Do You Use Plasticville On Your Layout?

I’m a huge fan of Plasticville... But then again I’m a postwar guy that is fine with the level of realism they provide, especially when you consider their pricing.  

Yes! I use it for my postwar layout.

SCALE RAIL, nice balance of structures.

FLYPLANES,PLAyTRAINS, really nice lighting in your  Plasticville village. Thumbs up.

i don't have my set up yet, pictures when up.

i will if i ever get back into o gauge but that seems unlikely because with the shutdown and a 12 grand tuition at East Carolina University i can't even pay for school so 2019 may be another trainless sucky year where i feel more frustrated heck with the shutdown i and countless others will lose health insurrence if it keeps going on like this

Several years ago , I got a real good deal on 4 brand new, pre-assembled Plasticville structures: the church, school, blue house and the covered bridge. They are all in the layout. The bridge is my favorite of the bunch, and I used it in the only area of the layout with realistic scenery.

I just purchased my first piece of Pasticville.  I got the wood water tower first.  I will make some color changes before gluing.  Love the trailer park Scale Rail.  Is that a 1950 Studebaker?

My "thing" is recreating the 1950's layout I had as a kid (in the photo), but much larger than 4 x 8, so I have about 70 PVille buildings. I love the stuff, unmodified.

Yes, to me it doesn't matter who made/manufactured it, if I like it, I like it.

I like their signal bridges. I have a few of them. I put homemade working signals on them. A little weathering and voila...

Wow Postmastermc, It's Plasticvill Heaven. Thanks for showing. Don

Yes Rock Mountain, it's a Studebaker or as I called my 50's Studebaker pickup a Steady Braker. I have a couple on my layout. Here's a picture of another one. In the garage where it lived most of the time. Don

I have several Plasticville structures that I like a lot. They include the school house, the Firehouse, the Convenient Corner (milk, food ice cream)  and 3 houses that are in storage. Earlier today I put the church on my layout, and here it is:

The cross on top is not the original, which broke off and got lost. The new cross is made of plastic flashing that holds the pieces of a model before its glued together.

The drawback of a long and narrow layout like mine is there's so little room for structures. If I had more room, I would have all my Plasticville on my layout.

Nice thread, Don. Arnold

I was given by the wonderful older couple across the street on the mainland a Lionel space set of trains in almost perfect shape. There son wasn't into trains I guess because everything was in the box like new. With the set was a very hard to find Plasticville house under construction. Not the regular one but in a Lionel box. Lionel sold these building for a number of year and just printed up Lionel boxes for them. Don

I forgot about the Plasticville barn on my layout:

Its impossible for me not to smile when I see any Plasticville.

Arnold, yes your right. I think the first Plasticville building I bought with my own money was the barn. Don

Well, not "Plasticville" as a brand, but certainly "Plasticville" in approach.

Back when I lived (1986-1990) in the heart of the Ozarks (and modeled an Ozark theme, imagine that), I started with this HO AHM snap-together .99 cent building (well, .99 cents at the time!):

I wanted something more typical of us Ozark Hillbillies that lived among the Ozarks, and a very modest home (instead of a nice two story home) would be more in keeping with my 1960s time frame for my HO layout.

So, after some cuts here, and some distressing there, throwing on some paint/weathering to make it look like aged wood, adding a rusted tin roof, and what have you's, I had this...

...sagging porch and all.

It was to be placed on field rock footing piers once placed on the layout.

From that model I wandered off into Sn3, traditional 3-rail, scale S, HO Colorado... and now I'm again back to modeling the good ol' Ozarks. Fortunately, I kept this model all those years. So, it looks like it will once again be set among an HO layout depicting the railroading, and life among, the Ozarks!

So, not "Plasticville" in brand, but does this count?

Andre

I have a lot of it on hand.....I use it as kitbash fodder.  I am building a 'scale' layout so I will not use it right out of the box......but great for parts. I have two sets of the mobile homes that will get painted and detailed.

laming posted:

Well, not "Plasticville" as a brand, but certainly "Plasticville" in approach.

Back when I lived (1986-1990) in the heart of the Ozarks (and modeled an Ozark theme, imagine that), I started with this HO AHM snap-together .99 cent building (well, .99 cents at the time!):

I wanted something more typical of us Ozark Hillbillies that lived among the Ozarks, and a very modest home (instead of a nice two story home) would be more in keeping with my 1960s time frame for my HO layout.

So, after some cuts here, and some distressing there, throwing on some paint/weathering to make it look like aged wood, adding a rusted tin roof, and what have you's, I had this...

...sagging porch and all.

It was to be placed on field rock footing piers once placed on the layout.

From that model I wandered off into Sn3, traditional 3-rail, scale S, HO Colorado... and now I'm again back to modeling the good ol' Ozarks. Fortunately, I kept this model all those years. So, it looks like it will once again be set among an HO layout depicting the railroading, and life among, the Ozarks!

So, not "Plasticville" in brand, but does this count?

Andre

Andre, IMO your homemade model of an Ozark hillbilly home with its rusted tin roof is superb.

AMCDave posted:

I have a lot of it on hand.....I use it as kitbash fodder.  I am building a 'scale' layout so I will not use it right out of the box......but great for parts. I have two sets of the mobile homes that will get painted and detailed. 

Terrific 

Arnold D. Cribari posted:

I forgot about the Plasticville barn on my layout:

And you forgot that switch tower, in the background.

Richard Cuozzo posted:

Arnold D. Cribari posted:

I forgot about the Plasticville barn on my layout:

And you forgot that switch tower, in the background.

If that switch tower is Plasticville, I didn't know it. I got it for very little money at a LHS, and I thought it was HO. It's beat up with broken windows, but that makes it so realistic:

Something else I forgot is this diner (which I believe is Plasticville) on my layout:

I plan to kitbash a couple of PV coaling towers into a larger one, but not as large as most of the O scale kit ones, as appropriate for my short line.  I bashed a number of PV stations into two story, Y, right angle, etc., but have decided to use kit-built stations.

memories: Plasticville boxes on shelves at Woolworth's 5&10 define much of my 1950's /60's  shopping trips with my mom. They were even sold at drugstores in my neighborhood, and various mom and pop toy stores. Today I even like the empty boxes on shelves at home once the structures are fit together. It's a real time machine entry in my head. I remember price tags of 69 cents for many items. Still so much joy packed  in a little box. When the slot car table top racers era became the in thing in the 60's  there were Plasticville Train items price reductions to even 39 cents!  I remember two for 98 cents reductions. The switch tower and hospital and suburban station were my favorites, then and now. I also remember all the plasticville Racing set items always being sold out. Many of my friends had them on their racing  tracks, mostly in HO. I had the larger aurora O scale racers slotcars and could never find the size compatible O scale plasticville race track structures anywhere in my neighborhood. I was told that Polks hobby store (NYC) had them. So they did, but much to my dismay On a trip there they were sold out too! So the fire station and hospital and small service station were up proudly during slot car races in my home.  But really,   I preferred trains.

I have a Plasticville coal tower and police station.  Matt

Here's a (wretched) pic of my modified Coaling Tower.

Please ignore the clutter underneath the yard, the glare, and the dust ;-)

When you use Plasticville on a layout, do you paint the inside black to block out light shining  through the plastic?  Do you also paint the outside for a more realistic look?  I have LOTS of Plasticville from a former life.  Considering using it in the future.  Great pics, guys.

hello

itit is what I mostly use . I have a toy train lay out not scale

kevin

jay jay posted:

My "thing" is recreating the 1950's layout I had as a kid (in the photo), but much larger than 4 x 8, so I have about 70 PVille buildings. I love the stuff, unmodified.

 

 

 

i'm just getting started on a 1950ish Marx layout like I wanted when I was a kid. It, too, was a 4' x 8' and came apart into two 4' x 4' sections for storage.

I'm collecting and bashing a lot of Plasticville structures.  They are the base for all sorts of modifications, some large, some small, some simply stock with new paint and scenery.

FrankfordJunction posted:

When you use Plasticville on a layout, do you paint the inside black to block out light shining  through the plastic?  Do you also paint the outside for a more realistic look?  I have LOTS of Plasticville from a former life.  Considering using it in the future.  Great pics, guys.

Yes and yes.  If they aren't painted inside they "bleed" a lot of light (don't forget to caulk the seams) and if they aren't painted outside they look too toy-like.  I usually add something to camouflage  the insides, like blinds and curtains, "frosted" glazing, or something else.  I've experimented with printed or photo interiors and some real interiors (a lot of trouble for the results and only on close-up buildings).

Farmer's Market:

Parts from the signal bridge:

I grew up with Plasticville, it will always be part of me. The new buildings being offered are really nice and I like them but I have a toy train layout and Plasticville is a part of it.

Jim

The pool is COOL!

I have multiples of a number of buildings. For instance, I like emergency equipment, so I have three fire stations for my "holiday equipment display". Two have lettering above the doors, and one does not.

From the 1993-2003 layout.....

Plasticville worked into kit-bashed background buildings. Got the idea from the Greenberg Show layout from the 80s-90s.

Peter

I have the water tower (Minus spout as I bought it used.) and the rural station.  Both will be included on my layout.  I just glued them together and placed them.  I haven't painted the inside of the station black, but will probably have to do something if I light it up.  Most everything else will be MTH buildings, plus the Lionel log loader and Atlas ice house.

When i built my current playout, I pretty much purged most of it in favor of MTH, Ameri-Towne, & Atlas, but a few pieces remain, albeit disguised by repainting, or incorporating into scenes. 

FrankfordJunction posted:

When you use Plasticville on a layout, do you paint the inside black to block out light shining  through the plastic?  Do you also paint the outside for a more realistic look?  I have LOTS of Plasticville from a former life.  Considering using it in the future.  Great pics, guys.

  I painted a few Plasticville interiors with a metal flake silver base coat, followed by a flat black topcoat, on good forum advice. The metal chips do block most of the light, but runs easily, even if you’re careful.  

 I did however find the tedium of masking, and sealing joints took a lot of time.  On further forum advice, I found metalized tape to be extremely easy.  For the amount of masking required to paint, taping the inside blocks the walls and joints from all bleeding light, and it only requires the same amount of time you’d spend prepping for paint. An added benefit is the structure becomes sturdy without having to glue it together, which is nice for the “rare boxed collector” items you may own.  I simply taped tracing paper over all the windows, and moved on to the next building. 

 I had a few rolls of 3M tape that’s used when stripping & painting large commercial aircraft.  It’s probably expensive, but sticks tenaciously, and leaves no residue. I’ve read that the local LowesDepot type of stores sell metal tape for HVAC use that’s cheap, and cons in various widths.  

Hope this helps

Tom

taken a year before i even showed up, some of the Plasticville i still have is older than me!