Scratch Building using wood, Part 1
Advanced scratch building tequniques using wood,
This blog is the first in a series that will show the complete scratch building of the Lumber yard on the New Bourneville HO scale model railroad,
Scratch building is a very good way of personalising your model railroad or model railway, you can make buildings to fit an area or make a model of a building that is not available to purchase, ready built or as a kit, these buildings can be built using lots of different materials, most used would be some form of plastic, but for this project we will be using wood.
Plastic or plasticard is not the easiest material to make look like wood, so why not use the real thing, you won't have the problem of weathering plastic etc at the end of a project to look like wood, it already does!
In this first part we will be looking into research & planning, along with some of the materials that will be used.
Research & Planning
One of the most important stages of scratch building is the research, this can done by visiting the building to be modelled and taking photographs and measurements, or researching online, using GoogleMaps if you know the location of said building, you might find photographs online ect, or you could use scale drawings (if you can find some) after your reseach you might even make a scale drawing yourself, but which ever way you go about your research, you will need measurements from which you work from.
Living in the UK, I rely a lot on my library of books and magazines, which help me a lot, as I can look at how others have modelled similar buildings or areas that I'm looking at adding to New Bourneville, on looking through my books I found the one below.
And inside was this section, which has given me a good base on which to start planning, these drawings along with a few photographs of the Authors build on his layout, gave me a good idea on what I can use and how to tackle this build.
Materials
So what wood is available to us for modelling, lots is the answer, and it doesn't have to be expensive, one of the best is "coffee stirrers" nearly all of my wooden scratch built buildings on the layout have all been built using FREE coffee stirrers! yes free, I collect a hand full every time I go to a coffee outlet or a quick food outlet such as McDonalds, you can quite quickly build up a good stock, by verying your place of supply!! even different sizes, if this isn't for you, you can purchase them online or at your local model shop.
I also use basla wood and strip wood, the strip wood for building strong supports bracing etc, the balsa wood for bases, sometimes walls, but more often I cut the basla wood onto strips of varying widths using a basla wood cutter, I mostly use PVA glue, as I like fact that you have time make sure the fit is correct, and that it completely dries clear, also you can if needed pull it apart if you make a mistake, if you use a quick drying glue you can't do this.
By researching and planning, you can work out what materials you will need, and gather these before you start the project.
Stage 3 Summary
If you are a experinced modeller you will know how to cover the above stages for this or any project, but if this is your first time at scratch building talk with somebody, either a friend or visit your local hobby shop, and ask their advice on materials and tools needed (which I will cover in another blog)
With all your research/ planning and materials gathered it's time to start, look out for part two in this series, along with looking at the New Bourneville youtube site, for more help and advice.
Thanks for reading.
Коментари