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

Just about everything here could have been tossed without being missed. Mostly leftovers outside of the few trees. Even the brown boulder is a re-purposed mud wasp nest. The roof is a damp soft wood sheet with only edges cut via strong,tight, sharp scissors and scores along the length between ends (that faded/swelled over time; hard to see here) There is a bulb inside but "offscreen". Off or on; light and reflections make photos of this a challenge. 

The tunnel is the old door screen after replacement covered in anything old in the closet that would harden; wood fillers, spackles, joint compounds, powdered & pastes. It's heavy and heavy duty

@Quarter Gauger 48 posted:

 WOW, WE'RE approaching 4 pages, lets keep going.  Rarely do we see the private collections of O Gaugers creations all in one place.  We have some extreme;y excellent builders on the forum and it is so nice to see everyone's contributions.  

Here's 2 fronts for DSL models, Dave Lull", Chicago.  They are models of real buildings in the city.  Of course these are my interpretations of them.. 😉

 

 

 

Here is my Hood's Milk factory from stat to finish. Made from Precision Board.

@Slugger posted:

Here's a crummy iPhone pic of a building I've been working on. The first in a pair of buildings based on a set in my hometown. All scratchbuilt from styrene.

Very nice! So you scored all the brick; or was in styrene brick? I had used some styrene tile for a subway station so I was wondering if they made brick.

 

Adriatic:  you must hold the record for World's Smallest 027 Layout!  Simply not possible to be any smaller without custom made track.  Neat!

Many of these photos and buildings exhibit excellent lighting effects, which add so much.

John

SShed for the Summerfield Lumber Co.

@Dewey Trogdon posted:

SShed for the Summerfield Lumber Co.

Dewey - how are you guy?

@CPF3 posted:

Adriatic:  you must hold the record for World's Smallest 027 Layout!  Simply not possible to be any smaller without custom made track.  Neat!

Many of these photos and buildings exhibit excellent lighting effects, which add so much.

John

It's about 0-19" hand bent. At 0-17" there's too many gremlins to mod out of things. 0-21" was "best" (next time I post) It accepts up to about 11" cars and many more engines.

Let's get something to eat'...😋

@Quarter Gauger 48 posted:

 WOW, WE'RE approaching 4 pages, lets keep going.  Rarely do we see the private collections of O Gaugers creations all in one place.  We have some extreme;y excellent builders on the forum and it is so nice to see everyone's contributions.  

Here's 2 fronts for DSL models, Dave Lull", Chicago.  They are models of real buildings in the city.  Of course these are my interpretations of them.. 😉

 

 

 

Ted, awesome as usual.  You're "interpretive skills" are stunning..

I've been working on a particular industrial scene focusing on a Gantry Crane (TMCC).   I automated trackside movement and then decided to camouflage the drive shaft of the Gantry Crane hiding it under a platform. https://ogrforum.com/...1#147972075011278941

The drive motor was still visible.

 I thought a building covering it would be a good approach since I could easily lift it off to deal with any motor issues. Then Quarter Gauger 48 (Ted) introduced me to ModelBuilderSoftware and encouraged me to 'build my own'  With only about 2.5" in width to work with, no kit or prebuilt I could find would work. So with his mentoring I dived in and built this (Ted, sure hope I didn't embarrass you with these. ) :  

The first building (blue below)  fit over the motor and did the trick. The next morning, I decided I'd prefer a 2 story building.  Then, I found I had an EvansDesign welding light kit so, since it's a yard, it needed a welding shack as well.  

Ed, great idea and nice follow through

Thanks, Ray. 

@Joe Fauty posted:

Dewey - how are you guy?

Howdy Joe

Good to hear from you. I see your work often when I am able to log onto the Forum. And of course, I see all the many structures and features you made for my operation when I can ride the stairlift up to my little attic layout.

I am doing okay, just getting uglier and slower with age and ailments. I am now incapacitated as regards doing any train or layout work. In mid-February I spent my 88th birthday in the Hospital after a 1 a.m. faint and fall in the bathroom. Could not move even enough to reach the baths emergency buttons but fortunately had my ancient flip phone in my nightshirt pocket. When I regained some degree of sense I called my handicapped wife on the house landline who got 911( I dialed 10 digits ).

Anyway, I had 103.5 temp, got stitched (minor), swabbed, lectured by MD on not giving permission for chest compression and ventilator hookup (if necessary) but argued that my Living Will did not allow it. Fortunately, temp came down overnight and after being stuck, probed and lectured for 3 days I came home and haven't left since. 

Hope you are safe and well.

        Branch line small Loco service facility    &   two faces...one building

this is just plain delightful!  What great work!!

How did you do the stone building and cobblestone street in the very last photo>

thanks so much,

John

@ToledoEd posted:

I've been working on a particular industrial scene focusing on a Gantry Crane (TMCC).   I automated trackside movement and then decided to camouflage the drive shaft of the Gantry Crane hiding it under a platform. https://ogrforum.com/...1#147972075011278941

The drive motor was still visible.

 I thought a building covering it would be a good approach since I could easily lift it off to deal with any motor issues. Then Quarter Gauger 48 (Ted) introduced me to ModelBuilderSoftware and encouraged me to 'build my own'  With only about 2.5" in width to work with, no kit or prebuilt I could find would work. So with his mentoring I dived in and built this (Ted, sure hope I didn't embarrass you with these. ) :  

The first building (blue below)  fit over the motor and did the trick. The next morning, I decided I'd prefer a 2 story building.  Then, I found I had an EvansDesign welding light kit so, since it's a yard, it needed a welding shack as well.  

 

 Ed, you've done a fabulous job for first time using the MBS. Very good.  I really like the welders shed'... And I could never build that moving crane... Too technical for me'... Structures and lighting... is my thing... Not an animator at all'..... You're a very good electrical engineer..........   ⭐👍😀🙄⭐ 

@Quarter Gauger 48 posted:

 Ed, you've done a fabulous job for first time using the MBS. Very good.  I really like the welders shed'... And I could never build that moving crane... Too technical for me'... Structures and lighting... is my thing... Not an animator at all'..... You're a very good electrical engineer..........   ⭐👍😀🙄⭐ 

Thanks Ted.  

@CPF3 posted:

this is just plain delightful!  What great work!!

How did you do the stone building and cobblestone street in the very last photo>

thanks so much,

John

HEY JOHN   Not quite sure what you are asking (how did you do the stone building). I"ll try a short response here. I've used a lot of styrofoam on my layout to create varying terrain levels. The stone building was designed to fit where there was an abrupt drop in the terrain. Always short on available space on the layout, my thinking was to create two different scenes in a 1' by 2' area.  The building is constructed out of wood, Luan for the walls/roof.  Grandt Line windows, doors, architectural features; Plastruct tile sheet for the roof; Scenic Express paper wall.  The brick street material was purchased from a company I believe is no longer in business unfortunately. The brick was embossed on a thin flexible rubber type material. A "brick" sheet (approximately  12" by 12") also included sidewalk pavers, curb,& man hole covers. That was cut and glued to the styrofoam. Hope this answered your inquiry. If not let me know. Thank you for your compliment!      This is a great thread, an opportunity for everyone to share their creativity. As you can tell I love scratch building. The trains are just an excuse. 

 jackiejr, As you can tell I love scratch building. The trains are just an excuse. 

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one'.....😁  

Beautiful, realistic, and authentic  work'...  All  completely well done'..👍🏻⭐👌⭐ 

 Just completed this'.. A solicitation complaint being followed up at the Savoy'....🙄 This is for a build challenge on another forum.  But I posting a few shots here first''' as this is the main O scale forum and site'...

Don't know why the motion shot is horizontal.  It shows the fluorescent lights in action. If someone knows how to get a GIF file to rotate, please inform me'...😉

In the top photo I was trying to fill up wall space.  This takes a lot of windows. I went thru Lionel parts listings and found cheap windows for things like 445 switch towers and bought a couple hundred.  Might have cost me a dime apiece.

The dark brick building, lower right, shows a problem I had with seams using commercial brick paper.

Chimneys are hand carved from pine.

That B&M box car . . . a junker cut in half on the band saw.  Sort of a John Allen stunt.  Did not work in a mirror though.  

John 

Some time ago, I decided to replace the Lionel #113 station with a prototypical one for my town of Rock Springs.  By chance, on a trip to Tucson, I saw an office building that said to me, "I want to be a train station"  So, after some photos and measurements, I went to work and here is the result.

If you want to see a video including it, go to my UTube account "Atonna" and click on the Martian Mine.  Yes, this station is right on top of the mine.

I have an American Flyer 772 Checker Board Water Tower on my new train board but none for the old train board.  I had a Marx beacon light tower without a top.  I decided to make a Lionel style 193 Industrial Water Tower to fit on the Marx tower.  I used a mailing tube to make the tank and card board for the sloped roof.  I installed a flashing light on top from a mini Christmas tree light flasher bulb painted with red latex paint and installed a 20 ohm resistor in series to cut the voltage a little to increase the bulb life.  I added a ladder up the side of the tank and plan to make a pump house to set at the tower base in the future.

I chose to label my Industrial Water Tower with the town name of Spencer, N.C.   The location of the water tower will be on my old train board near my mountain as well as close to my turntable and round house.  I picked Spencer, N.C. as the location because it is mountainous and the old Southern Railroad repair facility, Spencer Shops Roundhouse and Turntable are there.  It is now called the North Carolina Transportation Museum with most buildings restored, and now includes many steam locomotives, diesels and old automobiles and planes.  The N.C. Transportation Museum is well worth visiting as well as the General 4-4-0 in Marietta, GA. as we did in 2017.

Charlie

Here's one - it's a "cheapsk8buildings" kit that I bashed to represent a central VA produce packing and transfer shed of the 30s-50s.  Details by Finished Models.

@PeterA posted:

Some time ago, I decided to replace the Lionel #113 station with a prototypical one for my town of Rock Springs.  By chance, on a trip to Tucson, I saw an office building that said to me, "I want to be a train station"  So, after some photos and measurements, I went to work and here is the result.

If you want to see a video including it, go to my UTube account "Atonna" and click on the Martian Mine.  Yes, this station is right on top of the mine.

Great work, Peter.  Glad to see you're still doing well and looking forward to the net CMARC meeting and the next show / swap meet.

Tom Taylor

Judy's PE Christmas layout last year and her handmade YARN houses.   Getting some work done now for a second tier.      She finished two ( one very large brick style one ) and is working on a third for 2020.

After seeing that some of you forum members are getting going on your 2020 Christmas layouts.........well I feel guilty just thinking about it 🤔😉.      I gotta get er done.

Thanks for the inspiration people. 🤗

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 60s and always wanted to build a train platform around the steel industry.  Following are some photos of my J&L steel company platform.  All structures are scratch built except for the construction crane from Menards.  For the buildings I used basswood covered by foamcore board which was then covered with corrugated paper sheets from AC Moore craft store.  I then painted and weathered all the structures.  

The first photo shows, left to right, the J&L blast furnace (dark rust colored), high line where ingredients for the making of iron are brought together and discharged at the base of the blast furnace (gray colored), ore bridge (yellow colored) and the Joe Magarac foundry (gray colored).

The second photo is looking into the Electric Arc Furnace and to the left background is the yellow ore bridge.  I left half the roof and sides off the electric arc furnace building so that people could see inside.  I also cocked the roof of the furnace slightly and installed a welding light inside so that the periodic flashes from the welding light can be seen as it lights up the interior of the building.

The third photo is of the Benjamin Miller Steel Company World Headquarters and is actually all there is left of that company.  The partially enclosed electric arc furnace can be seen to the right and the blast furnace is in the center background.

Finally, the last photo is of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, which I have visited several times.  It has nothing to do with steel mills, but it is located in southwestern PA and so I took artistic license and put it on a second platform which is 3 feet away from the steel mill platform.  The house was built on a diorama which includes the stream that flows under the house and boulders that the house is built on and over.   I then placed the diorama onto the then partially completed platform and luckily it fit the space.

Doug Chiado

WOW Doug DRC how did you model that slag?  Awesome.

@Dallas Joseph posted:

Judy's PE Christmas layout last year and her handmade YARN houses.   Getting some work done now for a second tier.      She finished two ( one very large brick style one ) and is working on a third for 2020.

After seeing that some of you forum members are getting going on your 2020 Christmas layouts.........well I feel guilty just thinking about it 🤔😉.      I gotta get er done.

Thanks for the inspiration people. 🤗

 

 

Very Nice Judy !!   Never seen anything quite like that. Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

Ron,

The slag is the colored plastic wrap that surrounds a 6 pack of Lipton iced tea.  It works well because an LED light behind it lights the whole length of the plastic wrap, and is especially dramatic when the room lights are lowered. When I first tried to just use an orange or yellow plastic bag, the light just looked like a smudge from the front.   In addition, the colored plastic wrap has vertical parallel ripples from where it bends around the edges of the bottles so that it has a depth to make it look 3 dimensional when it is being poured out of the slag car or from the blast furnace floor into a hot metal car.

Doug

@DRC posted:

I was born and raised in Pittsburgh in the 1950s and 60s and always wanted to build a train platform around the steel industry.  Following are some photos of my J&L steel company platform.  All structures are scratch built except for the construction crane from Menards.  For the buildings I used basswood covered by foamcore board which was then covered with corrugated paper sheets from AC Moore craft store.  I then painted and weathered all the structures.  

The first photo shows, left to right, the J&L blast furnace (dark rust colored), high line where ingredients for the making of iron are brought together and discharged at the base of the blast furnace (gray colored), ore bridge (yellow colored) and the Joe Magarac foundry (gray colored).

The second photo is looking into the Electric Arc Furnace and to the left background is the yellow ore bridge.  I left half the roof and sides off the electric arc furnace building so that people could see inside.  I also cocked the roof of the furnace slightly and installed a welding light inside so that the periodic flashes from the welding light can be seen as it lights up the interior of the building.

The third photo is of the Benjamin Miller Steel Company World Headquarters and is actually all there is left of that company.  The partially enclosed electric arc furnace can be seen to the right and the blast furnace is in the center background.

Finally, the last photo is of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater, which I have visited several times.  It has nothing to do with steel mills, but it is located in southwestern PA and so I took artistic license and put it on a second platform which is 3 feet away from the steel mill platform.  The house was built on a diorama which includes the stream that flows under the house and boulders that the house is built on and over.   I then placed the diorama onto the then partially completed platform and luckily it fit the space.

Doug Chiado

 

 

 

 

 

 

Super modeling there Doug.   Brought back some memories of my flatbed days when I would pick up  steel coils.       I love Fallingwater. Never had the pleasure of visiting there; big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright. Got any better  photos of your diorama ?

Have most of my other scratch builds posted on this thread. Here's one more, a recent upgrade with a new paint job.

My late wife built this in fond memory of driving from San Diego to Cajon Pass Saturday mornings once a month. We always stopped here, in Riverside, to change and feed our two-year old. While I shot passing UP and ATSF freights, she took multiple images of the warehouse...and built it when we returned to Virginia in '89.

Jackiejr:  can you tell us what materials or technique you used for the stone?

thanks!

john

This is my second scratch built building. I started out to build a Sinclair Gas Station but then Chris at Miller Engineering released his large Shell neon so it became a Shell Station. Don

not only is the building  (obviously) superb but your application of lighting really finishes it off.

Aren't those Miller Engineering products wonderful?  What an addition to the hobby!

john

@CPF3 posted:

Jackiejr:  can you tell us what materials or technique you used for the stone?

thanks!

john

Scenic Express O scale wall product

There's something to be said for the wonders of modeling buildings in the modern age.  Take the CPR station from Glacier, BC.  You can go from Concept,

to building,

to printing,

And finally to painting... minus doors and windows.  Still working on the whole "opening and closing" thing.

Not really a CPR fellow myself but I really liked the look of this station before its decline...

Great talent in here!

Doug id like to see more photos of your furnace back there, that’s my project I’m starting to tackle. Thanks! 

Los of outstanding work here!

Here are a few I have done

Harbor Scene - This is built using black foam core to create the structure, and then "skinned" with plastruct or other siding.

Old West Town in Amusement park

Similar construction approach black foamcore, this time skinned with wood doll house flooring, very quick, and takes stain. Korber windows and Tichy doors

Genesee Brewery  "Our One Brewery Makes it Best!"- Kitbash of Ameritown parts

A mix of Korber, Lionel, Walthers HO, and Walthers - now Atlas O scale buildings

Kitbash of two Korber Grain Silo kits

I added an office to go with the grain silo - Foamcore and doll house wood floors for siding.

My first radio tower - before I designed and built the Korber one, I made this form Brass, way too much soldering.

This should be a good start.  Most of the model son my layout are a modified version of something, some are straightforward kits, but most and modified with I expect 30% scratch built.