Buildings for hicksville

[buzz]

Hi guys
Could you suggest a few buildings (four seems a good number not counting RR structures) for hicksville and a better name
Its a one horse town where even the horse is thinking about leaving.
Because he is fed up with that ###### banjo music and smell of moonshine still's.
Not really sure what I need to produce a town with the above image
Do have a woodland scenics flag stop which I hope is the right kind of depot.
regards John

[J3a-614]

There is a company called Alpine Division Scale Models that makes the old Suydam kit line.  Among the models offered are some that look like they are from the old West, and some small houses that are also from there, but also resemble many that I see in my part of West Virginia and in the Shenandoah Valley to the south.

These models are made of wood, cardstock (embossed cardboard), and sometimes metal, and in some ways would be considered crude by modern standards, but I have found them to still be attractive models that are not too hard to build, although being at least partially cardboard, I very strongly recommend you brace the models internally with strips of wood to prevent warping.  Best advice working with such models is to take your time and get your money's worth of modeling enjoyment.

http://www.alpinemodels.com/index.htm
l
http://www.alpinemodels.com/page/page/2762955.htm

http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=Structure&scale=H&manu=alpine+division&item=&keywords=&words=restrict&instock=Q&split=90&Submit=Search

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/700-572

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/700-571

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/700-574

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/700-573

Hope this helps.

[hotrainlover]

I used a vertical steam boiler carload from LL to make a still.  It is easy....  Just add a "stretched" pen spring from the boiler to a small milk can....

[CNE Runner]

Buzz - How about the new series of laser-cut structures by Walthers? I believe they offer 4 or 5 buildings that fit a 19th/early 20th century theme. Many of these types of structures are still found in rural America. Check them out on the Walthers website.

Regards,
Ray

[Thomas1911]

I was going to suggest what CNE Runner already suggested.  I believe Walther calls them the "Boomtown" series.

[Jim Banner]

One thing that was used in boom towns that I have not seen a kit for - tent shacks, the kind with (typically) a wooden floor, half height wooden walls, and a tent for the rest of the walls and the roof.  They were quick and cheap to build, especially if you already had the tent.  But they sufficed until the owner could earn enough money to build a proper house or at least a more permanent shack.  The wooden floor kept the occupants out of the wet and the canvas kept the heat in well enough that a small stove would keep them warm.  I stayed in one, one summer about 40 years ago, in Canada's arctic.  It was interesting in that it was made from a quilted, all season tent and was intended to be used through the arctic winter.  But I have no idea if quilted tents were ever used 100 years before that.

After some fruitless searching on Google for pictures of a tent shack, I found they call them "tent cabins."  Anyway, here is a link:

http://www.rmnp.com/RMNP-Areas-KawuneecheValley-HolzwarthHistoricSite-TentCabin.HTML

Jim

[buzz]

Hi all
Thanks for the links have not found church yet, I take it this would be a simple wooden one.
I rather like the doctors office over the undertaker it appeals to my strange sense of humor
Hi Jim
Wrong forum   
One of the US war games suppliers does tent huts in there ACW range and they are either HO or close enough to that you would get away with it.
Wish I could find the link again they did not seem to be that expensive.
They would also be good for a fettlers or logging camp, as well as I just got into town.
I believe some of them where big enough that they became the first room of the new house?? and eventually disappeared into the structure.
But I might be thinking of the local whitewashed hessian huts from the early days.
regards John

[Doneldon]

Buzz-

It seems to me that someone makes mining and logging items, including plaster cast tents.  It would be easy to cut one end off squarely and mount a false front to it.  That would be just like the boom towns, moreso than the new Walthers kits, I think.

In the alternative, I'll bet you could take a small wooden block, maybe 3"x4"x1" high, put a pointy piece in the middle, and drape plaster gauze over it to look like a tent.  Add some threads for tent lines and connect them to little pegs on the ground where they sit.  That would have the advantage of every item being unique as you'd be doing easy one-offs, not duplicating a casting.
                                                                                             -- D

[buzz]

Hi Donaldon
I think tents are perhaps best in folded paper yard broom bristles should be OK for the poles this gives the advantage of a little sag and for the brave who want to go mad and interior detail them the flaps can be cut to fold back.
For tent huts I would think balsa wood base box with match wood frame
door plastic or pewter casting again paper for the tent part 8' walls ??.
fiddly maybe drive you insane quite possibly, but I think the results would be better.
The war games crowd often use very light weight card for making tent encampments that are strong enough to put up with most gaming hazards.
So for rail modeling which doesn't get handled anywhere near as much
I would think paper would work, it could possibly be hardened with cheap carp supermarket super glue before painting.
Haven't thought about false front tent store yet they are a bit more complicated?? not quite sure how to do a false front yet they where supposed to look decorative and convey a sense of reliability to the store
regards John

[Jim Banner]

A lot of early buildings had false fronts to make them look more substantial.  The rectangular facade was to make them appear more like commercial establishments back east.  To enhance the effect, some of them included fancy scroll work near the top.  What was behind the facade was something else again.  Board and batten construction was considered fancy.  A tar paper shack somewhat less so, and a tent was about as basic as it got.

Roofs are somewhat similar, with canvas being the cheapest, rolled asphalt roofing intermediate, and cedar shakes top of the line.  Where cedar was not available, split or more likely sawn soft wood shingles were used.  These didn't last long (about the same as a canvas roof) but were dirt cheap.  Speaking of dirt, don't forget sod shacks.  These were popular on the prairies because the materials cost virtually nothing, except for the roof poles which might have to be imported.  Some of the people I have talked to about growing up in a "soddie" remember the ceiling being canvas over top of the roof poles (we might call them roof joists.)  It was there to keep dirt from the sod from falling into your breakfast porridge.  I wonder if that was the last remnants of an earlier tent shack.  Sod houses, like root cellars today, were cool in summer and warm in winter.  What sod lacked in terms of insulation R-factor it more than made up in thickness.

Jim   

[ebtnut]

Here's a nice church kit from Campbell via Walthers.  http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/200-359

Campbell kits are craftsman kits, but well designed and go together very well.  Not quite laser quality, but very decent nonetheless.

[ABC]

The Boomtown Series buildings are in the first page of the August Walther's Flyer that I got in the mail today.

[jbsmith]

I bet Bar Mills would have Something that would fit right in with your description

http://www.barmillsmodels.com/

[Doneldon]

buzz-

The only real challenge with false fronts is getting a tight fit between the front and the rear of the building. 

False fronts were very common in boom towns, but settled towns as well.  Often the false front would be two stories high but the part behind just a single story, and maybe not even much of a single story.  The false fronts were often ornamented and basically designed to make a bold statement.  Because they were a one-off deal, you can use any kind of building front or scratch build to your own taste.  Although it would be unusual, I suppose you could even have a brick or stone false front, assuming the unburned part of a building was being recycled.  I'll just bet there are some prototypes for that.
                                                                                                      -- D

[J3a-614]

While on the subject of buildings for Hicksville, is there anything available or visible on the layout itself, like other photos, a track plan, or anything else?  I'm even just curious about the railroad's time and place--sounds like a period (19th or early 20th century) Appalachian road (one horse town, horse wants to leave because he's tired of banjo music, moonshine smell), which is something we don't see every day.

Buzz's comment about a doctor sharing a building with an undertaker reminds me of a prototype photo in a new book, "West Virginia Railroads," by Thomas W. Dixon, Jr., and published by his company, TLC.  A small building next to a primitive interchange yard at Hendricks, W.Va. (Western Maryland and short line Dry Fork Railroad, which ran between 1895 and 1913) has a quite prominent sign on it with the first line reading a large, bold UNDERTAKER, below which in smaller letters are the words "Carpenter & Cabinet Maker," and below that, the name of the owner, "S. Troup."

You look up some West Virginia history from about that time, and you are amazed at some of the parallels between that state and the Wild West from the 19th century.