Hello all,
I am in the very early stages of building a simple back and forth layout for my sons "Cedar Point themed" Playroom. If you haven't been, it's one of the best amusement parks in the world (obviously my favortite) located in Ohio. I looking for someont to build some of the iconic buildings in HO scale to encorparte into the layout.
Please let me know if anyone would be intererested.
Thanks!
Ray
Ohio? Out here we spell that IOWA, anyway this is not likely, commercial transactions are not transacted on the fourms.
Anyway, LIONS generally build structures out of CARDBOARD and that is likely not what you had in mind.
BTW: The apartment buildings on the left were created on a computer, printed on a color laser printer, and pasted onto foam stock. Perhaps that is something that will work for you.
LIONS always look for the cheapest solutions, and are satisfied with the results. But then, LIONS are easy to please.
ROAR
(Please pass the Wildebeest)
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
MR mag has several ads for this. They tend to be very good and appropriatly expensive.
www.facebook.com/Davevallejos or You Tube/Dave Vallejos
I guess I'm a little surprised that no one has come to the defence of our hobby, in telling the OP that in asking for someone to do it for him, he's depriving himself one of the joys and purposes of model railroading, the 'modelling' part.
Lots of friends on here, myself included, will be more than happy to give free advice. So what, exactly, are you looking for?
If you go thru the structures section of the latest Walthers catalogue, you may find building kits that aren't exactly like the real buildings you want to model, but are 'close enough' to work if properly built and decorated.
It sounds like the OP has very particular structures in mind and wants the models to closely replicate the prototypes. Certainly the catalogs should be scoured to look for kits (or ready built) that are similar enough to suit the need, or could be kitbashed into something very close to the prototype structures. And yes, I would say that you might be surprised how enjoyable it is to actually scratchbuild a structure yourself using styrene or wood.
But if nothing short of a professional job will do, I have two names for you. John Dornfeld of www.depotsbyjohn.com makes a line of detail parts that is in the Walthers catalog but is primarily a custom builder. Be aware however that John does this for a living and charges for his structures what a person would expect to make as a living wage for the time spent researching, making drawings and then actually constructing the model - and he is a fast worker. His models are literally museum quality and some of the structures at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago layout are his work.
His friend and sometimes colleague Jim Rindt is another talented custom builder also of museum quality models. Jim's website is www.rindtsrelics.com .
Jim and John have just completed a huge project -- a man wanted to create an N scale replica of his old home town of Zachow WI on the Chicago & North Western. He wanted every structure to be modeled exactly as it looked around 1948 -- no compromises, no guesswork. Jim and John spent days and days in the Zachow area looking for every photo, every family snapshot they could find. A picture of a girl holding her puppy might show a garage or concrete steps in the background with essential documentation for them. And when every structure was built, the guy who hired them had the entire town created with no compression whatsoever. Every yard, sidewalk, farm field, industrial building, store, pathway, creek, utility pole and line, was done to exact scale in N. Needless to say, that is a huge model. Where to put it? No problem, the guy then had an exact FULL SIZE replica of the Zachow WI depot constructed, and the display is now in there in the freight room. The rest of the depot is furnished exactly as it would have been in 1948 including a working telegraph system.
Every structure is connected to a button which when pushed lights the building and a recorded message gives its history. The depot is in Shawno County WI, a short drive from Green Bay. It has already been featured in two magazines.
Jim Rindt has some photos of the Zachow project - which took them years to complete -- on his website.
I mention all this not just to give an indication of the quality of their work but maybe to convey that the guy who hired them is wealthy. Expect to pay a lot of money per structure, perhaps the high three figures or low four figures, for work of that quality.
Dave Nelson
dknelsonI mention all this not just to give an indication of the quality of their work but maybe to convey that the guy who hired them is wealthy. Expect to pay a lot of money per structure, perhaps the high three figures or low four figures, for work of that quality.
If it took a year to build something, you would expect it to cost at least $60,000 just for the labor, plus the materials, with appropriate markup.
LION likes the ide of photographing the location, and using the signature items as part of the backdrop.
Witness the Smith-9th Street Station on the Route of the BroadwayLION