_Kits/
I was searching myself on skyscrapers there were some articles on how to make them but some of my back issues are missing.
We need a structure making book for stuff like this.
Yep, those are the ones. In fact, after I answered went down through my shelves of unbuilt structures and found one of them still in the box.
Bob
I have a few posts on my web page about this topic. There are two methods that I use- one follows the Plexiglas method first noted by Mike Palmiter in MR Mag, and the other one is one that I came up with. Either method permits you to create a structure as large as you can tolerate.
On this post, the building on the right is a Plexi and foam core shell. In the first picture- the second building on the right is a little less than HO scale since I am using it toward the back of the layout. All of my highrise buildings are a little shy of 1:87th scale, and you’d never know the difference.
http://rail.habersack.com/?p=147
This post uses a photo of a Baltimore building (I live close) that I straightened out in PhotoShop and printed. The prints were glued to a shell of foam core. One of the shots shows a construction picture. I’ve tried to use the Elmer’s 1/2 foam core when I can get it:
http://rail.habersack.com/?m=200908
This shot was over the summer when I started. The one building on the right is a photograph over foam core and the other one is Plexiglas. They both hold up well in photographs:
http://rail.habersack.com/?m=200907
Here is a little wider shot of the overall effect. This area of my layout is still under construction, so you may see my bag of Highball cinders…:
This variant of my layout has been up for about 15 months, and all of the taller structures I built since June 2009 after the bug bit. My goal is “good enough” and by no means am I a rivet counter!
Mike Habersack
[quote user=“Doc in CT”]
The technique was covered in
Building City Scenery fo
Pastor Bob;
A hearty"Okily Dokily"from south of the Red River!!Well,while these might not qualify as"Skyscrapers"per se,here’s a few manufacturers that might come in handy depending upon your era.
DPM:has the MT Arms Hotel in both HO and N as well as both Victorian Style and 20th Century Style Modular Storefront Buildings in HO.
SS Ltd.has some New York Brownstone Style Townhouses/Apartments that’d be handy for a Northeastern Style Citya Municipal Building;Miner’s Union Hall*(*Great for an"Old Town"section or a Fraternal Order-IOOF;AFAM;KofC;etal-Building in a Small Town/Medium Size City) and an Art Deco Style Theater.
Smalltown USA has a five story building called Vicky’s Fashions
Vollmer has a modern Parking Garage.Although Continental European in style,a slight repaint job and American Style Decals and autos and no one’ll notice the difference.
Downtown Deco has some 'Wrongside of the Tracks’style buildings as well as some Industrial Buildings.
City Classics has some five story buildings that would do pretty good depending upon your era:
(A)Baum Blvd.Art Deco Building(B)East Ohio Street Bldg.(C)Peen Avenue Tile Front Building(D)Grant Street Iron Front Building.
The Baum Blvd.Art Deco Building could fit into nearly any era from the 30’s to today.
Faller has some German style four story commercial buildings that could work if you do some modifications to the roofs.Specifically the Bellaria Cinema.Trim the points off the roof and add an American Movie Title to the Marquee and it could be passable.
Finally,Model Tech Studios has some background style skyscrapers.
Hope that helps.
Aztec Eagle.
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thanks for the reply, but you answered the wrong guy. As I posted, I have built mine some time ago from the kits I couldn’t identify. Someone else did the ID’ing as being from Bachmann.
My Oklahoma City area is and has been finished for several years.
Bob
Check out Rod Stewart’s (yes, the singer) layout in the December 2007 issue. The article said that some of his buildings were 5’ tall!
That was some of the most impressive urban scenery I have seen. It was like the Franklin and South Manchester on steroids. Rod combined several of the now defunct Bachmann kits to create the really tall ones. I bought three of the kits when they were available even though they are still in the boxes, waiting for me to start my urban scene. I’m glad I had the foresight to buy those before I needed them. I’m a little surprised that those kits didn’t find enough of a market to be continued but I guess there aren’t that many modelers with the space for a large urban scene.