I've been experimenting with using small plexiglass boxes as the base for building projects. The first were these two brick paper-covered towers in Kings Port.



I just recently made a Rexall's Drug store for my business district at West Mill using a box like this.



With more brick paper and other details it came out like this:





I added the drugstore to extend main street so the buildings blocked the view of a couple of staging tracks behind them. You can see a GP38-2 sneaking out behind the coffee shop above. In order to to this I had to move the entire line of stores a little forward, narrowing the street too much to be believable. I decided that cars do not use this street so there is a new municipal parking lot on the west side of the business district.



Next step is to paint and detail those cheapie little cars.

Great idea Ralph, I never thought of giving those a try.



8-)

Nice ralph, it looks like it fits right in

Looking good Ralph.This reminds me I need to develope some new store fronts for downtown Bel-Aire.Those DPM store look good with different paint schemes but the still look like DPM buildings if you get my meaning.

Thanks guys. Catt, I think I do know what you mean. The DPM components are great but they are so easily recognizable and can create a sense of "same-i-ness" from layout to layout. I have a few structures made from DPM parts obviously, but I like breaking them up with other styles. I'm not the best at cutting styrene and making good square lines so this plastic box base method makes scratch building easier for me.

I plan to try your method too.Looks pretty darn nice and makes for different buildings.

A very effective use of a plastic box, some brickpaper, and an active imagination.
Cheers, the Bear.

Very cool! Where are you getting these boxes again - Michaels? Do they have smaller boxes?

An interesting technique to get absolut straight and square buildings with perfect window glass.

This proves that household junk can become anything for a model railroad layout..


ERIE RR

nachoman Wrote:Very cool! Where are you getting these boxes again - Michaels? Do they have smaller boxes?

I did get some at Michaels but they seemed to have discontinued them. I found several sizes at a place called The Container Store. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.containerstore.com/welcome.htm">http://www.containerstore.com/welcome.htm</a><!-- m -->

Very effective , looks good and different from the usual DPM look .

T

Very nice Ralph and great pics as well!

I like it.

.....everyone see the " Mea Cuppa " sign for the coffee shop ? Neat ! I like the 3 dimentional coffee cup too , as on old signage .

T