Need advice on what type structures (Plastic or Wood) to build.

[Robertj668]

Hi again
Well the track planning and laying out is nearly complete and now my attention is turning to everything else which includes buildings. I have in the past (30yrs ago) I have built entirely in palstic.  I see that the "wood" kits have made great improvements. As for my experience level I am rather handy in building things!
So I have a few questions.
1. Are the wood kits difficult to build?
2. Are all wood kits "pre cut"?
3. Can you safely add lighting to them?
4. Can they be used in conjunction with the plastic kits?

Any and all information and advice is greatly appreciated!  I hope one day to be able help out others as much as every one has helped me

[ta152h0]

With the advent of superglue, wooden structures can be made much faster ( and more realistic ) Of course, for the same reason, you can make mistakes that much faster. Matter of preference, plastic or wood.

[Woody Elmore]

The new laser cut kits are a dream to assemble. My first wooden kit was a Mainline Models door and a half boxcar (okay, it wasn't a building.) The plans weren't even to HO scale and there was all kinds of wood in the box that seemingly had no purpose.  I also built an Alexander Models freight station and the kit walls, as supplied, were different thicknesses!!

I wouldn't hesitate to try a wooden kit that has been precut with a laser.

[rustyrails]

Hey, Robert,
In part, the answer to this question depends on how much time you have.  It's not "harder" to build wooden kits, but it does take longer, and you need to learn some different skills...not harder, mind you, but different.  Campbell makes a small shed they call an LCL Freight Station that would be a great first building.  Scale Structures Ltd. makes a small "Wood Branchline Water Tower" that goes together pretty easily and looks good.  Building wooden kits is an experience that touches all the senses...so stick your nose in the kit box when you first open it and enjoy that scent of bass wood.
Rusty

[pdlethbridge]

    And for the ultimate  in building kits, try a fine scale miniatures kit. They are expensive, but are well worth the price and you will end up with something you'll be proud of. Their instructions not only cover building but weathering and detailing that can be used for other projects.
 
  I always try to build a kit that will provide use on the layout, an industry, town building or railroad property. I have about 12 DPM buiildings to make a small town. a oil facility for my tank cars roundhouse, water tank and other small yard buildings and equipment like a water spout, ash pit and turntable.

[Robertj668]

Thanks everyone on the great advice.  It gave me the confidence to try it.

Woody - I like the Water tower I think that could be a good first option.
Rusty Rails - I do love the smell of Balsa (it's balsa wood?)
And everyone else thanks!

Robert

PS Are any Brands recommended?

[Jim Banner]

I have very little experience with wood kits, but lately have found myself drifting back to scratch building in wood for my indoor layout (I still prefer plastics outdoors.)  However, please allow me to comment on you question (3.)  Lighting wooden buildings can be done quite safely if done sensibly.  (My experiments as a kid lighting wooden buildings with birthday cake candles would be one of the non sensible methods.)

LEDs produce virtually no heat and are very safe, but do not light spaces as well as incandescent bulbs do.  Grain of wheat bulbs produce some heat in normal operation but not so much that you cannot hold them without burning your fingers.  They can, however, produce much more heat if operated on too high a voltage or if the filament within the bulb tangles, effectively reducing it voltage rating.  For this reason, a number of plastic kit manufacturers use sockets or stands for their bulbs so that the are mounted upright and well below the ceiling.  In this position, they cannot melt the plastic ceilings/roofs of plastic buildings or set fire to wooden buildings, even if the bulb faults or the user applies excess voltage.  In scratch building, it is common to simply glue a bulb to the under side of the ceiling, even though a bulb fault may then cause problems.  Slipping a piece of heavy aluminum foil (not just your regular cooking foil) or a piece of light gauge (.010" or thicker) sheet aluminum or tinplate between the ceiling and bulb helps spread the heat around and thereby keep the temperature down to a safe level.  A piece of sheet metal a couple of inches square epoxied to the ceiling with the bulb epoxied in the middle, both dissipates the heat and reflects the light around.

Epoxying a light bulb to a piece of metal can lead to a wiring fault, e.g. a short circuit.  So can sloppy wiring and using tape instead of shrink tubing to insulate joints.  Wiring faults can be much more dangerous than bulb faults because of the much higher potential for heat concentrated at a point.  I recently saw some photos of burned up model railroad wiring caused by a short circuit between wires connected to a 12 volt, 12 amp power supply.  That was 144 watts of power concentrated at a point.  Even my soldering gun cannot do as well.

The best way to avoid damage from wiring faults is to use fuses between your power supply and your lights.  This is particularly true if you are using old computer power supplies for lighting as these can produce some impressively high currents.  But I like to use fuses even when using spare power packs that have built in circuit breakers.  Circuit breakers may be fine for you train falling off the track and shorting it.  You go over, re-rail the train, and the circuit breaker automatically resets, mere seconds after it tripped.  But with a wiring fault, I may not notice right away that a fault has occurred and meanwhile, the circuit breaker is resetting and tripping over and over again, each time heating the wiring fault more and more.  An overloaded fuse blows much faster than a breaker can trip, and once blown, never resets itself.  The only question becomes how large a fuse to use.  Firstly, the fuse must never be larger than the power supply can handle.  If you have a 16 VA power pack rated 16 volts, then its maximum current is 16 Volt Amps / 16 Volts = 1 amp and a 1 amp fuse should be the maximum you use.  If you have a 12 volt supply rated at 15 amps, you cannot uses any fuses larger than 15 amps.  But there is another problem.  The wires from the supply to the bulbs are not 14 gauge or larger, so they cannot carry 15 amps safely.  So here we need to size the fuses according to the minimum wire size.  If the minimum wire size between bulb and fuse were 22 gauge, we could use 5 amp fuses if the wire were in free air.  If the same wire was buried in foam insulation, we would cut that down to 2 or 2-1/2 amp fuses.  This does not mean we need one fuse per bulb!  If we used .1 amp (or 100 milliamp) bulbs, we could put light up to 20 of them on a 2 amp circuit, although 15 or so would be a better choice.  And we can have more than one fused circuit connected to a power supply, as long as the total of the fuse ratings does not exceed the current rating of the power supply.  That 12 volt 15 amp supply could feed half a dozen circuits fused at 2-1/2 amps each or 3 circuits fused at 5 amps each or various other combinations of fuses adding up to 15 amps.  And it could easily light 90 to 100 of those light bulbs.  (The 16 VA power pack could light 7 or 8 of the same bulbs.)

That is the long and the short (or maybe the short and the long) of it.  Yes, you can light wooden buildings.  But give some thought, a lot of thought actually, to doing so safely.    

[Robertj668]

Jim
Wow That was great!  I actually Copied and pasted your response to Microsoft Word for future reading as I get to that phase.  Again thanks for the great info.
Robert

[pdlethbridge]

uh oh, here we go again with the electrics. HEADACHE TIME!!!!!

[Santa Fe buff]

I personally am one to model plastic kits. Mostly because the cheapest paints I can afford are plastic capable. Now, I want to discuss every part of each kind of kit, so I'll start with fine miniatures. I've seen videos of fine scale models made, so incredible, that I nearly forgot it was HO scale. I'm sure I'll try them one day, for a simple first layout, I'll stay away, besides, my total money on me for the hobby is about $1.00.  I just bought a DCC System not to long ago, so that happens... On wood kits, I've only seen a few in person, they are very nice, and with ever-advancing technology, kits are getting more and more detailed. Plastic kits are very nicely detailed, and are very close to wood, so it's whatever you prefer. Brass parts and detail kits help regular kits come 'alive' more, like those Walthers Ashland Iron & Steel kits, they have brass handrails and details since plastic molding only goes so far. As for lighting, Jim made an excellent explaination on lighting the interior of a structure. (I'm printing them out, Jim. ) If your using plastic structures, and the light shines through the walls that are supposed to be solid, masking tape is good if layered on the interior to create a layer that keeps the shining light from being visible. Here's a something, the next Model Railroader [June '09 Issue] is mainly dealing with nighttime running, so look out for some more tips.

Sorry I can't touch up anymore on that, I haven't been dealing with many kits lately, but I have my experiences.

Haven't been on the board lately either, have I?

Good luck, and either way, kits can always turn out good... Except maybe Life-Like standard kits, I'm not entirely sure if they're even worth it. Bachmann's are very nice, I haven't had money, so that's something to look forward to for me; a Bachmann structure...

For now,
Joshua

[OkieRick]

Right now Walthers has some structures on sale (this is thier new weekly sale.)  These are plastic glue-up.  They have a stayion platform, coaling tower and city water tower.  The coaling tower is sharp looking - I've been 'aging and weathering' on mine for some time. The city water tower looks good on the website - it's the 4-legged steel domed top type you've seen hundreds of. It comes in silver or black with lettering decals. ( http://www.walthers.com/exec/bargain )

Also in thier Technical Reference area they have a pdf of several structures -  Cornerstone Modulars ( http://www.walthers.com/exec/page/technical_resources ). A handy person could build what they want with these plans.

Fwiw...
Rick

[Santa Fe buff]

Very impressive sales... Although, since I'm not contructing my layout yet, I'm looking for equipment. Modeled and real. I mean tools and locomotives/cars.

Adding to the main subject,
I also chose plastic because of the varity. More is made in plastic than wood, but there's no NMRA law that states you have to do plastic...

Again, I like Bachmann, but it doesn't hurt to stray...  (No offense intended.)

Joshua

[Jim Banner]

Anybody seen any all metal building kits lately?  I have been giving a lot of thought to PD and his electric headaches.  The only solution I could come up with was metal buildings lit by candles.  Once we get that settled, maybe we can look into trains pulled by strings.  Or maybe even go high tech with windups.  (now where is that emoticon with its tongue firmly in its cheek...)

Jim

[Santa Fe buff]

Jim,
Hike to the Woodlands!
http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/items.cfm/HOScaleGoldKits

Joshua

[Yampa Bob]

How about super high tech. 

http://www.trainsgalore.com/Countryside-Horse-Set-P2805C72.aspx