Kitbashing HO Model Railroad Structures

Structures of the details that bring a scene to life. If the trends of the actors, the structures of the set, the stations in your towns, give a reason for your passenger trains, the industries, a reason for your freight trains. There's a lot of kits available for today's modelers plastic, laser cut wood, resin, plaster, and there is craftsmen kits that combine all of them. Kit bashing is a term that model railroaders use that means changing or modifying a kit to better fit your railroad. Modelers kitbash for a number of reasons. One reason is to more accurately portray a prototype building Maybe there's not a kit available of a structure that you want. Another would be to change the dimensions of the footprint. A lot of model kits might be too big or the wrong shape to fit the area on your railroad. And the last, is so your railroad doesn't look like everybody else's. One common technique used by kitbashers, is to change the size or shape of a building by cutting. On this particular kit, I am going to change a three story building into a two-story building. I will cut along the architectural details of this building. It gives me a nice straight edge and something to cut up against. Because it's thick plastic, I use a razor saw On thinner plastic, we can use a hobby knife When you're almost through, you can actually snap the piece off when done cutting clean up the edge with sandpaper or emery paper, 150 or 220 grit works the best. Use it on a flat hard tabletop or piece of glass to make sure the edge is perfectly flat. Be careful when you sand to make the edge perfectly flat or even slightly beveled to the inside. You want that visible edge to be razor-sharp. On this kit, I'm going to be removing the second floor. Once you're done cutting and have trued up those edges test fit the pieces to make sure there are no visible seams. I'm using liquid plastic cement to put these two pieces together. It dries very quickly. So you can move on to the next step rapidly. And we line those up Push them together. And now we've kitbashed, a three-story building to a two-story building. Another common technique among us kitbashers is to change the building by changing details. on this kit, I'm going to brick up this garage door. and I'm going to show you how the first step is to find the material. Here's a sheet of brick from my scrap box. This is thin plastic so rather than using a razor saw, I'll use a hobby knife to scar it. Then snap it. After the initial cut, hold the piece up to the structure to get the exact width, make your second cut score. Then snap. You may have to do a little sanding and final sizing once it fits, good in place. That is an easy and effective detail change that can really add a personal touch to your structure. Don't rule out the international kits sometimes with a simple coat of paint and detailing, you can take a foreign looking building and make it quite American. Both of these two buildings were based on this engine house the blue one, a simple coat of paint, and some decaling, turned it into an industrial building. That'll fit just about any layout. I went further with this engine house, and totally changed the appearance. Let me show you On my engine house. I changed the roof line. I took the peak off of it. I extended the length of the building. There's a seam, right here. I extended it about four inches. Probably the most important thing, is I changed the footprint to match the spot in my layout. Now this side butts up against my backdrop. So it didn't need to be detailed. You can save these extra pieces and use them on other kits. I also painted the inside of my building. I'll hang lights from the ceiling here and the light up the inside. so you can see into the engine house adds a lot of visual interest Be sure to bring photos and dimensions of the spot on your layout to the hobby shop. So you can find a kit that fits and a kit that looks like what you're trying to model. Often times multiple kits can be used together and can be combined or kitbashed to make a different appearing or building that more accurately represents the building. you're trying to model here. Here let me show you. I brought this picture I took from my car of a power plant that I wanted model to the hobby shop. I quickly found a kit that matched what I was looking for but I wanted to add an addition or an annex to this power plant. So I looked around and I found another kit that matched the architecture of the power plant the arched windows and the, the roof line. I built the power plant itself pretty much boxed stock. The only change that I made, was the brick in the arches and open up the doors and add a roof line where the addition was going to go. The addition I did quite a bit of work on Now, you can see compared to the box top that I actually changed this kit quite a bit. I cut some walls and reseamed them. I changed the roof line, actually changed the roof. Changed a number of things, but most importantly, I made it so it fit architecturally and cohesively with my power plant With a little creativity and some ingenuity Kitbashing can really make an impact on your layout.