Let us see your Scratch Built, Homemade or Kitbashed Layout Buildings or Accessories you have Built

Lancer,

Attached are some additional photos of my blast furnace.  I would also suggest buying a copy of the book by Bernard Kempinski, The Model Railroaders Guide to Steel Mills,  though you might have to get it used.  Lots of good photos  that helped me understand how it all goes together.  Anyhow, good luck with it.

Rich888, well done on the mill building next to the water with the cribbing underneath. It  looks like the largest body of water I think I've seen on a model railroad platform.  I wish I had that space on my platform and the talent you had to create the water on that scene.

Doug

Enjoying the shade'....

Enjoying and taking in the sun.'  Step sister has to clean'...

Great job of scratching that RH and thanks for a thorough explanation.

Although I am a 2 railer, if anyone can remember or might even still have a Cleveland Toy Company 24" turntable for Lionel trains, this may be of interest.  I got this turntable in 1953. It has a deep aluminum pit shaped much like a barbecue pit of that period.  The turntable bridge is a solid block of wood with cast plastic sides having enormously huge rivet detail. It also has two sets of angled ball bearing rollers that rode around the bottom edge of the pit.  There was also a wooden block control house with detailed lithographed paper sides and roof, missing when I took this photo in 2004.   The drive mechanism below powers a gear on a central post of the turntable bridge.  Although powered with a single "D" dry cell battery, it's surprisingly strong and the bridge revolves at 1 rpm.  It is a bit tricky to stop the turntable bridge to align with the tracks, but practice makes perfect.

To "scaleize" the turntable, some flex track was cut to fit around the pit bottom for the bridge support rails.  The wood block bridge bottom ends were undercut, so the wheels would ride on the rails instead of the pit bottom. No need for any flanged wheels here, even prototype turntable bridges use wheels with no flanges. This also let the turntable bridge stay at the same height as before, to align with the layout tracks.

A strip wood deck was made. Every 4th tie on the pre-fab turntable track was removed so a longer tie to carry the walk way on both sides could be installed. A new control house was scratch built in styrene. It has windows from an old Train Craft tool caboose which did not need them any more.  It was turned into a B&O flanger. Nothing goes to waste!

Close up of the new control house. The turntable deck safety railing is from Plastruct.

The odd oversized huge rivets were sanded off the original plastic sides. New styrene siding (.040" sheet) was cut to fit over it. Styrene "T" section stock was used for the braces.  More styrene and ABS shapes ladders created the power gantry and pit access. The walkway at the top of the gantry is strip wood.  On prototype powered turntables 600 volts is fed to the bridge for the traction motors below. 

The engine house is in place, with its approach tracks and inspection pits.  The pit bottom was detailed with tan paint for concrete, some ballast, dyed sawdust and some lichen for weeds.  The pit walls are white, with black lines marking panel joints.

A final paint job and B&O 1930's style lettering for Safety First.

The original tethered control box from Cleveland Toy wasn't used. The turntable was hardwired to this control panel. The engine house and its surrounding tracks have a separate power supply. The engine house approach tracks are wired for transferring a move between it and the yard panel.

Here is the final setting of my 51 YO Cleveland Toy Co. turntable. 

S. Islander

@Choo Choo Charlie posted:

Homemade $10 Round House

The first consideration in building a $10 round house is to decide how many stalls the RH will have.

I think the minimum that looks good is three.  Many more can be added than three but I find that you cannot see and enjoy your engines as much when they are in the RH as all that one sees is the engine fronts.  I decided to make my RH a four stall one and I am very pleased with it.  It has a good shape verses a three stalls and fits my area very well.

I like the stepped roof style RH and I like lots of windows so as they are typical of the era as electric lights were not all that common in the early times and windows provided daylight.  I have windows on both sides, all along the back wall and on the stepped roof wall facing the front.  I did not leave room or have room for a shop or tool room that many RH have.

My round house is made from my typical 1/8 inch thick, one side smooth Masonite tempered sheeting.  A sheet costs about $13 for 4ft x 8ft sheet and you will only need one half of a sheet or less.  I cut this with saber saw, or jig saw.  I used my old Craftsman 18 inch jig saw with 1/3 hp motor, now out of storage, to cut out the windows after drilling a hole to allow get the blade in the window area.  You can use a sabre saw for this if that is all you have.  The smooth side is put on the outside of the sides and back wall as brick paper will be glued on.  Some 1/8” Masonite strips were used to reinforce the bottom and door frame.

Front of Round House

The outside walls will be covered with modeling brick paper, glued on with Elmer’s white glue after the building is assembled with Elmer’s glue.

The roof is made from Masonite too but the rough side is up to be the exposed roof surface, to simulate  gravel on a wood and tar paper roof.  I have a step in the roof with windows in the bricked section between the two roofs so the roof is made in two parts.

Four Tracks and four Stalls in Round House

You can see how I determined the size of the RH by fitting it in over 4 sections of track.  It is about 30 inches wide and 17 deep.  I made sure not to include my one section where I can drive on the TT and directly to this one section with a long consist of engine, coal tender, wrecking crane car and wrecking caboose.

The picture below shows how I had to cut out part of the rear of the RH to go over a Marx switch machine housing.  It also shows I had make sure the RH did not get too close to the tracks.  It is a tight and custom fit.

Rear of Round House - wall over switch machine, Electrical connector (from 9 volt batteries) for RH lights right of switch

Both roofs were made in four sections.  I assembled the RH with Elmer’s glue and added plywood angles to strength the wall to roof joints.  I painted the inside walls brown and the inside roof light gray to better illuminate the inside.  The outside of the roof was painted light gray, with a dusting of black paint to be dark dirt.  Then I installed the brick paper doing a good job around the windows.

The windows are made from clear plastic sheeting from boxes lids from toys or other heavier clear plastic.  The windows had panes made from black 1/16 inch auto pin striping on the inside.  The windows were glued on the inside with "Pliobond" rubber cement, but contact cement or Aleen's Tacky glue will work.

Inside RH showing Roof and wall braces, windows and some lights

Picture showing double thick front wall and thicker bottom brace.  I painted the center of the tracks in the RH black to simulate a pit below the tracks to let workers work on the under side of the steam locomotives (shown in picture below).

I made RH stacks, with covers to keep rain out.  The stacks are to help remove smoke for the steam engines.  Balsa wood was used to make the stacks.  I like the square style stacks better than round ones.  Rain covers for the stacks were made.   I also installed a ladder or two to get on the roof.  Ladders were made from N gauge railroad tie plastic strips with the rails removed and every other tie cut out with a pair of diagonal wire pliers and trimmed with a X-acto knife.

Ladder, stacks and Roof, and also emergency generator from Lionel searchlight car

  Close up photo of a Stack with cover and dust on top!

Lights were installed in the ceiling of the RH in two rows and are operated by a slide switch on the control panel.   I am big on night train operation with the room lights dark or dimmed and lots of controlled lights in all building, flood lights, street lights, yard lights, cars and engines, etc.

See how the lights let the engines show up in the RH in a semi dark room

Photo showing the balsa wood TT operator shack (made from balsa wood) on TT bridge and view into RH.  The TT operator shake has a small grain of wheat light inside that comes on when power is applied to the TT track and the selected RH stall track.

Photo from outside into lighted up RH

Another neat photo of lighted RH in semi darkness, just to encourage you to build a TT and RH

I chose not to make doors for the front of the RH as I wanted to see the fronts of the locos inside and I would have had the doors open most of the time and they would just get in the view and way.

I love my round house and it is my favorite building on the layout and the most fun and satisfaction to build.

Charlie

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Nicely done!  I appreciate how you shared your method as well.  Looks great!

Subway platform newsstand.

@West Side Joe posted:

I just love this. Great work!

Perhaps you can post some images and description of how you made that terrific newsstand. I would be very interested.

Thanks for the kind words. Here's a few pics. I had an image in my mind of the subway newsstands I remember from my childhood and worked from that.

The "walls" are tinted plastic sheets. To get the curve I glued the flat sheets to Plastruct I-beams, then cut curved slots in the "roof" and "floor", forced the sheet into the slot, glued the beams to the floor, and weighted the assembly until the glue dried. Black construction paper was inserted between the columns to make the walls opaque.

For added durability, I ran a single strand of electric wire around the top and another around the bottom, tied each one off and glued it to the wall.  When the roof is fitted onto the walls, it forces everything into place and keeps it rigid.

The roof is removable and is held in place with a strand of stiff brass wire, in case I ever have to replace the 3-LED strip inside that illuminates the interior. In the pic from the back, the white pipe on the left is the conduit for the wires to the LED strip glued to the underside of the roof.

Most of the candies, magazines and  newspapers were made from images found on the internet, reduced and printed, and wrapped around bits of styrene sheet.  The Coke cooler and bottles are commercial items. The racks along the back wall are from the Woodland Scenics newsstand set. I cut the pieces apart to fit the space, and added magazine and NYC guidebook images.

Just posted the pics of a stone arch bridge over a creek made out of a cardboard mold and plaster.    The other pic is another bridge under construction.  Will post once it's finished.

Tunnel portal made from plywood, strip of pine, spackling, acrylic paints, and black primer spray for the smoke stains.

Date routed on strip with CNC.

Mortar lines cut into spackle coating with ruler and back of an Exacto knife.

Surrounding rocks were cast with heavy duty aluminum foil and plaster of paris. Except for those on top of the portal. They were shaped with a carving tool into sheetrock mud before it dried.

NeophiteMRR

Thank you for your kind comments on my Homemade $10 Roundhouse post.  I see you are rather new here, welcome.  The first post on this topic is on my Homemade $10 turntable, that goes with the round house.    I have a detailed topic here that shows how I built my 40 year old portable layout with 30 switches and includes the two post from this topic on TT and RH.  The topic has projects on layout building, car and engine modification, homemade accessories like log and coal dumping buildings, etc.

It is on the link below and the first post, on page 1, has a table of contents.

https://ogrforum.com/...fties-era-027-layout

Charlie

Scratchbuilt subway tunnel section. Plastruct I-beams, t-sections and channel sections, styrene sheet walls and third rail cover boards (should have used stripwood instead for the boards), staples for the board supports and utility cable hangers, ceramic beads for the third rail chairs and insulators, fiber optic for tunnel lights, foam core paperboard for ceiling.

West Side Joe

Great subway tunnel, you really did it right.  Do you have to use a camera/camera car to see you tunnel details?

Charlie

@Choo Choo Charlie posted:

West Side Joe

Do you have to use a camera/camera car to see you tunnel details?

Charlie

No, it's actually a 6-foot long module that is open on the side and at the ends, so the detail is visible to the casual viewer. You can read about it in this thread: https://ogrforum.com/...odular-subway-layout

Here's another one.

The first build I tried was ballasted deck bridges.

They are simple yet effective.

Materials used-

1/4" square poplar dowels for supports and the ladder style construction of the base.

1/4 × 1/16 basswood walk board planks.

1/4 luan to hold ballast.

Coat hanger for the handrails.

Danish Oil Medium Walnut Finish.

Wood and steel bridges I made for my outdoor shelf layout.

Painting stage of my latest project: a Grand Trunk Pacific Type B Station (express freight & passenger) with passenger shelter and 12 sided water tower!  Then adding some details and such!

The models are based on real structures that once graced the shores of Cooking Lake, Alberta (Canada).  The popular vacationing place on the GTP mainline saw constant rail and motor traffic, with special trains diverging from the usual weekly schedule on Fridays.  Towards the end of GTP's life, executives visited the rather large lake (at the time) with the intention of building their own large-scale resort complete with golf and swimming facilities.  These plans were scrapped when the railway folded, and new Canadian National management elected to focus on a resort in Jasper, Alberta instead.

In the decades following the late 1920s, the lake level proceeded to drop to the low level it is today.  No longer is (North) Cooking Lake town along the shore, no longer is commercial fishing done, nor do regattas of sailboats float alongside motor ferries to the former sandy beaches.  I don't recall when the station was demolished, though I imagine it was in the 1950's.

A rendition of the luncheonettes that were in large NYC subway stations in the 1960's. The first pic is an actual one in the Times Square station.

Dyl- great Canadian modeling ( adding a 13’ section to my layout representing southern Ontario

Joe- fantastic luncheonette! Very Edward Hopper-esqe. Perfect lighting, where are the figures from?

JohnA

These are some outstanding projects, guys.  Here is "Hillbilly Hoedown", more of a fun thing than historical accuracy.  It was made by my then 10-year old son and his friend and me.  It is constructed of fireplace matches, with a sandpaper roof.  The objects hanging from the leftmost porch support are license plates.  A sound module inside played "That Good Old Mountain Dew" by Grandpa Jones.

@West Side Joe posted:

A rendition of the luncheonettes that were in large NYC subway stations in the 1960's. The first pic is an actual one in the Times Square station.

Joe, that custard sign on the soft ice cream machine tells the real time line'..  My father always said," Let's go get a custard"..Never called it ice cream'...  Now we need a nice White Castle, a Bickfords, or a Horn and Hardics.....😁🍦

EXCELLENT MODELING'''.✔👍👌⭐

@John A posted:

Joe - where are the figures from?

JohnA

The seated figures are MTH / Railking. The waitstaff and kitchen workers are Arttista, except for the African - American woman, who is Woodland Scenics, and the busboy in the striped apron, who is a Vintage Characters "soda jerk" from The Details Galore store on Ebay.

I got these plans from an old Model Railroad mag. It's a model of White Tower Hamburgers.

Nice project! I've copied the pages and will think about building it. Don't know where I'll put it, but I still may build it.

7 stall roundhouse.

My Scratchbuilt Signals.

Mainline signals controlled by outside rail and relay.

Exit Signal from my yard lead. Manual control using an Atlas Twin on my control panel.

E

Exit signal on the spur to my 97 Coal Elevator.  Wired to the O-22 Switch

Steve

I bashed a MTH bank into my Metro Terminal. Rotated 90 degrees, cut doors into the side, used an Ameri-Towne bank building front for the doors, created an interior and frosted the large windows on the back.

Not quite a building but it is scratch built. My version of a Great Lakes ore boat,  8 feet long, 10 inches wide, 20 in. tall to the top of the mast. 99% scratch built except for the windows and doors and stairs.  Stairs from a Plasticville coaling station,  windows & doors from Lionel bobber cabooses.

I started with a plank of OSB for the keel and 1X's of poplar for the bow and stern.  Cabins are foamcore and cardstock. All over layed with 020 styrene from flu shot signs I got from when I worked as a pharmacist.

I put a Suethe  smoke unit in the funnel.

Below are some kit bashed and scratched built structures

A single story Korber kit with a scratched built wood addition

The bottom portion is a single story Carolina Craftsman kit. The top is scratched built from wood

Scratched built Ice House made with wood

Bottom is an MTH freight building with a scratch built addition made from plastic

Scratch built electric arc furnace and annex buildings.  Hardboard base with MDF framework.  I skinned it with foam core also .

Added corrugated cardboard overlays for the exterior.  It still needs an interior.

From an old 1930's magazine...

...with carillon soundtrack/speaker in the tower, and a CD player port for organ music, congregational singing with an additional speaker in the sanctuary.  Fully lighted.

I thought the magazine's cover portrayed the model in artistically licensed proportions!  Well, duh, I was wrong!  Now I can't find a suitable spot on the layout for this church cathedral!  TOO big!

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This one is a modification/enhancement of an Ameri-towne building...

Front and rear platforms/details are fixed.  Side platforms/canopy are removeable to either side, or none, depending on layout location, tracks, roads, etc..

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And this one is a modification of an old Lionel beacon tower...

to which has since been added a flashing red LED light at the roof's peak, and an Arttista figure of a guy (ranger?) standing at the railing looking through binoculars.

These were a lot of fun in the making.  I have more, too.

KD

I decided to built an upper platform to store the subway trains while not in use, instead of them hanging on the wall. Have to finish painting it.

Not a scratch build or even a kitbash but a repurposing of an HO Dayton Machinery into a Budweiser Clydesdale barn to go with a Dept 56 Budweiser Brew House.I need to paint the lower section, maybe two window panes down to the bottom, a light gray/beige to match the Brew House.

Not as nice as a lot of the buildings on this post but here are some cardboard buildings done a long time ago.

This very early-on Clever Model paper garage reminds me of such structures on the west side of Cleveland Ohio where I resided for my first 26 years. I added the roof over the man door a while back and recently the LED light from Evans Design.  I have always liked this one!

HSD68, those are pretty sharp for cardboard.  Were they kits or did you scratch build them?  The picture looks a little dated, do you still have them?

Bogart, very nice job on the Clever garage.  The little locks on the door even look 3D.

If you've been on this Forum for a while, you've probably seen my scratch and parts built Great Central Terminal head house, so you'll be bored. If not, enjoy !

Cheers,

- Mike