The first building on the hatch. The front is freelanced after a prototype in LA Industry St. The other sides are pure fiction to fit into the slot. The brown patches are the brick wall under the peeling paint. The camera got somewhat confused by the contrast from weathered white to dark brown. The structure will be submerged in white glue this night and will be tight mounted tomorrow morning when the glue has set.

I wish I could see in detail what I am building while working with my eyes and not afterward on the photos....







Update:
The silver drive of the roll gate has been replaced with a scratch build device better matching the prototype. The silver one is a roof vent from pikestuff.

great work, Reinhard !!!

The next building is on the work bench. You can peek on the prototype with Google Maps at : "1567 Industrial Street Los Angeles CA"
When I saw the building I thought that must be the real home of Pikestuff

Here we go. The sides have been flipped to better match the position on the layout. The side will get a ramp with access from the road behind.
It was not my intention to do a Pikestuff building but the prototype cried for Pikestuff walls.

Hey Reinhard, stop fishing in my pond !!!!! Industrial Street belongs to my switching district ............................... .

Good choice of buildings and again I marvel at the speed you are building so nice structures. What did you use for the security bars? Looks great.

cnw1961 Wrote:Hey Reinhard, stop fishing in my pond !!!!! Industrial Street belongs to my switching district ............................... .

Don't worry. I am not switching Industrial St. My locals are just passing by. Got no switching contract with any of the local industry. It is still your territory

cnw1961 Wrote:Good choice of buildings and again I marvel at the speed you are building so nice structures. What did you use for the security bars? Looks great.

The security bars have been cut of an edged brass piece about the size of a postcard. I got it from http://www.bastler-zentrale.de/. I do not know what the original intended use was.
Well the speed. Lets say I am building pretty fast mock ups with some details compared to your models (I saw some of them at Gary's home in Houston)

Hey Reinhard, this layout has definitely taken a turn for the better... I really like the new direction and buildings.. I would love to go to the States and see for myself what these Industrial areas are like, photo's just don't cut it!! Keep up the inspiring work!!!

I am working on my very first brick building made from scratch. The prototype is at 1996 Bay St in South LA.

http://maps.google.de/maps?q=vernon+cali...2,,0,-4.57

May be you are interested how I try to master the challenge of a brick building. The construction of the model is much more complicated than any "box building" done before even the prototype is a very simple brick building. My respect to the masters building complicated brick building.

http://s966.photobucket.com/albums/ae149...0Building/

The new road is getting populated with structures (under construction).

ps. Kurt, only passing by. No switching in that area! I assume you claim Bay St to be within your area



And the finished building. It is the tallest on the hatch and will get a bumper at the rear wall to protect the cabinet that holds the open hatch.
Looking at the details is somewhat frustrating. It does simply not look good to cut styrene brick walls and glue them together. Specially multiple layers look not good (even if I would have aligned them properly). The bricks should run around the corners as they do on ready to assembled kits.

Sanding and another black wash improved the wall

I did think about the mistakes happened by building my first scratch build brick structure.
1. Joins must be sanded to an 45° angle. Simple overlap as with plain styrene looks awful (look at the corner)
2. When the edge of the cut will be visible cutting must be done with very little force. The bricks/styrene must not be pushed up at the edge of the cut as it can not be sanded down without destroying the brick pattern
3. (close to) Perfect alignment is even more important than with plain styrene. The brick pattern let mistakes pop into your eye.

Conclusion: My very fast building methods do not work with brick structures. I have to slow down at least two notches or refrain from brick :o

Reinhard,

it seems to me that you are using very smal sheets of brick strcture.

I use the Vollmer ones, No 6028.

They are 218 x 119 mm and for me they have a better brick structure including some brocken bricks.

On the other side, the wall painting looks very good after sanding.

faraway Wrote:Conclusion: My very fast building methods do not work with brick structures. I have to slow down at least two notches or refrain from brick :o

I think you have learned the most important lesson.

Quote:1. Joins must be sanded to an 45° angle. Simple overlap as with plain styrene looks awful (look at the corner)

You may try this, but I tell you in advance it will not work as intended. You still have to re-work the corners with putty. And you still have to re-carve the brick pattern. But if you give this method a try I suggest laminating the brick sheets on plain styrene first. You will get a thicker brick sheet that way that is more sturdy and makes the mitering easier.

The way I do brick corners is glueing the sides together as you did (90 deg.) I then re-work the mortar lines around the corner with a small modelers saw that is exacty as thick as the mortar lines are. I use etched saw blades (see pic below) that fit my cutter. If I need a thicker blade I glue two blades together.

I strongly recommend visiting this store (in person, not the online store) : <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.nimpex.de">http://www.nimpex.de</a><!-- m -->
Ask the shopkeeper what you are looking for. Many cute items are hidden in drawers. But watch for opening hours closely. (The ATM is down the street )

Joerg, I am using Kibri 4147 because the pattern matches the Cornerstone modular buildings pretty good. It was and is my intention to use that parts together with plain brick walls for kit bashing. The "usual" H0 bricks available in German stores have much larger brick stones than Cornerstone or DPM has.

Jens, thanks a lot for the advise. I will try to do the next corners as you described and visit the LHS in Denkendorf. I did not know anything about that shop and will visit it soon.

For a remote flat background brick structure a streetview printout on card stock might be sufficient. I did need only the blind wall to the track. The street side is only about one inch.


Nothing impressive but it serves it's purpose from the distance.

faraway Wrote:ps. Kurt, only passing by. No switching in that area! I assume you claim Bay St to be within your area

Bay St. is definitely within my area. Bay St. and nearby Sacramento St. inspired me to add the new street on the right end of my layout. I am planning to build the structure that is standing on the left next to your brick building in Bay Street … But as long as you are only passing through, everything is fine .

In addition to Jens’s method of doing corners on brick buildings, here is mine. Before gluing the brick sheets together, I mitre them using a file (not sanding paper as you suggested). Make sure that the sheets fit nicely without any gaps when you put them together at a 90° angle. After gluing the sheets I carefully sand the corner with fine sanding paper when the plastic is still soft from the glue. To cut the mortat lines I am using a small triangular shaped file. My method may not yield results that can compete with Jen’s method, but it is not too time consuming. BTW, the brick sheet in the pic is from Auhagen.