A Downtown made of wood structure kits -- possible?

[arbomambo]

Not really any worse than the nice Blair Line kits....

[casmmr]

I have assembled laser kits from Branchline, Blair Line, American Model Builders, Mountaineer Precision Products and maybe some others.  All have their good points and bad points.  The laser kits are just that KITS, you have to do some work to get them where you want them.  Not like plastic which you just stick together.  Some kits are rougher than others.  Some kits seem to fall together, just the nature of the beast.  These kits allow items that do not justify the cost of molds to be produced and for RR specific buildings to be produced, e.g. Blair line's C&O station and coal house.  MPP had 3 C&O stations wish those were still available.  The alternative is scratch building which I did for a C&O 4 and 5 room cabin.  The main point is to just relax and have fun building what you want, also, there is no rule that you cannot modify the kits, use strip wood to cover up what you think are problem areas.  Just have fun and relax.  later, Craig

[OldEastRR]

A friend built  a couple of Branchline houses on his layout, they looked nice. I built some of his house kits that weren't Branchline, so I don't know how the BL construction went. One thing about wooden kits - they  are very easy to modify and vary, so you could have 3 of the same kits turn out to be noticeably different from each other. Plastic kits can be modified too, but they have guides and tabs molded on so they fit together a certain way only. So mods to them can  be trickier to pull off (like switching walls around).
I ran across the Architectural Style guide in my earlier research. I wish they'd had more than one far away picture of each style house. Plans would be great. Also they seem to focus on large houses built by the well-to-do of the time.
I agree there are varying degrees of ease/annoyance to every laser-cut kit, but I think it's more related to how complex or large the structure is rather than who makes it. One kit had at least half the pieces mis-cut, and when I tried to get replacement parts I heard nothing for a long long time, then only to get a whining letter from the maker and no replacement parts. I think he's out of business now.
I guess plastic siding and strip can be used, but they don't have that distinctive look of painted wood.

[jimmo]

I ran across the Architectural Style guide in my earlier research. I wish they'd had more than one far away picture of each style house. Plans would be great. Also they seem to focus on large houses built by the well-to-do of the time.

Check out "Classic Houses of the Twenties" by Loizeaux. It not only shows the varying home styles but also includes 134 plans. While I was researching this book I saw many other similar publications including one entitled: "101 Classic Homes of the Twenties." I'm sure that you could find any era that you wanted with similar searches, even just going to your local bookstore and perusing the architectural section.

I guess plastic siding and strip can be used, but they don't have that distinctive look of painted wood.

One of the reasons I quit using wood for N-scale building construction was for that very reason. I found that the "distinctive look of painted wood" was just too coarse for 1/160 scale. Take a look around and you'll be hard pressed to find that kind of texture on wooden structures--especially well-maintained structures. My last visit to the ghost town of Bodie in the California Sierra-Nevada mountains, I noticed that even the structures that have been exposed to the weather for decades are not as grainy as some of our models of well-kept structures.

Not to say that some wood doesn't get very grainy when weathered, in my front yard there are old railroad ties that were used for landscape decor that are about as grainy as I've seen on some models. Of course we are not talking about cut, sanded and finished wood when we are talking about railroad ties.

[arbomambo]

I understand what you're saying, but I haven't found the ones I've assembled lately to display much coarseness at all....
in the case of the Blair Line "Dairy King", I sanded the flat walls to remove any 'fuzz' after the first coat of white....

and I like the 'grain' effect, when weathered, on little kits like this one...






but I really like YOUR work in brick and stone on this one!!!!!!!!!!

[peteski]

I'm with Jimmo about the out-of-scale wood-grain and fuzz.  Especially if the kit is supposed to represent a non-wood structure.

But this is not always the case. The material used in the kit also makes a huge difference.  If micro-plywood is used, not only it has a very fine and smooth grain, - it has almost no fuzz (and is acceptable for representing N scale wood).  Micro plywood is also quite stable and relatively strong in every direction. AMB (LaserKit) usually uses that material.

But many other kit manufacturers just use thin basswood.  Those kits have much fuzzier surface and the grain is much coarser and more pronounced. Out-of-scale for N scale wood.  Those parts are also less stable (when exposed to moisture) and and quite week when flexed parallel to the grain.  I don't much care for those kits.  I'm pretty sure that the reason most manufacturers use thin basswood is that it costs much less than micro-plywood.