I will ask at My LHS if they have styrene parts tomorrow maybe but in the meantime I was curious about it, and the various pieces like windows, etc. that are out there.
I was curious how does one go About scratchbuilding buildings, and what would one use.
I was planning on building this station it’s a former NP station currently used by amtrak and the shortline railroad Puget sound and pacific this is the reason for my curiosity. I’ve been watching videos made by a gentleman who scratchbuilds his own stuff. also to convert the building to N scale would I divide by 160 to get scale ft?( n scale)
Styrene sheet and plastic windows, doors, etc make it easy to build all kinds of buildings. N scale is a bit more of a challenge. I use Grandt Line windows and doors in HO, but believe they also do some in N scale.
That said, I’d try something a little less complex than the station you have pictured as a first try. Being brick, it will require a little more care in cutting and fitting doors and windows to look tidy. The tile roofing may be available from Plastruct or another supplier, but will also be a little more complex to fit than a oplain old shingle roof.
Even though the variety of kits available today reduce the need for scratch building, I still see the desire to scratch build a structure as strong, at least among a segment of the model railroading hobby.
And, although I have yet to scratch build anything, I have to believe that practice makes perfect.
I am currently contemplating scratch building a lift bridge and if I ever get to build my Dream Layout, it will require the scratch building of several trackside structures for which no kits are available.
It just seems to me that scratch building is a natural evolution of talents as a model railroader.
Even Motley has already tried his hand at scratch building his background round house.
I just built a Walther’s station that looks almost exactly like the one you want. I would scratch build things not available in kits and start with something a little less detailed than a large station.
I have to agree that building that station as your first project would be a mistake. Try something simpler and smaller. You’ll learn as you go, so if you screw-up, it won’t be such a financial hit. I’m not sure what’s available in windows and doors in N scale, but check both Tichy and Grandt Line. Even if they don’t have N scale stuff, many windows will work for scales other than the one for which they’re intended, and most doors are fairly easy to scratchbuild.
Once you have a couple of small projects under your belt, you can move on to something more ambitious. Evergreen offers a good range of strip and sheet material, including structural shapes and sheet siding in various styles. Walthers, and perhaps others, offer brick-patterned styrene sheets, and various types of roofing are available. I use lacquer thinner as a solvent cement for styrene, applying it with a brush sized to the particular job.
Initially, you’ll probably have a large outlay for materials, as most is pre-packaged in multiples, often more than you’ll need for a single structure, but eventually you’ll accumulate enough to complete many projects as-yet unthought of. If you have an interest in building large structures, it’s often more economical to buy plain sheet styrene in 4’x8’ sheets - look in the yellow pages under “Plastic Suppliers”. While I model in HO, I’ve gone through several such sheets, mostly .060" thick.
To illustrate, here’s part of my shop. The homemade case for the Evergreen strip material contains probably $300.00 or $400.00 worth of material, with multiple packages in each plastic sleeve in most of the dimensions offered. Sheet material is stored elsewhere, as are windows, doors, and detail parts. Assembly of larger structures is done elsewhere.
Scratch building is enjoyable. Styrene is an excellent modeling material, cuts easily, quite strong, glues well, takes paint well, and lots of detail part castings (doors, windows, chimneys, etc) available. I have to agree with a previous poster, that station is pretty ambitious for a first project, getting those roof dormers right is going to be hard. I’d suggest a simpler structure for a first try.
I always work from plans. Used to be the hobby press was full of plans. Now a days I have to draw my own plans from photographs. The compleat modeler will take a long steel tape, a camera, a brightly painted stick of known length and a notebook. Take photos of all four sides, with the camera looking right straight at the structure. Place the stick in the photo to give something to scale off of. Measure everything you can reach, length and width, size of windows and doors, height of eaves. Draw your plans full sized on squared paper.
interesting, ok I’ll try something. I haven’t scratch built anything yet because I started in april of last year, nt going to lie but I’m slightly intimidated now. [:(] not yet sweating bullets but slightly intimidated.
If you’re familiar with Sketchup, it has an Unfold plugin that can help make a template for complex roof shapes. Make a 3D model based on plans and unfold it.
If I can throw my two cents in here I agree with everyone that start with something simple. There have been a number of articles in MR about scratch-building and they include plans of simple structures to get the feel of it. I have 19 industries on my railroad and 16 of them are scratch built. Some are better than others but I learned better methods as i went along. I’ll probably go back someday and pull the bad ones out and rebuild them.
I think between operations and scratch building I like building more.
A simple scratchbuilding project mostly in styrene- my late mother-in-law’s 3-room house in Hutchinson, Kansas. Part cut from a photo-etched fire escape provided the metal grillwork for the front porch.
I’d say go for it; it’s not like it would be the end of the world if you messed up. I scratchbuilt all the structures on my modules; starting with the biggest one. This was my first attempt at scratchbuilding a major structure (have done several ‘junk box’ scratchbuilds and loads/details). The building is pretty simple, basically two boxes, with no complicated angled walls/roofs; its about 38" long, 8" deep and maybe 10" tall. (I haven’t looked at my Shutterfly account, but there are some pics of my FreeMo modules, possibly some of the buildings, in progress) It’s not a link, but copy/paste my signature into your address bar.
I probably should have started with a smaller building; and made (and stuck to) an accurate plan. The major dimensions all look ok, but as they say, the devil is in the details. It’s not hard, but there are things I’ve learned…at least the remaining smaller buildings should go pretty ok. lol
I made plenty of sketches but decided to ‘wing it’ because of the deceptively simple lines of the industrial buildings. It worked out, but it was a bit more work than if I had made a detailed (dimensioned) plan. I am a CAD user by profession but thought I’d save time and jump right in. During construction, when I found an issue, I had to stop and do some research and make a decision (which could have been avoided if I had a better plan). People say the building turned out pretty good, but I can see every mistake I made.
One trip to the hobby shop, I spent almost $100 in Evergreen strip and sheets. I’ve since been back several times (but didn’t spend as much) to replenish my supplies. It is intimidating when you cut into your only 12"x24" sheet of .040 styrene, but rewarding when I look at the large industry for my HiCubes.
Go for it! Have fun, you will learn a useful skill that will serve you well forever. Oh, as
all right, I’ll check it out when I go to my LHS tomorrow. I also will be bringing my vomit bonnet along because I told the fellow who was in there the other day I’d bring it once it arrived.
One thing which I forgot to mention in my previous post is that your first purchase, if you’re planning on doing any scratchbuilding, should be a scale ruler. It will have N scale “feet” marked on it, making it very easy to transfer dimensions from prototype drawings to your building materials. If the plans from which you’re working are drawn in another scale but without prototype dimensions, there are scale rules available which cover all the usual scales: simply measure the drawing using the appropriate scale, then use the same dimension on the N scale section to mark the material for cutting.
I almost never work from drawings, although I might make a sketch to figure out a roof angle or something similar.
I am modelling the late 1950’s in Southern California so the typical brick building kit won’t work (brick construction is easily damaged in an earthquake so was not used much in SoCal). Since most of the buildings in the areas I’m modeling have been replaced, or at least heavily modernized since the 1950’s, I’m not trying to model exact copies of these structures. I start by determining how much space I have on the layout and sketch out a quick building footprint. Comparing the available footprint to one of the building photos/Google Map Street Views helps me decide which building to model for that spot.
I use an architectural CAD program to draw a floor plan including all door and window locations. I then work up elevations based on the floor plan and my building photos. The final step is to draw up the roof structure. Once I have the drawings complete, I print them on cardstock, cut them out, then glue/tape everything together into a 3D mock-up. I place the mock-up in its intended position on the layout and then examine whether the scale version of the structure appears to have the “right” proportions. Horizontally compressed structures often look too tall. Roof heights and angles can be adjusted to correct these proportional imperfections. If my proportional corrections are significant, I will adjust my drawings and print out another mock-up. Once, I’m happy with the mock-up, I then construct the building using styrene. Although I prefer to use commercial door and window castings, I have had to scratch build several storefront style window systems.
The greatest advantage to my “mock-up first” approach is that I can quickly mock up an entire City block before I do any work in styrene. It is far easier and cheaper to alter/modify my cardstock mock-ups to achieve the desired look. I then replace each mock-up with a final styrene s
As other have already stated don’t be intimidated and start small and get some experience first before you tackle that dream station.
I might suggest a intermediate step. Have you thought about kitbashing? This can involve some if not most of the skills you will need for scratch building. Another question to ask, how are your present kit building skills? Make sure you are pretty comfortable and cracker jack at kit building before moving on.
