Railway design, construction, and gardening

Where is can I find basic building materials.. 1/8 ply wood, strips, shingles... for constructing buildings for my layout

Thanks

Hi CCRail, welcome to the forum, It helps us to know whereyou liveto give advice if you put a little with your screen ID as yoiu can see I live in England about as far from the sea as you can get on my side of the pond. As to your request make sure it will stand the weather if its going to be out doors

 Is your layout indoors or outdoors?

!/8 inch ply won't hold up outdoors very long. If outdoors use 1/4 inch ply at least

1/8 inch ply can be found at many hobby or craft shops. 1/4 inch at the home depot.

Scale lumber and shingles can be found here - 

http://www.spjrr.com/spjrr/index.php

http://www.gardentexture.com/sbs.htm 

 -Brian

Sorry about that -- still learning this forum stuff. Name is Don and I live in Huntington Indiana.

Thanks

Don

CCrail

CCrail is under construction and consists of a main line and a secondary line servicing a lumber mill and mine. about 450 ft of track. It is an outside project.

Don

ccrail:

Sorry about that -- still learning this forum stuff. Name is Don and I live in Huntington Indiana. Thanks Don ccrail

Don: Don't worry about that. Yes, it helps us when answering questions to who and where. But we just help each other, that's the way things work around here. Still a bit confused why you want to use plywood. Everything I've done in plywood has split, peeled, and in general just plain fallen apart. I use either redwood or cedar fence panels. Yes, it means a big bunch of time at the table saw ripping the boards, but that's just the way I like to do things. I will forewarn you now, anything I tell you is the way ‘I prefer' not necessarily the cheapest or the most popular. With very few exceptions, around here the ONLY CORRECT way of doing something is the way you prefer. I mean, after all this is your hobby, you should enjoy it the way you like it.

Thanks-- I just want to know what people are using, why and where to get it. I prefer cedar or redwood as they last in the winters we have in the midwest. I just didn't know whats out there. The above web sites are helpful. Has any one used foam board for buildings?

 Don,

I have used a variety of materials for my buildings I have a structure section on my GR blog - http://www.grblogs.com/index.php/structures/?blog=25

Foam insulation board with plastic veneers is one of my favorites -

detailed here - http://www.grblogs.com/index.php/2008/03/26/silver-spring-station?blog=25

I haven't had the chance to add my latest to the blog -

but its detailed here -

http://www.largescalecentral.com/LSCForums/viewtopic.php?id=11502

 -Brian

 If you can find a hobby shop in your neck of the woods that sells radio control airplanes, it should stock lots of model aircraft grade plywood, which comes in thicknesses of 1/32 to1/8 inch.  Properly sealed and painted, it may be suitable for outdoor use.

I've found many items made for model airplanes can be used for G scale trains.

I built the station from pvc plastic(house trim) from Home Depot,and Menard's You can glue it with glue they use for plumbing pipes.

So why do you need to change the type of building materal you are using when it seems you have made a good choice??

Being nosey

Dave

great pics. Thank you all for the help

Very nice buildings Brian.

I to have been experimenting building my own buildings and have for the past six months made quite good progress on some of my creations, why buy when you can build it yourself I say.

 I live in Dallas / Texas so the weather can be a bit brutal during the summer. This has been my first year of outdoor model building.

http://littleenglandmodelvillage.weebly.com/index.html

I first create my building out of 10 cm thick of plywood and cut to shape. Using a artists knife, I then coat on the walls with a pre mixed concreate mix called Stucco and you can find this at any Home Depot for about $6. It dries quite quickly (being in Dallas 100f heat I am not suprised) but whilst drying, I then scribe in the brick work. Once dried I sand down and paint.

The roof is actually the shingle you have on your real house. I take a piece, cut in to strips and then scribe the tile on the strip to give a roofing effect. I then stick down using the Stucco which gives it a really strong bind and used to fill in any missing gaps.

So far most of the buildings are standing up to the weather. I am busy building more but always looking to better my techniques.

The only problem I have is trying to get my brick work to be better in detail and look for any suggestions on how to make it look more 'building like'.

The other thing I could use is to find a good supplier of doors and windows which I make, but again need to be more detailed.

Simon