4mm Scale harbour warehouse style kits

[Baldwin30762]

Hi guys

 

I have been thinking for some time to do a freelanced narrow gauge model of a harbour tramway, but when it comes to the buildings behind the tramway, I have in mind all the usual card kit suspects in mind as well as some scratch built stuff, but I was wondering if anyone has come across a source of card or plastic kits which has so far, not made the front pages of any of the current modelling mags.

 

The sources I have in mind so far include Metcalfe, Bilteeze, Scalescenes and Alphagraphixs, have I forgotten anyone from this list, that I should include?

 

Regards

 

Colin   

[Nick Holliday]

The Langley range might be of interest, perhaps the vacuum formed warehouses, although some of the Victorian buildings would be useful, shades of Madderport. They also deal with the Artitec range of HO of building facades, many of which might prove suitable, perhaps with a degree of forced perspective, and these don't seem to have found much favour on layouts, yet.

[Stubby47]

I picked this up from The Range yesterday. Not quite a warehouse kit, but has potential.

 

Height is 6", cost £2.00.

 

 

[hayfield]

Some modellers do have the ability to look at a model and see the possibilities of kit bashing. The Airfix engine shed comes to mind as an easily available item which many years ago I made a 2 story low relief model. An American company makes a kit of sectional items for a warehouse and there are plenty of continental kits available, then there are the Wills series of building sheets, some with window cutouts  

[HonestTom]

Petite Properties do a couple of small industrial buildings. In Bachmann's old Underground Ernie range, now defunct, there was a kit called 'Industrial Units' which was a pair of small northlight buildings that can easily be converted into something more realistic (I just got a couple of a Certain Auction Website for £10, to give you an idea of pricing for second-hand examples).

 

It's not card or plastic, but Townstreet do an excellent range of resin castings for industrial buildings that can be either used in low relief or can be built up into full-size buildings.

 

You might also consider looking at the website textures.com. This is primarily intended for graphic designers, but is ideally suited for modellers looking for backscene photos - not least because you can download several images for free. Their industrial buildings section may be of interest, as might the derelict.

[The Johnster]

A wharfside warehouse is typically a multistorey building of the general appearance of the Range thing; older ones will have beams extending from the gable opening and a hoist attached to it.  This does not extend to the ship, which is unloaded by hand (think sacks and barrels) on sack trucks down gangplanks and deposited on the quayside, where it is either removed by road or rail vehicles or hoisted into the warehouse for storage.  This is where the Range kit falls down a bit; an opening is needed on each floor in line with the hoist on the top floor.  There will be a further hoist inside the building for transferring goods between floors, and the cable room for this is probably visible on the roof.  Handling is done manually with blocks and tackles, replaced by electric hoists in modern times.  

 

The building will be of stone or brick depending largely on what is most available locally at the time it is built.  Such buildings were replaced as new builds as sail was replaced by steam, larger vessels needing proper dockside cranes to unload them and the warehouses became more like the brick or steel clad buildings one sees in modern ports, with large doors at ground level for goods to handled by machinery.

 

A variation on the older type will be the 'Bonded' warehouse, in ports large enough to attract foreign trade, which cannot be entered on the ground floor at all. Typically, the ground floor has a colonnaded space outside on the quay; the building is built above this right to the quayside and the hoists take goods directly out of the ship's hold.  These will be duty payable goods like wines, spirits, or tobacco that have to be examined by Customs and Exise and protected from pilferage; many of these buildings, very solidly built, survive, converted to yuppie flats or similar but you will be able to see how they worked

 

Check out some of the older commercial ports in your area, Colin.  I am not familiar with your part of the world, but would imagine Rochester to be a good bet, and maybe Dartford; Chatham is too 'Naval', a dockyard for building and repairing ships rather than handling cargoes.

 

Harbour tramways suggest the North Sea ports, but as it's freelance it can be anywhere you like of course.  The traditional North Sea trade, going back to Hanseatic days is wool and grain of various types, so mostly stuff in sacks with some barrels or crates. Bristol dealt in wine, and tobacco, and Liverpool in tobacco and cotton (when they weren't making fortunes out of stolen Africans); the English Channel ports would have done a good bit of wool trading and imported wine in barrels.  Tea features in the bigger ports, especially London of course.  

[devonseasider]

Warehouse on "Tormouth Quay" cobbled together from Bilteezi sheets.  Photo courtesy Dunsignalling of this parish.

It's basically 3 stone-built narrow gauge engine sheds stacked on top of each other (but with modifications, obviously).  Doors, windows etc. recessed to give some depth to the walls, added gutters & downpipes, replacement roof - the printed originals are probably the weak part of the Bilteezi sheets, artwork is otherwise first rate & they're crying out to be bashed about!

 

 

 

[crompton 33]

There is Kingsway card kits . Worth a look to see if something may be suitable to use. Link  http://www.kingswaymodels.com/index.htm

[Il Grifone]

Googling downloadable card buildings produces several suppliers of varying quality.

[2mm Andy]

Skytrex do some 4mm scale resin cast buildings (some in modular form);

 

http://skytrexmodelrailways.com/

 

I don't know what they are like to build - I've only seen them on their exhibition stand.

 

Andy

[Steamport Southport]

Some interesting buildings in the Walthers range.

 

http://www.gaugemaster.com/walthers.html

 

http://www.gaugemaster.com/search_results.asp?searchstring=industrials%20brand~~685,680,695,683,686,684~~brand%20%20scale~~%ACoo%AC~~scale%20category~~1229~~category&currentpage=1

 

http://www.gaugemaster.com/item_details.asp?code=WH933-3177

 

 

Jason

[Gordon A]

Have a look at Lcut.

 

http://www.lcut.co.uk/index.php?product=B%2000-16&title=B%2000-16

 

A very flexible building system.

 

Gordon A

[stevejjjexcov]

I have found a small business in Llanelli wales that will produce one off items. These are laser cut in either ply or mdf. Bear with and I will find contact details. You will probably have to provide a scale drawing.

All the best

Steve

 

Having trouble finding their card give me a couple of days to locate them Steve

Edited September 5, 2018 by stevejjjexcov

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Heljan make some good plastic buildings kits in 00. Some may well modify into Dockyard buildings.

Here is a list of the buildings they make. to see the building just click on the number on the left hand side.

http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/gotrwall/Model_Buildings/HEL/0-vwr.html