Scratchbuilding Buildings - O scale Plans, ideas.

[Anonymous]

I want to scratchbuild some wooden buildings for my grandson's K-line O scale layout. I have done this before with great success, but I need building plans. Is there any place I can find drawings here on the net? I use 1/8" poplar wood and it works great.

[Anonymous]

Mr. Preston, I'd suggest you check Ebay. There are quite a number of old "Model Builder" and "Model Railroader" articles by the late Frank Ellison. Check issues from the 40's through the 60's.
Type in the keywords "Frank Ellison" on the trains.com site, and you'll get a listing of the articles he authored (over 100), and the issues in which those articles appeared. It's then a simple matter of being the highest bidder on those magazines!
Also, Kalmbach does supply (for a fee) specific articles @ 800-533-6644. You must specify which issue(s) and which specific article(s) you seek.
While Ellison used heavy cardboard, I see no reason why those dimensions and techniques could not be used with 1/8" poplar.
Best of luck!

[Jetrock]

Just remember not to limit yourself to plans in O scale--with a scale ruler you can convert any scale to any other. Plus, a lot of magazines published most of their plans in HO scale rather than O (or even smaller) in order to fit plans for larger buildings into their magazine's format. But they all work fine scaled up...

[Anonymous]

Here are a ton of plans, courtesy of North Dakota State U.:

http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/plans/

Andrew

[Anonymous]

Jetrock: One last question, and thanks for your reply. What scale can I use to build models for O scale? O scale is said to be 1:48, however what does that equate to such as: 1/2" = what? or 1" = what? Structures being sold at local hobby shops for O scale seem too small to me.

[Jetrock]

eapreston: O scale is 1:48 scale--1/4" realworld equals 1 O scale foot. 1/2" realworld is 2 feet, 1" realworld is 4 feet. An O scale person will stand about 1.25-1.5 inches high--5 or 6 scale feet.

Most scale buildings are compressed a little bit compared to their real-world counterparts, in order to make them a bit smaller and better able to fit on limited spaces like model railroad layouts, so they may be a little small.

A nice thing about O, of course, is that you can use a conventional ruler to draw plans--1/4" to the foot is fairly easy to remember, as opposed to 0.1379" to the foot (HO scale, 1/87.)

[Anonymous]

Jetrock's note about buildings being compressed is true - it is important to get the "feel" of a factory, but a full size (scale) one would be far to big unless you had an arena to put your layout in... So if you want to model a real building that is 15 stories high, you might think about trimming it to 5 stories, while retaining architectural details that make the building unique - like the entrance, or any details at the roof line, etc.

Most of the small wood buildings that you are after though, even up to "house" size, can be built right from plans without much adjustment.

Another good source for plans is back issues of MR and other magazines. I get mine at the local shop for 50 cents each. A lot of plans are available in the pre-1990 copies and are listed in the table of contents under "Prototype Drawings" - making your browsing easier.

Andrew