Card vs Plastic vs Hybrid vs Other?

[andythetree]

Happy New Year everyone.  Please understand that I am not trying to start WW3 here, just looking for a little clarity in the modelling world.  Please bear with me as this is a lengthy post.  Unfortunately it needs to be to examine the issues, but if you manage to reach the end of it I would welcome your opinions.

 

A little background.  I have been a modeller for the best part of 50 years, starting with a railway (the ubiquitous Hornby loop, much extended), dabbling in N gauge, moving on to RC offshore racing boats, other RC boats, RC trucks and plant in 1:14 and many other stops along the way.  As I now approach retirement of sorts and I have the time, I want to start another railway, well two actually if I am allowed.  One will be a RC garden railway in O gauge, the other will be indoors in N gauge.

 

Considering just the indoor railway, I have done a lot of reading and research, and it seems to me that there are two distinct camps when it comes to the buildings.  On my left, in the blue corner, we have the card modellers and on my right, in the red corner, we have the plastic modellers.  And it seems to a beginner like me the fight can be a bit brutal. I consider myself a beginner simply because it has been 50 years since I built a building for a railway.

 

Building Kits

Card kits from the leaders in the industry have certainly come a very long way in my time.  The instructions are much clearer, the printing and pre-cutting is to a much higher standard, even the variety on offer is much improved.  Yet they still have issues.  How to give them relief on individual faces of the building and the roof, how to deal with the corners,  fragility  and last but not least the sheer numbers of layouts up and down the country using exactly the same building you have in the same colours.

 

Plastic kits have also come a long way too, particularly if you want to model the continent.  Often they are pre-coloured  and it is hard to disguise the fact that they are, well "plasticy".  They too are fragile.  It has to be said though that they are streets ahead on texture, and they should last well on the layout.

 

I think that card vs plastic is pretty much a draw.  Each has benefits and each has flaws.

 

3d printing

The new kid on the block, and varies between brilliant and bin fodder in terms of quality.  Still has to be painted and finished.  Unless you want to spend a lot of time learning a totally new skill you once again are restricted to what is available commercially. which is patchy at best.

 

Scratch Building

Surely then the solution is obvious.  Build your own.  But out of what?  The same issues apply as with the kits, and there are extra ones too. 

 

With card it would seem to be possible to build really quite accurate scale models with relief and texture.  Windows, doors and other parts can be sourced from specialist retailers, in wood or plastic or even resin.  Then comes the issue of painting it, and whilst the skills can be learnt, they are not easy to master.

 

Working with plastic is not too hard either, once you have mastered the use of MEKPAK anyway.  And the range of sheets of brick or stone etc generate the required relief.  It is still just as difficult to paint and finish the buildings though.

 

Hybrid systems

The so-called halfway system using designs you print at home would seem to be a sensible solution to a lot of these issues.  Pretty much all of them use paper and card, though I suppose one could substitute plastic for the card in the actual structure and some makers have linked with door and window suppliers to ensure straight swaps.  There could be an issue with delamination, hopefully the correct glue could minimise that but I have my doubts about using self-adhesive labels.  Then there is the quality of the printer to consider and the inks.  Many inks fade very badly over time.  Finishing with a clear lacquer solves this I believe.

 

If you still want to be different then it is possible to use your own designs just by using the texture sheets of materials. 

 

A hybrid system using card and printed material sheets would be my choice at the moment. 

 

Thanks for reading this far.  Anyone want to change my mind or confirm my thoughts?

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Being of similar hobby-years to yourself, I’d say you’ve nailed most of the questions, but suggest that you might think about wood too.

 

There are good laser-cut kits made from decent plywood, there are laser-cut kits made from some sort of thin MDF, and those two materials are very different, and there is scratch building in wood, usually ply and fine strip-wood.

 

Wood is a ‘3D and paint’ material, like plastic, and can be mixed with card used in the same way, which is distinct in my mind from printed materials.

 

Positive things about wood: the adhesives and paints used are not so noxious as with plastic; it is very robust; it’s life-span is known, and very great if not exposed to damp; it’s sustainable.

 

Negatives: it can be more difficult to get fine detail than in plastic; it is quite a slow material to use; getting very fine surface finish is not easy.

 

Personally, I like wood, and think it is much under-rated or neglected in the U.K. as a railway modelling material. Ship modellers particularly know how to use wood, and produce superbly detailed wooden models.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Nearholmer

[brossard]

I think I have had a bash at most of the methods you mention, although not 3D prints.

 

There are pros and cons to all of them.

 

For my latest layout in 7mm, I have used Scalescenes (delivered in 4mm scale but can be rescaled easily).  These are akin to scratch building in that you have to cut everything out manually and this can be tedious if you are using thick card.  A big pro is that everything is pre-coloured, so no painting needed.  You do need a decent printer and have to source the paper and card yourself.

 

I have also used Lcut laser cut kits.  The material used is neither ply nor card.  They are less expensive than laser cut ply and there is a good range in both 4mm and 7mm.  These kits need to be coloured but I used Scalescenes brick paper to face mine.

 

I can live without brick texture because the advantages outweigh this.

 

Scalescenes:  https://scalescenes.com/

Lcut:  http://lcut.co.uk/index.php?page=pages/main&title=Main

 

John

Edited January 1, 2022 by brossard

[Nearholmer]

I've just realised: you are talking about 2mm/ft here, aren't you?

 

In which scale even quite large buildings are very small. 

 

I tend to bang-on about wood, but what about sawn wooden blocks for the basic shapes of buildings, with roofs from 1.5mm ply, and detailing from 1mm ply, good material as supplied for building model aircraft? Use of a plain block for the basic shape implies no relief at door/window reveals, so if thats too toy-like, then 1.5mm ply for any walls with doors or windows.

 

You could skin with brickpaper, but TBH I think most brickpapers look wrong in 2mm, and that plain painted finish works better from normal viewing distances.

 

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by Nearholmer

[brossard]

2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I've just realised: you are talking about 2mm/ft here, aren't you?

 

I saw mention of N and 0.  Scalescenes deliver their kits in N as well as 00.  Other than that, my knowledge of N is next to nil.

 

John

[DGO]

It's an interesting question because (and I may be wrong here) we also need to consider scale, at n gauge texture is much less important, I have been very impressed with the Chandwell model railway which is on youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/Chandwell he has got a lot of detail into his buildings with mainly printed textures glued to nothing more than cereal boxes. As you go up in scale I personally think you need to add more details, so at HO/OO I prefer a more solid structure than paper and card, I personally am very slowly working on an HO Alpine station which will have laser cut and etched metal, 3d printed resin parts, brass sections, laser cut mdf and ply and probably laser cut thin card as well plus various bits of styrene, you might call it a true hybrid, each part is being 3d modelled so that I can check fit etc and each material has been chosen for specific reasons, so for example MDF is going to be used for reinforced concrete walls and floors whilst ply will be used for the upper levels that are from interlocking beams.

 

A lot I think comes down to how happy you are with your own skills so if painting lots of bricks or stonework is not your thing go for the printed materials 

[phil_sutters]

You may find some useful pointers in this thread. Grahame has also produced a booklet/magazine with many of his methods. I doubt that he has any left, but they may turn up second-hand.  The buildings he has constructed are very varied, despite being in a central London location. The images of his buildings on the earlier pages seem to have disappeared, may be when the RMweb platform changed, so try the more recent pages.

 

Edited January 1, 2022 by phil_sutters

[Nearholmer]

I read the 0 as being outdoors, so unless the buildings are to only go out in fine weather very different considerations apply.

 

My experience is that the elements can be cruel to small scale outdoor model buildings, and that very few methods are truly durable without a lot of maintenance. An unusual material that I've seen used with success is copper sheet, which can be worked and soldered very easily, and lasts forever. Plastics don't do particularly well, cardboard clearly not, and wood tends to get eaten by bugs, or attacked by fungus after a while, whatever methods are used to preserve it.

[andythetree]

First of all may I offer heartfelt thanks to all those who have contributed to this thread so far.  Your comments and your advice are considered and very useful to me and to other beginners.  No trace of "this is how I do it and any other way is simply wrong" which I had feared.

 

Nearholmer I agree with your comments about wood, it is a much underrated construction material, but it is tricky at 2mm scale. A workshop where wood is being worked always smells of quality and so much nicer than the chemicals we use.  You are also correct in your assumption that the 7mm scale would be outdoors and that opens a whole new can of worms.

 

brossard  Thanks for your contribution.  I am familiar with Scalescenes and have downloaded the freebie to try it out.  There also seem to be a lot of fans in this forum and they have been around for a while now, so all that is a big plus.  What do you print the "top layer" on, and how do you then stick it without bubbles on the card bases?

 

phil_sutters  Thanks for pointing me in the direction of  Grahame.  Superb work, and I shall enjoy reading through the entire thread.  A snap look at a few pages would seem to suggest that Grahame is in favour of all sorts of hybrid solutions and having seen the quality of the end product I feel a lot more confident that I might be moving in the correct direction.

[brossard]

2 hours ago, andythetree said:

brossard  Thanks for your contribution.  I am familiar with Scalescenes and have downloaded the freebie to try it out.  There also seem to be a lot of fans in this forum and they have been around for a while now, so all that is a big plus.  What do you print the "top layer" on, and how do you then stick it without bubbles on the card bases?

 

I use decent photocopier paper for the coloured cover layer and a good inkjet printer.  For 4mm scale, you need 2mm, 1mm and 0.5mm thick card as indicated in the instructions.  I get mine from art supply stores.

 

Gluing the top or cover layer.  For large areas of the template base, I use spray glue on both the card and cover layer surfaces.  Use a rubber roller to ensure there are no bubbles.

 

For the coloured cover layer, I use a Pritt glue stick and the rubber roller again. 

 

Here are some of the materials I use:

 

 

The canopy glue is useful for sticking plastic parts, like window frames, to the card.  In fact it does a pretty good job on most materials.

 

When assembling, I like to decant some PVA into a container and apply with a brush.  Trying to squeeze the glue from the bottle to the model can be messy.

 

John

[acg5324]

I am currently building a model of Kensington Olympia circa 1980 in  N gauge. As you can imagine there are a lot of buildings. Over the years I have tended to prefer scratchbuilding in plasticard. But for Olympia have used modified Metcalfe card kits for retaining walls. Modified Kingsway Card kits for the streets of Georgian town houses. The station buildings and signal boxes are all scratchbuilt in plasticard but with Scalescenes downloaded brick paper etc. The rest of the feature buildings are scratchbuilt, mostly card frames with plasticard facias. I have even used a couple of Faller kits where appropriate. 
The long and the short of it is I don’t think there are two camps, three, four or even five. It’s largely what ever works for you. There’s no right or wrong.

There are some great layout threads on RMweb, many with some superb buildings. 

I’d check out Grahame Hedges card building thread for London Bridge……also Shirebrook, Blueball Summit and Chandwell and those are just a few on the N gauge ones. Kensington Olympia isn’t bad either!

 

[Pete the Elaner]

When I first heard about 3d printing, all I saw was complete models designed & printed. This is not at all how I use it.

I wanted to make some buildings from scratch but ready made window frames were not right for what I wanted. I was shown how to cur frames from styrene but they looked inconsistent, so I binned the scratchbuilding for the time being.

I found 3d printing was great for consistently making small quantities of something. Window frames were a good starting point for 3d design too.

The walls & roof of my buildings are still cut from plastic with a scalpel.

[AndrueC]

Not forgetting plaster moulds

 

I used these on my layout for a down ramp. A bit messy and the silicon moulds gradually deteriorated but overall worked well.

 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TLBLbu5h7bN3xMRw8

 

You get better textures than with card or wood and probably best of all for stone effects. Might even be more cost effective depending on how long the moulds last.

 

I think overall I prefer card because you don't have to paint it (other than the edges) but wood is a good second-best due to the surface texture.

Edited January 3, 2022 by AndrueC

[Edward]

Very thought provoking thread this has been.  As a newish modeller working in 4mm ( though ancient in years perhaps) one or two comments may be of interest.  I did try the plastic Craftsman kits but hated all the filing and piercing needed and could not get a reasonable finish so that was just down to the skill set I didn't have.

I am much happier with card and printing off coloured brick sheets and the like.  More or less have stopped using 2mm card and although less rigid with 1mm or less,  have found the model's strength quite acceptable. 

I agree with the comments above that too many kits can give a sameness that overwhelms a sense of place.   

At normal viewing distances in 4mm you can't really see the lack of relief as the colours seem to take over.

It seems to be very important to have a sort of common palate of colour across a layout.

 

Final point:  you must keep water etc off your finished buildings ( grievous experience)!!

 

 

 

[mike morley]

With regard to scratchbuilt buildings, a lot will depend on personal preference and where the model will eventually go.

For instance, I much prefer card for buildings, but my layout room is in a cellar that despite having far more spent on it than I could either justify or afford remains too damp for anything as absorbent as card to last very long.  Thus I find myself forced to use plastic, which I find nowhere near as versatile or user-friendly.

 

My advice would be to try everything and see what suits you and your needs best.

[andythetree]

17 hours ago, acg5324 said:

I am currently building a model of Kensington Olympia circa 1980 in  N gauge. As you can imagine there are a lot of buildings. Over the years I have tended to prefer scratchbuilding in plasticard. But for Olympia have used modified Metcalfe card kits for retaining walls. Modified Kingsway Card kits for the streets of Georgian town houses. The station buildings and signal boxes are all scratchbuilt in plasticard but with Scalescenes downloaded brick paper etc. The rest of the feature buildings are scratchbuilt, mostly card frames with plasticard facias. I have even used a couple of Faller kits where appropriate. 
The long and the short of it is I don’t think there are two camps, three, four or even five. It’s largely what ever works for you. There’s no right or wrong.

There are some great layout threads on RMweb, many with some superb buildings. 

I’d check out Grahame Hedges card building thread for London Bridge……also Shirebrook, Blueball Summit and Chandwell and those are just a few on the N gauge ones. Kensington Olympia isn’t bad either!

 

Wonderful work, I shall be very pleased if I can reach your standard.

 

[andythetree]

3 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

When I first heard about 3d printing, all I saw was complete models designed & printed. This is not at all how I use it.

I wanted to make some buildings from scratch but ready made window frames were not right for what I wanted. I was shown how to cur frames from styrene but they looked inconsistent, so I binned the scratchbuilding for the time being.

I found 3d printing was great for consistently making small quantities of something. Window frames were a good starting point for 3d design too.

The walls & roof of my buildings are still cut from plastic with a scalpel.

Very interesting.  So in essence you use 3d printing as the 21st century version of using a mould to cast copies of something.  I must admit I hadn't really thought about it in this way.  I remain wary though of the learning curve of a new technology.

[andythetree]

It would appear that I have forgotten one key issue which both Edward and Mike Morely have raised above.

 

I was careful to distinguish between my indoor 2mm scale plans and my 7mm outdoor plans, knowing that water would play a massive part in what worked.  Card structures, whether of the Metcalfe variety or clad in paper or even plastic sheet, will never survive outdoors, even in a UK summer.

 

But what are the issues indoors with water and damp?  In a damp celler or an attic with massive variations in humidity and temperature, are there any problems with delamination and/or warping?  Do any of you use a protective coat of a varnish or lacquer to protect the finished item?  And if you do, do you also coat as far as possible the inner surfaces too?  As an example, in my other life of RC boats I have found that it is wise to coat all sides of any wooden structure, even above the waterline, with a coat of a matt varnish to avoid warping.  And let's face it, card is merely a processed form of wood!

 

I have come across some inkjet papers suitable for photos, so a matt finish that will give excellent quality of reproduction, that already have a waterproof adhesive applied to the back.  I think I will send for some and try a few experiments.

[brossard]

Yes, it is important to use matte varnish on your prints (Krylon in my case), preferably as soon as they come off the "press".  I never bothered with the inside but my place is pretty dry (too dry in the winter).

 

Another dodge that I've been playing with is to print some things onto self adhesive paper.  I use the full page stuff.  It is quite a lot more expensive than plain paper so I use it strategically.

 

John

[mike morley]

Varnishing is okay in theory, but not in practice.

For a start, a varnish that is suitable for,say, a brick wall will not look right on, say, a planked wall.  Using a different varnish for every different type of surface being portrayed is not practical.  I've often seen applying the varnish before you start being suggested but to me that defeats the object of the exercise and you might as well use plastic.

Also, it is all but impossible to varnish all of a structure - inside and out - and in a damp atmosphere moisture will find every nook and cranny you missed very quickly indeed.

Edited January 3, 2022 by mike morley

[brossard]

22 minutes ago, mike morley said:

Varnishing is okay in theory, but not in practice.

For a start, a varnish that is suitable for,say, a brick wall will not look right on, say, a planked wall.  Using a different varnish for every different type of surface being portrayed is not practical.  I've often seen applying the varnish before you start being suggested but to me that defeats the object of the exercise and you might as well use plastic.

Also, it is all but impossible to varnish all of a structure - inside and out - and in a damp atmosphere moisture will find every nook and cranny you missed very quickly indeed.

 

From what I have read here in various threads, "varnish" means different things to different people.  This is what I am talking about:

 

https://www.deserres.ca/products/matte-finish-spray-varnish?gclid=Cj0KCQiA2sqOBhCGARIsAPuPK0iaKkkcy-AKRRlL_SZxkAVzer032i5TQee3Mi_mywf_wqwQ6-oSM3QaAmjEEALw_wcB&variant=39426641952901

 

Dries very quickly, about 5 mins, contrary to what the blurb says and protects the finish from boo boos during assembly.

 

John

[Pete the Elaner]

On 03/01/2022 at 14:34, andythetree said:

Very interesting.  So in essence you use 3d printing as the 21st century version of using a mould to cast copies of something.  I must admit I hadn't really thought about it in this way.  I remain wary though of the learning curve of a new technology.

 

Yes, something like that.

I considered a complete model to be too steep a learning curve. When I mention 3d printing to some & they light up then respond "could you make me a wagon" I decline because it would take me months of dedication to get to that level & I wouldn't even be prepared to learn it for something I wanted myself.

I started off with window frames, which are easy to me now but challenging at first. I have since got a little more adventurous:

Replacement axle box covers for my Hattons class 66.

MW jumper boxes for class 86/0, 86/3, 86/4 & 87.

LNWR chimney stacks (as an example, these took 12 hours to design then a further 8 hours to make the brickwork a little deeper)

Door/porchway

Coach seating

70s style station lamps

 

Once I had designed a couple of things, it simply became another building method to enable me to build something closer to what I actually wanted rather than make do with something which was not quite right.

 

[Pete the Elaner]

On 03/01/2022 at 11:50, Edward said:

Very thought provoking thread this has been.  As a newish modeller working in 4mm ( though ancient in years perhaps) one or two comments may be of interest.  I did try the plastic Craftsman kits but hated all the filing and piercing needed and could not get a reasonable finish so that was just down to the skill set I didn't have.

I am much happier with card and printing off coloured brick sheets and the like.  More or less have stopped using 2mm card and although less rigid with 1mm or less,  have found the model's strength quite acceptable. 

I agree with the comments above that too many kits can give a sameness that overwhelms a sense of place.   

At normal viewing distances in 4mm you can't really see the lack of relief as the colours seem to take over.

It seems to be very important to have a sort of common palate of colour across a layout.

 

Final point:  you must keep water etc off your finished buildings ( grievous experience)!!

 

 

 

 

The Wills Craftsman kits are really just a set of scratchbuilding components with plans. Very rewarding if that is what you want, but a bit overwhelming if you expect a kit of ready cut walls which you can stick together.

[monkeysarefun]

On 05/01/2022 at 03:14, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Yes, something like that.

I considered a complete model to be too steep a learning curve. When I mention 3d printing to some & they light up then respond "could you make me a wagon" I decline because it would take me months of dedication to get to that level & I wouldn't even be prepared to learn it for something I wanted myself.

I started off with window frames, which are easy to me now but challenging at first. I have since got a little more adventurous:

Replacement axle box covers for my Hattons class 66.

MW jumper boxes for class 86/0, 86/3, 86/4 & 87.

LNWR chimney stacks (as an example, these took 12 hours to design then a further 8 hours to make the brickwork a little deeper)

Door/porchway

Coach seating

70s style station lamps

 

Once I had designed a couple of things, it simply became another building method to enable me to build something closer to what I actually wanted rather than make do with something which was not quite right.

 

 

The introduction of cheap SLA resin printers has really opened up 3D printing as an option for printing small details, brackets, chimney pots, window frames, doors and so on, if not for whole buildings - though I do do that too, the main limit is the print bed size.

 

3d programmes like Tinkercad and Sketchup, or the one that comes free bundled with Windows now   are easy to learn, at least to the point that you can draw up a chimney pot, windows, pannelled doors  or whatever.  I can draw up a chimney pot in Sketchup in literally 30 seconds, and after some subsequent processing steps print off several hundred  of them, all identical  in one go  in less than an hours  printing time. I might only need 8 but its good to have several hundred spares for when you drop them and lose  them on the carpet.

 

Printers like the Mars 3, Mars 2,  Anycubic Mono and any number of others now out there can print incredible detail, for better than I could ever produce by hand given their Z layer height of .01mm and XY resolution down to  .035mm.

 

One thing I've been dabbling with in conjunction with 3D printing is photogrammetry. There are free programmes out there, some for mobile phones now.  Its really expanded what I can build without needing to be an expert sculptor (in either actual materials or in a 3D sculpting tool) and when printed on a resin printer the detail is finer than I can see with the naked eye. IF a building has say a particular intricate carved bracket, or worse many identical ones, now (assuming it is in practical distance) I can photograph it, produce a model with complete accuracy  and print off as many as I need, all identical and costing less than a cent each.

 

 

 

 

 

It really is like science fiction - you can create a plastic model of pretty much anything now! (if you feel like having a bash at it, start with graves or statues, they are the easiest to get pics of them in their entirety, and their non reflectiveness gives more accurate results!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[DCB]

The 0 gauge is likely to be the bigger challenge.  We have only a small section of outdoor branch in 00 it's about 10 years old but the plastic kit station buildings have not fared well, UV light has faded and weakened them, making the plastic brittle, and sunlight has warped the thin sheet quite dramatically.   Outside it's difficult to get paint to stick to the plastic buildings, it flakes off in sheets, a single coat of rattle can seems optimum.  Wood is a good material for representing wood, as is small chips of  Anthracite for representing coal.  Aluminium looks like aluminium.

I find old plastic computer cases provide excellent material for scratch building, both rolling stock and particularly buildings. Much thicker and more rigid than shop plasticard.  I glue it with Evostick pipe weld, but again getting paint to stick, as in for five years outdoors, is a challenge

 

Even indoors daylight is the enemy of printed material.  Even Superquick and Mercalfe fade in direct sunlight. Ink jet printing fades rapidly, Lazer copies  lasts much better but as I no longer have access to colour lazer copying I have taken to making signs, shop signs signal box, station signs, carriage destination boards etc by designing on the lap top and having them printed as photographs at Tesco.  Too glossy for brickwork but OK for representing enamel.     I did loads of brick papers on a lazer,  Superquick knock offs but different shades and colours.