Learning the skills to use card and plasticard to build your own structures means you can build unique items to enhance your layout. PAUL CHAPMAN shows how to build a simple brick built sub-station using wallet friendly materials.
Above: The finished substation building is simple but effective. Starting with a structure like this will build your skills to take on more complex projects.
SCRATCHBUILDING is a great pastime. Some find it daunting, but in this feature and accompanying video below I’ll be showing how to build a simple substation building which can be used on any layout from any region.
The first step in any scratchbuilding project is to have a reference photograph to work from. You can use this to work out dimensions by using generic dimensions for features such as doors of 28-30mm tall and 10-12mm wide. This can be used to work out other measurements from the structure. Another method is to count the bricks to establish how tall a building should be. Four bricks is around 1ft in height, or 4mm on a ‘OO’ gauge model, 7mm in ‘O’ gauge or 2mm in ‘N’ gauge.
Once you have the dimensions, graph paper can be used to map out the structure and allow for extra details including downpipes, brick details and overlaps.
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