Building Flats - Source?

[C855B]

Shortly to scenic a third of the existing layout, I need help finding a source for building flats, esp. small roadside businesses. I understand that flats are popular for city scenes, but I'm looking for several somethings suitable for a rural town scene, nary a five-story warehouse in sight.   Thanks!

[C855B]

Bueller? Bueller? 

After a couple of hours poking around on the web it appears that building flats are a thing of the past, or close to it. I could find only one supplier - in the UK, with English prototypes - offering 3D flats, everything else I found were photos on foamcore, and nearly all of those were the dreaded Eastern city dense industrial motif, plus a smattering of apartments and tenements.

At this point I s'pose the answer is cheap built-ups and a table saw.     

[Philip H]

there was a guy in Trainboard who had a bunch of building images of all kinds that I had some success downloading and resizing for N scale use.  I'll see if I can dig it up.

Some of the backdrop companies had flats at one point but they may all be out of business.

[Philip H]

ok, found his links.  Unfortunately he seems to have moved all his building files to Facebook ( ) but they still exist:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/MissouriArkansasRailway/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1483146551943599&ref=page_internal

If you go back up a level to his photo albums there are 6 files of buildings and about a dozen files of signs you can download and print.  I have no idea where he got any of them, but laminated to black foamcore they are probably ok for a lot of uses.

[C855B]

Thanks. I had discovered the MissouriArkansas links in poking around. He had the closest to what I was after, but they were still basically photos on foamcore. Was surprised at the number of dead links or OOB elsewhere.

I am resisting scratchbuilding everything for obvious reasons, but with this and other projects it appears I need to work my CAD skills and crank-up the Photon again. It's been idle for several weeks during the electronics push.

[Lemosteam]

Mike, what about these?

https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=31109.0

Maybe there might be some of what you are looking for and can be easily trimmed as shallow or far as you need cutting one in half potentially yields two.

[C855B]

      There's the obvious, and then there's the merely obvious.

Yes, excellent starting points. It'll be interesting to see how easily they convert to 3D art. I can certainly trim there, too.

Thank you!

[chuck geiger]

http://www.gatewaynmra.org/1999/photographic-background-buildings-cotton-warehouse-feed-store/

Lots more here...

[TLOC]

I have read and heard good things about:

Larcproducts.com

Never used by me but tempted

TomO

[Cajonpassfan]

I have read and heard good things about:

Larcproducts.com

Never used by me but tempted

TomO

Mike,
I’ve worked with Bill Brown of LARC on my custom backdrops, but he has an extensive selection of backdrops and buildings as well. He can print just about anything in any size for you on a self adhesive waterproof film and you can put it on any backing you like.
Btw, building flats are much less forgiving than other scenic elements when it comes to getting the perspective right, so having the flexibility of custom printing is an added bonus.
Good luck!
Otto

[Tom L]

I don’t know if this would be what your after, but I used my left over backs and sides of DPM buildings, trying to represent the backsides of businesses in a smaller town. Because I needed them to be freestanding and removable to hide staging, I built a styrene “clip” on the back and they mount to a strip of 1/8” think MDF. I also used some left over Walthers kit pieces and built some out of styrene and dpm wall sections mounted to MDF,  but those are a bit more industrial.

It didn’t take much time as I didn’t detail them much if any, and painting is muted and minimal. Since they are removable, I can rearrange or switch them in or out if I want.

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Tom L
Wellington CO

[C855B]

Thanks, guys. Appreciate the leads, for sure. Tom, you're doing roughly what I had in mind, and the thin flats ought to work well in one particular scene on the short list. Still contemplating what to do about the town around the Cozad grain elevator LDE. Some creativity in the offing with buildings cut at an angle since the side streets in town are a strict grid while the highway and RR pass through at an angle.

[MK]

Where did you get the 3 sided photo?  (Other than taking 3 photos of the actual building?)

[C855B]

Similar to what I did here:



Once folded you don't see that the left and right sides are the same. Even though I took in-person pictures of the hulk, that tree had leafed-out obscuring most of the façade. Turns out images from Google street view screen grabs were better, so I used the distortion tools in Photoshop to square those up. Printed on cardstock with tabs for gluing, it's currently on the layout as a mockup.

[John]

Where did you get the 3 sided photo?  (Other than taking 3 photos of the actual building?)

So I removed this picture .. because I don't own the original image .. Once I send the vendor some $, I will repost