Abandoned or old buildings

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Bernie, that's the easiest (and maybe hardest to get right) kit bash there is! Find a kit of an old building that appeals to you, leave out the windows, model some broken. Chop a hole in the roof. Muddy it up. Add some smoke damage from a fire. Then landscape it to the point of over grown, add plenty of junk and graffiti.

Someone has a craftsmen kit of a fallen down barn. When I saw it I thought that must be hard, but then I realized if I screwed it up, how would any one tell?

Sounds like a fun project, wish I had space left on the layout to try it!
 
I think it was Alexander that sold a "haunted house" kit. I put one together and I think it was a bunch of broken pieces left over from other kits. :) As Gary said, it's kind of fun to make a battered old house or long abandonded factory. It's hard to go wrong just leaving some things out and breaking others.
 


UP2CSX said:
I think it was Alexander that sold a "haunted house" kit. I put one together and I think it was a bunch of broken pieces left over from other kits. :) As Gary said, it's kind of fun to make a battered old house or long abandonded factory. It's hard to go wrong just leaving some things out and breaking others.
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And if all else fails, you can always go for the "war zone" look and launch a model rocket with the building as a launch pad :D
Or make a small explosive. Either one should work well, and be fun to watch.
 
DaWolf85 said:
And if all else fails, you can always go for the "war zone" look and launch a model rocket with the building as a launch pad :D
Or make a small explosive. Either one should work well, and be fun to watch.
Click to expand...

Anybody remember E.L. Moore? He actually blew up his Cannonball & Safety Powder Works with photographer's flash powder. That was true gonzo model railroading. :cool:
 
Fishplate said:
Anybody remember E.L. Moore? He actually blew up his Cannonball & Safety Powder Works with photographer's flash powder. That was true gonzo model railroading. :cool:
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I remember doing that when I was younger--I saw the article and I thought "Gee!! What a great idea!!":eek::eek: -----it seemed to be a good idea at the time:rolleyes:
 
Boy, talk about a name from the past. :) E.L. Moore came up with some really strange ideas, all the way from making Rube Goldberg type engines to doing things like blowing up the powder works. I always looked forward to seeing what his mind came up with next, but I also thought he was a little mentally ill. :eek:
 
Hey, Bernie, I can take a regular barn kit and make it look like that, even if it's supposed to look new. :) Seriously, just get a cheap barn kit and follow along with the picture. It's mostly a matter of assembling it so things look warped or are missing. You can use some stripwood to simulate things like the exposed beams. It really not as hard as you might think.
 


That depends on what kind of structure you're looking at modelling. Wood is always best simulated with wood. Painted plastic brick works well but brick buildings don't lean they just fall over when they can't hold themselves up any more.
A word of caution about torches baking and other sources of heat on plastics. They tend to start on fire with little warning and produce lots of nasty smoke when they do. In my experince using an open flame to simulate damage on a plastic model only produces a model that looks melted, not realistically deteriorated.
I do remeber some buildings on fire or demolition.
Try these:
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-469

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-470

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-486

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/490-568

I seem to remeber that Campbell made an abandoned house kit as well but then you're back into Craftsman kit prices again
 
If your a modern modeler. Signal towers seem to be abandoned all over the country now days since everything is navagated with computers now. Using any of the cheaper signal tower kits out there would give you an idea on how to do it. Im planning to build an Atlas kit and I even found a decent prototype example of an old abandoned tower that closley resembles the Atlas unit on Railpictures.net.

Interlocking towers are one of my favorite structures in railroading. Old stations are right up there too.:cool:
 
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