What do you use for a base under your buildings in relation to both the trackwork or to the roads/streets? I used woodland scenics Roadway tape & Smooth-it to make my roadways. Can you plaster on top of the cork to do the rest of scenery such as grass etc. around my buildings?
I try to build a foundation for my structures. If you look at actual buildings, they very rarely sit flat on the ground.
I used some sheet styrene to build up a foundation for this building so the floor would be level with the floor of a boxcar. The front parking area is level with the floor, but the track drops down about 4 scale feet.
This station is built up on a basement. This is the track side, where the foundation is below grade, with platforms and track level even with the first floor.
This train order station has a pretty typical foundation. I cover the flat part with scenery material.
Here it is installed.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Lee, that is really nice work. I'm getting close to putting insome buildings and had the same question as the subject of this thread. Helps a lot!
Hal
I've built a couple of more "urbanized" areas where the sidewalks come right up to the buildings. I started with a flat base, and first added a layer of styrene which defined the sidewalks and the building bases, leaving only the road area as uncovered pink foam. Then, I used Durhams Water Putty to fill in the road space, even with the top of the styrene. Next, I cut another identical layer of styrene, but this time I cut out the footprint of each of the buildings. I glued this down to the first styrene layer, leaving shallow holes for each building.
This shows the scene after painting. The foreground building is Model Power's "Annie's Antiques," which comes with a base and interior detail, including lighting. The block behind it is for DPM's "Other Corner Cafe," which became the House of Haggis Restaurant on my layout. I scratch-built the interior for this one:
(Click on the pictures for a larger view.)
Here's the House of Haggis in place. Because it fits inside the sidewalks, you don't see the bottom of the building, and light doesn't leak out below the walls.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Tim Fahey
Musconetcong Branch of the Lehigh Valley RR
Mr. B, What thickness of styrene are you using? As usual your scenicing is superb.
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
Urban don't necessarily mean flat... Ever been to Pittsburgh?
This building was previously installed on a former ex-layout, which had a very hilly terrain, even in the city. You can see how I brought the sidewalk up along the right side. I got this idea from just looking at buildings in Baltimore and other cities to see how their designers dealt with less than flat terrain...
I would build the streets first to see where the grades would be, then install a level surface that would provide the "basement" of the block. This could be removeable. The sidewalks would be attached to the structures, and act as a flange the hold the block in place, and seal the gap between the buildings and the street. Hope this helps.
Here is my $0.02
I believe one of the most toy looking phenomenom is when you look at a building and it looks like god just plopped it down on the surface of the earth. I believe that the base or foundation is the cornerstone of making a building look realistic.
Again just my $0.02
ham99,
Do you have any photos you can post of your foundations?
Thanks, Hansel
I use Evergreen 0.040 styrene for the bases of my O-scale buildings so that I can incorporate some details and scenery before "installing" on the layout. That way, the blending into the rest of the scene becomes a little easier for me. Here's an example of a building on the styrene, with local scenery, and temporarily placed on the layout to see what other details need to be added.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3285/2416273992_ab653d8988_b.jpg
and
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3164/2415453293_d5fcbb2f62_b.jpg
Jim