Downtown buildings

How do you get the window openings in the plywood so square? I drill an access hole and use a jigsaw, but often the corners are less than perfect. Is it just SKILL?

Paul Goodness

Your openings for doors and windows do look very square and straight.  I also use a pilot hole method in the corners but always cut about 1/32 inch short and file it flat with a medium rough rasp.

I took a piece of 1/4 inch thick aluminum and mounted it on a couple of wood blocks.

Then I mounted my saber saw on the underside of the aluminum so the saw is held nice and solid.

After drawing the opening, I drill two starter holes in it so I can set the panel over the saw blade.

Then I cut down along side the pencil line.

After the center is cut out it leaves a little material by each hole.

I put the panel back on the saw and trim out the area around each hole.

Very nice

Thank you for posting.

Mike  

I'm using 1/8 inch paneling that is smooth without any groves in it.

It is the interior paneling from a camper that I stripped out.

The bank door is a Grandtline Victorian door kit.

The side walls are finished on the buildings on either side of the bank.
I used wax-paper on the top of the cafe store front section to keep any glue from sticking to it so the store front can be removed.




The apartments over the bank and the hardware store are accessible from the outside at the back of the hardware store.   
There is a landing that both of the entry doors use.




This landing is also made so it can be removed.
It sets right up under the door sills and is held in place with one screw.
The landing is going to be painted a flat black so the screw won't hardly show.




The corners are notched out of the landing so support post for the railing can be glued on the corners.




The support post have notches cut into them for the railing to fit into.




Here is a section of railing and a support post fit together.




The railing and support post are glued to the landing.




Here's how it looks mounted on the building.




Next was to glue the stairs to the side of the landing.




Here is the finished stairs and landing mounted on the building.
There is a small "concrete" pad at the bottom of the stairs.

Outstanding work and thanks for sharing how you get the windows so straight. I'll be following your progress! Thanks Terry

Ahhhh, then it IS skill! Thank you jdcrawler for the great post. Your work is inspirational.

Paul Goodness

Now that is craftsmanship.

They would look great on anyones layout.

There was a YORK vendor from Connecticut, in the Orange hall, with some nicely made and detailed plywood buildings. I have a number of them in my railroad town.

Very interesting. May I ask how are you planning to seal the wood for painting?

The main part of the buildings that I've done so far have been covered with a paper veneer with either a brick pattern or a siding pattern.

I use Rust-Oleum red oxide primer to seal any bare wood that gets painted.

JD:

You've done a great job on the buildings! I'm quite intrigued with your construction style and can't wait to see the finished project. Thanks for posting!

Neil

Sheets of "brick" are printed out on paper and these are used to cover the sides of the buildings.
Here the back wall of the bank building has the paper glued on and the windows and door openings are cut out.
The back wall of the hardware store is covered but the window and door openings are not cut out yet.
The piece of brick paper laying on the table is ready to glue on the end wall.




Before a section of paper is glued on, I align it with the building and tap it in place at the bottom.




Then the section of paper is laid out on the table.
A piece of poster board is held up against the building so the adhesive spray doesn't get on the side wall.
After the sheet of paper is sprayed then it is brought up against the side wall and smoothed down with a plastic squeegee.




Here are the three buildings with all the brick glued in place.
I'm making this to look like the bank and the hardware store were built at one time and the cafe was added later.
This is why the brick on the cafe is a little different color from the rest of the building.

After the adhesive spray has dried, I then spray the whole thing with two coats of clear mat finish spray to seal the paper.










This is a closer view of the brick.

I had a scroll saw but I don't like it for cutting out these window openings.

It is a pain in the butt to have to unhook the blade and feed it up thru the starter hole and then re-hook it back up.

Then it has to be unhooked and fed up thru the next starter hole and re-hooked again.

After about a dozen windows it gets very tiring.

This is much simpler.

Just set the starter hole over the blade and start sawing.

Then pick up the piece of wood and set the next starter hole over the blade and go again.

I can do a dozen windows this way in about the same time it took to do 4 with the scroll saw.

Question on the brickface....

Are you folding over excess brick on the edges or are these additional cuts?

The paper is about 1/8 inch higher than the wall and folded over the top on both sides.

There will be painted wood strips glued to the top of the walls to form concrete caps and hide the seams of the paper being folded over.

Each store has strips of wood glued to the inside to form a base for the roof section to set on.




There are three separate roof sections cut from masonite and covered with paper with shingles printed on it.




Each roof section has another piece of masonite  glued to it so the section won't warp.
The back edge on the in extra piece also slips over the inside edge on the back wall and keeps the roof section in place.
This section for the roof over the hardware store and has an overhanging piece over the two upstairs entry doors.
There are four "I" beams glued to the underside to support the overhang.




Here are the roof sections in place.
The concrete wall caps are also glued in place.




I printed out a photo of a hardware store interior and glued it to a piece of wood.




This sets inside the wall of the hardware store so it shows thru the windows.




I also printed out a photo of a restaurant counter area for the cafe.
This is set in a little farther to allow room for the store front.




These are table cloths that are printed out.




I purchased some O-scale tables and chairs from Plastruct for the cafe.
The table cloths were fitted to each table and then the tables and chairs were glued to the floor of the cafe store front section.




The cafe store front section is then assembled into the building.

JD, very nice.  Where do you get the brick paper and shingle paper?

I made the roof shingles on  Microsoft Word Document Tables and on the other buildings that I've done the "bricks" were also done this way.

A member here posted this link on the last building that I did.

It has a "brick" pattern that I modified a little and printed out to use on this  project.

http://www.printmini.com/printables/pq.shtml

jdcrawler,

Thanks for sharing your building project. It has given me some ideas.

Bobby,

I posted the files for that building in the card stock thread, not sure if you saw that.

JD, a really fantastic structure.  The one thing more on a technical side is those flat roofs are typically rolled paper and hot mopped at the seams with the paper rolling up the parapets 12" or so.  It looks great the way it is, but it you wanted to go with technically correct roof, the rolled paper can be done pretty effectively too.