quote:Originally posted by flanger:
I think Jerrman is offering some excellent advice for those who have found a kit they want to try building a representation of in O scale.
I want to add the notion of also using your imagination to come up with a design of your own. Totally freelanced using pictures of building you've seen for ideas perhaps or just memories of structure which might have existed in your hometown or elsewhere. Take scrap paper and cut it up and tape it together to make it fit the exact spot you want the finished building to be located. This basic pattern will assure the final structure will fit properly. Build something using the dimensions of that simple footprint...the satisfaction of doing so will far exceed building a kit I assure you. Develope this skill over time and it will reward you many fold. Try it and good luck.
Bob
Those are excellent points. I, too, have gotten past the point where I will limit myself to just commercially available buildings or even kits. There just aren't that many of the generic ones that I really want. I have specific areas (usually of strange or oddball sizes) that I need to fill. And my skills, although modest, have gotten to the point where I'll try most things.
The two mills in this photo (left to right: Blooming Mill, Open Hearth) are actually 3-D backdrops with a soon-to-be-hidden yard lead running underneath and a highway overpass running between them. Sorry, this isn't the best photo of them. It took some time to figure out how to construct the buildings, but it isn't as difficult as it might appear. In fact I did an NMRA clinic based on constructing the Blooming Mill at the last Model Railroad Jamboree in Pittsburgh (April 2011).
If I were to put my wish list together, it would be for a more diverse set of buildings, but it would also ask for much more industrial building details and components. I hope that people like Les Lewis (Westport Models) continue to expand their selection of such parts and details. And I fervently hope that business model is valid in today's O gauge model railroading world.
George
