Basic Dimensions for 'Shoe Box' and 'Tilt-up' Factories etc

[Russ Bellinis]

Just to avoid any confusion, the Pike Stuff buildings are models of steel structures like a "Butler"building that are a popular form of construction for medium sized industrial buildings. Tilt up construction is so called because the walls are all cast concrete that are made in place flat on the ground or made off site and transported tot he building site and then "tilted up" by a crane and locked in place with steel beams and bolts to form the building. Typically they are larger than the steel "Butler" building type. I have gone to job sites to work on refrigerated trailers where the warehouse was 100 yards wide and I'm not sure of its length, but it would have over 200 loading doors on each side for trailer parking. I have not been there, but in the "Extreme Trains" program on the produce train running out of the Northwest to the East Coast, they had a pair of warehouse made of tilt up concrete construction that were big enough to allow a 100 car freight train to drive into the side of the warehouse and close doors on either end to keep the entire warehouse as well as the tracks in a climate controlled space!

[TTRAK_andrew]

G'day Russ,
Thanks for the information on the `Butler' building style that the PIKESTUFF kits represent and how they have different applications to the 'tilt up' style.
In getting information on the tilt-up panels I found a good photo of a HO model of one built from a kit on this web-page, about the fifth photo down.
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Using Google Sketch Up on the image and assuming a 10ft width to the door, I have come up with figures of 24ft wide and 40ft high for each panel. I assume that while these panels can be built to dimensions that suit the structure's needs, there are probably some `usual' or `off the shelf' sizes also. I am certainly going to use these dimensions for my first tilt-up scratch built structure.
Thanks again, Andrew G.

[Russ Bellinis]

The other key dimension is to measure the distance to the bottom edge of your boxcar's doors from the rails and that should give you the correct height for the bottom of the loading doors or loading dock height if a dock is more appropriate for a model.

[TTRAK_andrew]

G'day All, I have been pottering around and made up a trial low relief N scale `tilt-up' warehouse out of cardboard sheet and computer printed concrete surface image.

   

   

The dimensions were derived from the previous postings on this stream and based on the HO scale plastic structure referred to on my previous post. The cardboard is about 1mm thick (0.040") and the price sticker describes it as "10 sheet". The concrete surface image was downloaded (for a small fee) from the British firm "Scalescenes" - TX-42.
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I printed the concrete texture onto some 120(?)gsm heavy paper, sealed it with a spray on matt varnish, and then cut it into scale sized tilt-up panels. These were then stuck onto a piece of card cut out for the front of the warehouse. To avoid risking the printer ink running I used a `glue stick'. After that I fixed on the side walls and internal bracing using some fast drying PVA type glue ( a local brand intended for gluing MDF) and cheap `plain label' super-glue ($2 for three tubes at the local supermarket). When that had all settled down I stuck on the end tilt-up panels and coloured the roof and inside of the panels projecting over the roof.
The roller doors are made from an Australian produced heavy paper that is embossed to represent HO scale corrugated iron.
This is a proof of concept model that looks quite reasonable and taught me some lessons for the next two versions:
The first will be another cardboard model with 80gsm paper used for the panels as I found the heavier paper used on the current model warped a little and made the butt joints between the panels more pronounced than they should.
The second will be a 1mm styrene sheet construction with the concrete surface texture printed onto decal paper and then cut into panels before applying to the structure.
Regards,
Andrew G.

[faraway]

That looks very good. To use the concrete walls from Scalescenes is a bright idea!