Your preferred source or method for realistic brick building corners and other details

Not that I’m ready to try this, but I see how expensive the really interesting brick factory building kits are, and I keep thinking that I could probably design something that would suit and build it out of HO scale brick sheeting, but what about corners, cornices, and door and window arches. I don’t want the corners of my buildings to look like they’re being held together by glue (even though they will be).

This is not about weathering (yet), but more about the structure looking solid and “built”.

Which brick building products have you tried that worked well for you, and where did you get them? Or if you’re a scratcher, how do you handcraft those details that make a brick building look more real?

Ideas and even strong opinions welcomed gratefully.

Thanks,

-Matt

For me, one of the best, go-to “kitbashing” stock was the modular Design Preservation Models (often simply DPM Models) parts.

The corners were accomplished with moulded pilasters that looked quite good when properly filed and cleaned up. The brick modular sections had several varieties of window, door, loading dock openings of various heights.

Where did I get them? I seem to recall picking up my first few packages back in the late 1980s. Since then whenever I came across them at train shows, sometimes a whole shoebox-full for ten bucks, I snagged them for future use.

Perhaps you can still find some but if you scout the usual on-line sites you’ll probably wind up paying as much, if not more, than the brick factory kits you’re trying to build for less money. Sign of the times, sadly.

This brewery was built mostly of DPM modulars:

IMG_4629 by Edmund, on Flickr

and this expansive background building:

IMG_1346_fix_sm by Edmund, on Flickr

Good Luck, Ed

Walthers Modulars are scaled a bit smaller than the imposing DPM Modulars, and they too have been discontinued for quite a while. They were great for building structures like warehouses, but to complete a structure you needed to purchase several kits of different parts, walls, cornices, pilasters, etc. You can still find them on eBay often at reasonable prices. I used them to build 13 large freight houses for my Dearborn Station site.

Rich

The walthers pilaster sets are the most difficult to locate. when did DPM modulars stop? I still see the pieces everywhere along with the modular kits.

I use often the method created where concrete was used for pilsters and corners.

This is walthers modulars but the concrete pilaster is the sam. a strip of 250, up t0 500 wide by about 125 thick styrene strip.

The chuckwood building here uses the dpm and concrete pilaster idea. If you hadnty guessed, my pilaster supply is almost non existant.

You can also make a corner using styrene strips cut at two different lengths to create quions. Of course, cannt leave the 3d print option out now.

Somebody on ebay did a modual pieces for stone walls too. havent tried them though.

Shane

Shane: What is the big opening in the building for? I saved this image to my idea file. I think it will make a great tunnel entrance in Centerville.

-Kevin

Thanks guys. Your buildings look great, and Ed I appreciate the close-up photo of that building so I could see how the corners look. I often see DPM kits or bags of DPM components at swap meets, in fact there were some at the show I went to a few weeks ago in Kelso. I wish I’d known to grab them. But I think my chances are good of finding some of those. I’m patient.

Shane, I do know someone who is nuts about 3D printing and has flat-out offered to print anything I’d like to have, just send him photos and he’d design it in the software – I think it would be easy for him to print some brick detail strips if I showed him whatever sheets I was working with.

I had the same question. I assume it’s a tunnel entrance – I’ve seen similar at a local club – or a door for moving boxcars in out of the rain for loading something that doesn’t like to get wet.

-Matt

Most of these are DPM kits, simply placed (and not yet finished) on a relatively empty part of the partial upper level of my layout. There are a couple from other manufacturers that will likely be recognised as not DPM…

The white structure with the green trim, shown below, was my first DPM kit, but it was several years later before I got around to building it…

…I added the stairs and the back porch, and will, eventually, fence-in the backyard and finish the scenery details…

This one was my first DPM “bags of walls, doors, and windows”…

I still have quite a few packages of similar wall sections, and a fairly large area for a decent-size furniture factory, modelled from a real one.

Wayne

Rich, this seems to be true of DPM as well… their page of parts for sale is shown on the HO Seeker website and each little detail has its own product number. Thanks for these photos… I will keep my eye out for Walthers components as well.

Wayne, I was hoping you’d show up. I knew you had some brick factories on your pike. It’s a bit frustrating because I keep clicking on your photos to see a larger version but they open up at the same size. I’d really like to see the details in that last photo. Those big buildings have some very interesting curves and angles… did you do all that with DPM modules?

-Matt

Matt: Keep an eye out for the “Designer Bulk Packs” of modular walls from DPM.

-Photograph by Kevin Parson

These include enough to build a good size building, and fam,iliarize yourself with the line of parts.

-Kevin

itla. Has a brick modular system as well

shane

Kevin, Matt. The the two pics are tied toge5er actually by that porthole in the chuckwood building. It was originally figured to sit where the now E.F. Screw loose machine co now sits in the first pic straddling the tracks. That were supposed to be originally an urban branch. But morphed into a urban main. It was a single track and a siding there. The chuckwood sat over the tracks with the siding being for a loading dock covered when the building owners expanded over the tracks. For more space in the urban realm. It is a two track rail porthole. One for loading dock. The chuckwood now sits elsewhere and the tunnel is now a road with signs of the “used to be” tracks buried in the asphalt.

of note, this whole section is being saved and designed into the new layout.

shane

Along the lines of the thread, I am trying to figure out how to hide those joints in the pilasters that show up on camera. I was thinking copper round accent. Not sure. I blended the paint for the concrete so a match would be almost not doable. Even though I have the formula.
shane

I looked this up. Thanks for the tip, Shane. Those sure are nice components. I’m not as fond of the concrete pilaster style as I am of decrepit brick. I might use that system if I were making a giant facility of some kind, but my industries will perforce be shortish and narrow, and I think all brick looks better on the smaller structures.

@Kevin, I see some Walthers packs in your stash there. Those seem rare online, moreso even than the DPM. I may resort to brick sheets and homemade pilasters, cantons and cornices, and bulk-bought windows and doors. Also, I hope you and yours are okay… been hearing about a lot of hurt and damage down your way over the past day. God speed you.

@Wayne, I guess you didn’t see my question, but having done some research I can see that your big brick edifices indeed look like DPM modulars. Nice work, as always.

-Matt

Here’s an example of what you can expect in one of the Designer packs:

dpm_Modular by Edmund, on Flickr

MB Klein still has some kits in stock, FYI:

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/brands/Design-Preservation-Models/

Good Luck, Ed

This is an ITLA building using the brick pilasters and mudular pieces made into a low relief (1.5’) building.

Shane

Thanks for your comments, Matt.

The pictures will enlarge if you “left-click” on the image - it’s usually fairly quick to react, but occasionally, it might be a few seconds late.

The National Grocers buildings are mostly DPM, but the roofs and back (unseen) walls are .060" thick sheet styrene. I often use the same stuff as bracing, too. (I had removed a couple hundred pictures from photobucket a few months ago - if I can find them, I’ll re-post some of them in this thread).

Cheers,

Wayne

Well, the removed photos couldn’t be found, so I took some new ones.

Here’s the site of National Grocers, the structures, other than the walkways on the lower tracks, seem to be currently “out of town”…

Here’s the normally-unseen-backside of the lower part of National Grocers…

…and the end that’s not usually ever seen…

The shapes cemented to the upper portion of the wall are the supports which hold the walkways over the track to the portion of the structure that’s right against the backdrop.

…and here’s the structure, standing-on-end, that’s normally against the backdrop…

Wayne

Wayne, we disagree. Your photos DO open up in Imagr or Photobucket or whatever, but they are never larger than what appears in the post; never have been as long as I’ve been clicking on your photos (and I’ve clicked on a LOT of them). I often want to see your images in greater detail, but no matter; I get the gist of construction from your most recent photos. Thanks, very useful indeed.

Shane, that’s more my speed. Thank you. I’ll look again at ITLA’s offerings.

Thanks Ed, I’ll have a look.

-Matt