Urban Renewal ... Part 2

A couple of posts ago I mentioned my intention to replace my block of stores next to my Sheridan Road station.

I thought I would document my process for scratch building O scale buildings. Unfortunately, O scale buildings are in short supply, and therefore, they have a tendency to appear on multiple layouts.

Scratch building buildings is actually pretty easy. Below are a few photos documenting the process.

For this building, I've decided to build in a modular method. That is, to ease construction, I've decided to start the first floor store fronts first. This will have two stores and a center doorway that will lead to the second story. Do not forget to add access to the second floor of your buildings!

Materials are pretty basic:

• N Scale Architect brick sheets. I highly recommend these. The quality is excellent
• 0.040" Styrene sheet. With bracing, this is more than sturdy enough for the shell
• Various sizes of strip styrene and scraps. I use about five different sizes of strips. 

I don't build to a plan, but rather to fill a space. In this case, I had about a length of 11.5" to fill. From that, I determined that two store fronts and a center entrance seemed to work the best. Just try to maintain some symmetry across the facade.

The store front is build up from the backside, stacking various strips and shapes to make windows and eventually doors. The brick sheeting is also stacked to create recessed brick rows.

Since this building will sit towards the front of the layout, I'm thinking ahead about possibly eventually detailing the interior. So, I made the center entrance deeper than I normally would so I can have some of the interior hallway. I will make the door separately so it will be easier to paint.