Large building kits, city centre style

[Jamiel]

Sorry for monopolising this thread, but here are a couple of photos of the finished (probably) building. Details of the build are on my Ellerby thread linked in my signature.

 

Jamie

[davefromacrossthepond]

Jamie,

 

Way way way cool.  Thanks for posting!

 

Dave

[rob D2]

Nice work ! Totally forgotten about this thread I started in 2012...!

[Jamiel]

I have another build underway using the Kibri Cornerhouse kit and some sections I cast off in resin to extend it.
 

Details of the build are on my Ellerby thread from - https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/53110-ellerby-buildings-rolling-stock-scratch-kit-building/&do=findComment&comment=3565170

I will post images of the build , which I am calling the Arcade when it is finished. As well as expanding this from the Kibri kit, I am also (very loosely) referencing the buildings on Kirkgate in Leeds.

Jamie

[Dungrange]

Has anyone used the Walthers Cornerstone United States Post Office building in a UK context?  From the image on the Gaugemaster website (link below), I don't think it would look out of place in a UK town centre, but I'm interested to know what others think.  Does it look big enough to fit with 00, as in my opinion, many model buildings seem too small?

 

http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=WH933-3782&style=&strType=&Mcode=Walthers+Cornerstone+933-3782

[Jamiel]

I think that looks like an excellent building to use.

 

I haven’t had any issues using HO buildings on my 4mm layout. I even mix brick types and scales and unless you get close and look out for that it isn’t noticeable. With a stone building you would avoid that problem.

 

With some buildings I have extended the ground floor height, but I didn’t in the one pictured above (from two Walthers book stores) as it has high shop windows anyway. With the post office you could just add to the stone ground course without having to touch the windows, but my gut feeling is the grund floor height would not show.

 

As the post office is already a large building in HO, I think the size of it, as opposed to the scale would also help make it fit a 4mm layout

 

The one thing with that building that does not appeal to me is the one story raised section on top of the roof, that doesn’t feel like it is from the UK. You could always use it as a building behind the main one. You might want to add a pitched roof, or perhaps just leave it plain. This is probably just my personal taste, or prejudice, it may work fine for you.

In Leeds there are a couple of buildings together with both flat and pitched roofs on that style of building, where Regent Street goes under the A64 – I hope this link works.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leeds/@53.8014451,-1.5344233,126a,35y,164.03h,45t/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x48793e4ada64bd99:0x51adbafd0213dca9!8m2!3d53.8007554!4d-1.5490774

 

I might also be tempted to remove the low awning above the main door, and perhaps add some detail of you own, even a UK Post Office sign.

 

31A has used HO scale stone clad buildings to good effect on his Finsbury Square layout to make the administrative buildings for the LNER (I think) against the back wall of the layout.

 

https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/83030-train-spotting-at-finsbury-square/

 

 

I think to a large extent it comes down to what compromises annoy you and which don’t. I think that most people seeing that on a layout would simply like the quality of the model.

 

I hope that helps.

 

Jamie

[Dungrange]

On 19/09/2019 at 13:31, Jamiel said:

The one thing with that building that does not appeal to me is the one story raised section on top of the roof, that doesn’t feel like it is from the UK. You could always use it as a building behind the main one. You might want to add a pitched roof, or perhaps just leave it plain. This is probably just my personal taste, or prejudice, it may work fine for you.

Jamie,

 

Thanks for your thoughts.  Like you, I'm not quite sure about the presence of what the instructions refer to as a Machine Building on the roof.  I suspect that this is assumed to house what would be the plant that may operate a lift within the building.  However, although the building may be a little larger than some H0 models, in reality it's not that large a building and one that perhaps would only have a central stair well.  Leaving it off would leave a hole in the floor, but I presume that could be filled with plasticard.  That said, there would probably still be a need to provide access to the roof and the building that you refer to in Leeds has a much less obvious access in one corner.

 

On 19/09/2019 at 13:31, Jamiel said:

I might also be tempted to remove the low awning above the main door, and perhaps add some detail of you own, even a UK Post Office sign.

 

You may be right about omitting the awning above the main door.  I'm not sure if the main door is something that would have to be made bigger, but I suppose it would be possible to fit a larger door and a couple of steps to the front if it seemed necessary to raise the base slightly.  As for whether it should be a post office, I'm not sure.  It just looks like a plain enough building not to look out of place in a UK setting.  I may just look at making it local government offices.

[grahame]

I'd certainly consider enlarging the main doors. Doors and entrances to large buildings can be big, particularly in city centres where the buildings tend to be commercial, corporate and municipal and thus often prestigious.

 

I'm in the position of making buildings for a forthcoming layout but being based on a real location they need to be scratch-built. They're not exact replicas as there is still a need for some compression and compromise and they are N/2mm scale. Here's an unfinished one of Demark/Emblem House in Tooley Street at London Bridge:

 

 

From a photo of the real building I'd estimate the main doors to be around 8 feet tall and the sills of the ground floor windows are over the heads of passers-by:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dungrange]

On 21/09/2019 at 15:25, grahame said:

I'd certainly consider enlarging the main doors. Doors and entrances to large buildings can be big, particularly in city centres where the buildings tend to be commercial, corporate and municipal and thus often prestigious.

 

That's a nice model of Demark/Emblem House.  Obviously that is scratchbuilt and in 2 mm scale, but is anyone aware of a source of larger doors in 00?  All the plastic door and window packs that I seem to have found on-line don't have the prestigious look of commercial, corporate or municipal buildings.

[Dungrange]

On 20/02/2012 at 12:49, Red Devil said:

The entire street on my 'Grime Street' layout was made from anglicised DPM kits.

 

Can you possibly elaborate on your approach to anglicising the DPM kits?  Looking at the range, these are a number of panels that are glued together to give different window positions etc.  However, whilst the modules are obviously scale-able, I'm not sure what to change to make the buildings more British looking.  Obviously building a pitched roof (the range seems to be focused on flat roof buildings), but apart from that, is it just the additional of details like down-pipes etc?

Edited October 4, 2019 by Dungrange
missing bracket

[Dungrange]

On 20/02/2012 at 15:49, 66C said:

 

Hi Rob

 

Have a look at the DPM modular system - website here:

 

http://woodlandsceni...gory/DPMHOScale

 

You can download the planning pack FOR FREE from here:

 

http://woodlandsceni...show/item/30191

 

The planning pack can be printed so that a mock-up of a proposed structure can be made in advance of purchasing the kits.

 

Here is an example of what can be done - a shopping centre in low relief (it is about 3 feet long):

 

 

 

I'm assuming that you have used the 'street level' modules for each floor of the shopping centre to provide the increased vertical spacing between the floors.  Is that correct? 

[grahame]

12 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

That's a nice model of Demark/Emblem House.  Obviously that is scratchbuilt and in 2 mm scale, but is anyone aware of a source of larger doors in 00?  All the plastic door and window packs that I seem to have found on-line don't have the prestigious look of commercial, corporate or municipal buildings.

 

Try Scene-setters glazing grids to make windows whatever size you want. And for doors it is easy to make your own - two layers of plastcard laminated together with the panelling reveals cut out of the top one is the basic start with any details required added.

 

To get the right look/design/style check out the doors of real similar buildings and replicate those or base your model ones on them with appropriate tweaks.

 

[Dungrange]

Having asked above about the Walthers Cornerstone US Post Office, I decided to purchase this kit to assess first hand what would need to be done to make it look more like a UK building in 00.  I therefore thought I'd place my initial findings here.  First up, this is the kit I'm referring to.

 

 

Although it may be a reasonably sized kit by H0 standards, it would still be rather small for 00 if built exactly as per the instructions.  Below is an image of the front panel alongside a couple of pieces from the DPM 20th Century modular pack which others have referred to earlier.  Both are sold as H0 models and both are three storeys high, but the lack of height in the Walthers building is noticeable.  I have no concerns with using the DPM modules in a 00 setting: they feel like they were made for 00.

 

 

The space for the front door is just 25 mm in height and the double door moulding that is meant to fit in this space is just 23 mm in height.  Since that equates to just 5' 9" in 00, it's clear that a new door will be required, especially for what should be an impressive building.  With a ground floor, floor to ceiling height of around 40 mm (a scale 10'), I think it's best to leave the lintel above the door frame in the same location and increase the height of each wall by gluing something like a 6 mm strip of plasticard to the base of each wall.  This would create a floor to ceiling height of closer to 12' and help to reduce the substantial difference in ground floor height between these two buildings.  Whilst adding height at the front should be relatively straightforward, the rear of the building is in brick, so the extra height will have to be achieved with brick.  The DPM dock walling may be an option, but I'll look at other possible options.

 

The middle floor is just 37 mm from floor to floor, so it's a bit tight to imagine a room with an 8' floor to ceiling height at this level.  Whilst that's typical for a modern domestic property, its a bit less than a typical city centre building.  However, I think that's something that I'll just have to live with as I can't see an easy way to change this.    The top floor can accommodate a greater floor to ceiling height because of the height above the top floor windows to accommodate a sign and the cornice.  As such, I think this is okay as is.

 

 

One welcome 'surprise' is that the kit contains a pitched roof that is not shown or referred to in the instructions.  The intended 'machine building' which is supposed to sit on the roof is pretty big in terms of floor area (116 mm x 68 mm) and seems out of proportion with the rest of the building.  As such, I think I'll omit this and use it elsewhere on my planned layout as a standalone building - a line side hut or similar mess facilities.  The pitched roof means that I can cover the large hole in the roof of the Post Office building with either the flat roof from the machine building, and use the pitched roof on the standalone building, or vice versa.  I'm not sure which would be best, so I'm open to the opinions of others on that one.  The only issue with the pitched roof, is that it looks rather like terracotta tiles, which feels like it would be a little out of place on the top of the post office building and I'm struggling to understand why a pitched roof like that would sit in the middle of an otherwise flat roof.

 

One of the problems with a model railway is that we often get a birds eye view of roofs (so need to try and model them accurately), whereas in reality what a roof on a building like this looks like is something that I have no knowledge of.  Obviously it's time to go looking at aerial photographs of city centre buildings.

 

Anyway, I hope this ramble may be of use to someone else.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Dungrange

[PatB]

Sounds to be rather compressed, even for H0. At 3.5mm scale, the front door still only translates toless than 7' which isn't really enough for a large, imposing public building. It seems to be closer to 1:100 than 1:87, something I've heard before with regard to US and some European kits. I guess it gives 3mm scale modellers something to work with. 

[Dungrange]

I agree that the US Post Office probably wouldn't look too out of place on a 3 mm scale layout if built as per the instructions.  As you say, even in H0 scale a 23 mm door isn't particularly high, so it's probably an under scale H0 model.  In fact, even in 3 mm scale a 23 mm high door would be less than 8'.  On a 00 layout, none of the doors are going to be usable.

 

By comparison, the doors on the H0 scale modular DPM 20th Century shop fronts are 32 mm high, which in 4 mm scale still represent an 8' high door and therefore very usable for my purposes.  The problem that I can see me having is that I was intending to use the DPM modules to make a large (probably five storey building) but I suspect that would only accentuate the fact that the US Post Office building is quite small (despite being more than 13" wide, 7" deep and 6" high).  I'll therefore need to give some thought as to how best to use it.

[Jamiel]

I agree with Pat B that the post office does sound like a rather an odd scale building.

Here are some photos and (rough) measurements of the floors.

This is the Walthers Cornerstone ‘Argossy Bookstore’ (x2) I used for the Weaver’s Department store pictured above. HO scale. I did scratch build the centre section that joins the two kits and gave it quite a generous entrance, based on photos of Dean Street in Manchester shops.
 

 

This is a Kibri Cornerhouse kit, again HO, but I put in an extension in above the ground floor where the shop signs go. The upper floors are quite low.

 

Here is that building next to a scratch built station building, only the 1st and 2nd floors are visible as the ground floor is below at platform level. The station is accessed from a bridge.

 

From the same Kibri kit, but with cast off sections and a scratch built (or rather to be built) ground floor.

 

Another Walthers Cornerstone kit, this was built for a US layout on a film set, but I grabbed I once filming was finished and this will be anglicised with roofs and details added.

 

I do feel a bit guilty recommending the Walthers kits, but the Post Office does seem rather tight on the floor heights.
 

I would be tempted to add a stone course at street level, raising the height of the ground floor windows. I would scratch build the entrance from plasticard and strip, possibly buy an etched or plastic moulded door for the main doors. I tend to not worry about the floor height away from ground level, some buildings have low ceilings on higher floors, although more 3rd, 4th and roof floors rather than the 1st. Having different height buildings and floors side by side doesn’t worry me too much.

It shows on the ground floor as you often have people stood outside. You could cut the building and add in a strip at the top of the ground floor as I did with the newsagent building.
 

It might also depend on where you place the building, if it is at the back like on 31A’s Finisbury layout the scale may not be apparent, next to 4mm buildings it may look small without alterations.
 

I do hope your build works out OK.

Jamie

Edited October 20, 2019 by Jamiel

[Dungrange]

5 hours ago, Jamiel said:

I do feel a bit guilty recommending the Walthers kits, but the Post Office does seem rather tight on the floor heights.

 

Jamie - Being pedantic, you didn't actually recommend that particular Walthers kit - you just commented on a photograph of the kit, giving your valued opinion on what you would do to increase it's suitability for use on a UK based layout.   There's therefore no need to feel guilty.

 

Thanks for the annotated photographs showing the heights of your buildings floor by floor.  Your ground floor levels seem to vary between 50 mm and 65 mm, which is slightly less than the 69 mm height of the shop fronts produced by DPM.  That's why I'm quite happy to use these in 00 without modification.  When I first looked at these I thought they were a bit big until I looked at actual shop fronts and realised that they often are that sort of height when considering the height to the top of any sign.  The single storey pieces in the DPM modular pack are 48 mm and the two storey pieces are 94 mm.  Again, these are slightly higher than most of your floors, but floor to ceiling height does vary from building to building depending on age and style.  

 

I suspect that I'll start with the DPM kits first, since they seem more straightforward to build.  My intention is to build a fairly large four or five storey building from modular pieces, but I need to finalise the track design and lay the track so that I know exactly how big I can make the footprint of the building.  The US Post Office will probably remain in the box for a while until I've developed my building skills a bit.  I like what you've done with the Argossy Bookstore kits, but I'm not yet at the stage of trying to copy you.  I need a simple kit to start with.

 

That said, I'm tempted to suggest that the best way to make use of the under scale US Post Office may actually be by reducing the height of the building, taking out the first floor windows (~25 mm).  This would mean that I'd have a two storey building rather than a three storey building, but it means that the distance between the top of the ground floor window and the bottom of the first floor window would increase from 12 mm to 24 mm.  That would therefore give the impression of increasing the floor to ceiling height of the top floor to around 45 mm, with a similar height for the ground floor - more if I add a stone course at ground level as you suggest.  I'm also tempted to make it into a primary school, where the difference in height between ground and first floor is less noticeable than with commercial premises, but of course that will no longer make it a city centre building!