Beginner

[JimF]

My wife, bless her heart, asked if I would build the structure shown in the picture. I want to do it in wood.

I've never scratchbuilt a structure before. I can guess at the dimensions, but really stumped at how to begin. Anyone know of a book or other source of info, to help me get started?

I have "Scratchbuilding For Model Railroaders" by Bob Walker. Huge amount of excellent info, but no where is there a section of the "lets get started" sort (The station model on the cover is almost a dead ringer for the other structure she asked if I could build).

I looked at build threads on here, there were a couple that may have shown steps, but the pictures are no longer available, and most of the rest just show finished projects.

Any hints, tips or 'how to' info anyone can share?

Thanks.

Jim

[deemery]

I'd start by doing drawings, or at least sketches, of the building.  Make sure you know the wall outlines, the location of doors and windows, etc.  If you're using castings, measure the inside of the casting (the size of the hole) and add the holes to your drawing.  That way you can measure the locations for the holes, etc.  Also collect the materials (wood, styrene, etc) for the walls and roof. 

Start by cutting out the walls (don't forget to account for the thickness of the wall material when measuring.)  Mark the location of the windows and doors, and carefully cut them out.  (If you're using wood for the walls, add masking tape to the back of the walls to reinforce them while you are cutting the window opening.)  Then add bracing, don't forget to allow for how the walls will go together (I've made that mistake a couple of times.)  Glue the walls together, then measure and cut the subroof pieces (cardboard, styrene, wood).

It's a bit hard to see here, but the front wall overlaps the two side walls.  Then the stone sheet on the sidewalls overlaps the front walls.  The subwalls are .040 styrene.  The other picture shows my drawing as a mock-up of the structure.

Does this help?

dave

[jerryrbeach]

Jim,


I moved this here from my scratch building thread.  This is not necessary but it does make keeping everything square a heck of a lot easier. 


[font=]I cannot claim this is an original idea though I don't remember where I came across it.  I used spray adhesive to fasten a small cutting mat (6"x8") to a piece of leftover flooring.  This allows me to align the edge of sheet material with the edge of the elevated cutting mat.  This makes it easy to use a machinist square to make perfectly square cuts in wood sheet material.  [/font]


It probably goes without saying, but make sure your walls are exactly the same length and height as well as square.  Nothing is more frustrating than realizing your structure walls do not fit together because one wall is slightly too long, or slightly out of square. 


I use 2" wide masking tape on the back as Dave suggested.  I remove the tape prior to adding the bracing.  When removing the tape from places with a thin cross section I use a metal rule next to were I am removing the tape to keep the wall from breaking.  I remove the tape because I have seen it dry out over long periods of time. 

[sdrees]

For my two cents here, I would do scale drawings of all the walls of the building you plan to build, a floor plan and a roof plan to gather all the dimensions you think you might need for the project.  Then you have them and don't have to figure them out during the project.  You can get and idea of what the dimensions should be from the photograph by measuring know dimensions or approximated dimensions.  You sort of know how tall the people are in the photo, how high doors and windows area and how wide etc.  Keep in mind what distortion there is in the pictures if they are taken at an angle to the building. 

Check the measurements of the window and door castings you are going to buy from maybe Tichy, or Grandt Line which is now San Juan something.

You can use the plans you draw for patterns for cutting out the walls if you are using bass wood sheets or styrene or if you are doing board on board construction you can lay your work out on the drawing. They will help you figure out how to fit the corners of the building together

Keep in mind the techniques that you used and learned and the details when you built your model kits.

I think that it is important to have drawings of your project befor you start

[Rollin]

That picture has a wealth of detail in it, and you can get it into shape to help you with your drawings. For example, my picture imaging software has a command called Keystone correction or Unscew which will square up the sides of a building.
Here's the result for the front of the building:



The side comes out too narrow, but you can easily stretch it out until the windows look right.



I think the next step might be to use your drawings and make a dummy mockup of the building in cardboard. Keep adjusting things until it "looks right" before beginning construction.

[carl b]

Hello Jim,

You have received accurate information here. May I suggest you peruse my current scratchbuild:

http://modelersforum.com/index.php?topic=4872.0

I explain and show the steps necessary to build it from the ground up.  Any questions...just ask! Glad to help you...

[JimF]

To all,

Thanks so much, lots of good info, and did make me realize I was over thinking it too much.

I'll sketch it out 1st, to get a idea of proportion, then draw it out on card, cut that out for a mock up, to get a better idea.

To make it a bit easier, I'll keep wall lengths to even feet, space the windows accordingly.

Not sure what I'll do about the store front, since it's hard to tell if it is straight across or has a inset doorway. I like the idea of the inset style, maybe the one that was done by Grandt Line would work. I'll start searching out the one.

Thanks again, all.

Jim

[Mark Dalrymple]

Hi Jim.

A lot of modelers use 6"x6"'s to represent the corner trim of the walls.  It works pretty well and looks pretty good.  If doing this glue it to the gable end walls and trim to the rake when the glue has set.  Also remember to allow for its thickness when cutting your walls to length.

I don't know how you will go tracking down Grandt line products at the present.  Tichy Train Group might have something very similar.

Cheers, Mark.

[deemery]

San Juan says they have most, if not all of the old Grandt Line products in production.  Plus there's a lot of stock at hobby shops.  Tichy has a list of those castings that mirror the old Grandt Line items, there's not full coverage by Tichy.


dave

[Oldguy]

Maybe Campbell Scale Models would sell you some of their corner pieces?  I know they sell a lot of other parts, but the corners are not listed.

[bparrish]

Jim...

This is turning out to be a great conversation.

First to set scale...  coupla ways.  The door on the balcony looks to be about 30 inches wide by comparison to the lady standing there; about half her height.     Or, most structures at that time had ten to twelve ceilings as they knew that heat rises and to get it up above the height of the people..  Consider, the lady under the KABO sign is a bit closer to the camera than the absolute corner of the building but if she is five and a half feet, that distance to the second floor would be about twelve feet.

There is a LOT of distortion and compression in the window sizes on the side of the building but my guess is that they are all of the same dimension.  Tichy has those windows and on their page they give the rough opening that will be in your scribed siding to receive them.   The screen door on the second floor front will be a bit tougher but perhaps they or Grandt Line (under new ownership) would have a frame only that could be used.

Below the balcony will be much tougher but perhaps you could put the photo into something like Photoshop and push the contrast and brightness around and find some clarity.

Regarding materials..... Northeastern Wood  has scribed siding in many spacings and for the corner they make "L" strip that works great and has no seam like when you use two pieces.  In HO you would never see that seam at that small scale.

When choosing the thicknes of the scribed panel you might order (they offer many) be sure to choose something thinner than the inner dimension of the "L" strip so that the strip hides the glue seam.

Below is a photo of how I lay out a building.  Plot along the various clap boards so that all window bases are on the same clap (is that a word?).  This is very important.  Similarly with door sills.  You will have to speculate on where windows might be on the other side.  As there is a outside stairway, you can conclude that there was none inside.  Thus the summitry to window locations on opposite sides are probable.
It is hard to see but the roof looks like shake.  Not the far left of the roof, a few are up.


I use yellow glue, Bordan or Titebond for all wood structures




Hope this helps
Bob

[deemery]

The Campbell 'corner posts' are available from Northeastern Scale Lumber.  See https://northeasternscalelumber.com/shop/index.php?_a=category&search%5Bkeywords%5D=corner+post


dave

[bparrish]

Gents....

Here is a argument for not using corner posts.  The prototype does not.  The boards used at corners on the prototype are to hide raggedy edges and make the building a bit more air tight.  A real issue with framed buildings, then and now.

In modeling we care nothing about air integrity but we do care about exposed seams.  A corner post construction requires bullet proof straight line cuts of the clap board and a LOT of time cleaning up each clap (again, is that a word?) for glue that squeezed out of the joint with an x-acto blade.

An additional issue with corner posts is........ what do they scale out to be?  In most cases they are too wide, often scaling out to 6, 8 or ten inches across.  Corner boards on the prototype are usually a four inch wide board.   That then calls for the use of thin clapboard scribed lumber just to keep the "L" stock in scale.

Ok........ after all of that............. I'm off the soap box.

see ya
Bob

[Erieman]

Good Afternoon Jim. There are many articles on scratchbuilding on this forum.  i am an avid scratchbuilder. You might find one of my scratchbuild articles of interest. The thread is called EAST END MARKET. Dan Raymond posted this building on the forum several years ago and he was kind enough to get me the dimensions of the structure footprint and several photos of the building. The thread is on page 8 of the scratchbuilding category. I found that one item was extremely helpful in determining the size of the building. Luckily, Dan was able to help me with that problem. Knowing the size of the clapboard siding was key to planning out the structure. Once i knew the clapboard size, i could determine most of the building dimensional characteristics.
After making a dimensional drawing, i cut it out and glued it to cardstock to create a model. After some minor changes, the final model was built. You can read all that i put into the build on page eight of scratchbuilding. I hope that is of some help. That is a very interesting structure and wish you luck on the build. If you have any questions, please do hesitate to ask.


Frank / Erieman

[rslaserkits]

How I scale those old Clap board buildings is by counting boards. Doors back then were normally around 7 ft tall 9-10 if they had a transom and 3 to 4 ft wide. Wider for storefronts. Windows like shown were 2-8 by 7-0. Also most laps were kept in the 5 to 6 inch exposer. On this building by counting windows show 7 ft tall using 6 inch exposer.
rich