Cardboard mock-ups

[chuck geiger]

What is the best way to build cardboard mock-ups of structures before
the real structure replaces it? I have never done this and I have some thin
cardboard and a relative idea of the size and shape of the structures.

[Spades]

http://www.lancemindheim.com/photo_wallpaper.htm


Greg

[chuck geiger]

Thanks Greg, I might have some photos I can use...otherwise I'm punting
with old school mock-ups, my questions are:

1.0 Do you tape or glue sides?
2.0 Are they continious sides that fold?
3.0 Or do you cut each side and glue?

[Dave Schneider]

Chuck,

No offense intended, but you might be over-thinking the problem. Do what is cheap and fast with what you have on hand. There is no right way to do this.

Best wishes, Dave

[chuck geiger]

This is Dave talking Chuck off the ledge - Thanks bro.

[rogergperkins]

I have used actual model walls and photocopied them on my computer printer, mounted them on heavy stock and connected them with tape.  Drafting tape is a good choice because it allows one to take the mock up apart and modify it then reassemble it.

In one project, I wanted to create a background "flat," so I photocopied walls of a completed building and then cut to photos and mounted them on foam core board.
They were in color and were satisfactory for my purposes.

I am generally very eager to how a new structure fits on my layout, so I assemble the walls of the kit and may not finish out the building for months or years later. 

[Bremner]

John Allen's famous 2 stall engine house was a cardboard model.....and still an icon.

[chuck geiger]

I have experience making digital photos into backdrop flats and pics, but not
in mock-ups.

[BCR 570]

What is the best way to build cardboard mock-ups of structures before
the real structure replaces it? I have never done this and I have some thin
cardboard and a relative idea of the size and shape of the structures.

Chuck:

I had considerable success building the structure mockups for my layout from cereal box cardboard.  I drew the patterns on the individual pieces, coloured them with crayons and glued them together with ACC.  For hte larger structures I used styrene corner posts to keep things square.  They are several years old now and have held up well.

These photographs date from my first year of layout construction and digital photography, but hopefully they will illustrate my approach.

Scott National food warehouse at Dawson Creek (cinder block construction)




BCR station at Dawson Creek (clapboard siding lower / metal siding upper)




Cargill fertilizer sheds at Dawson Creek (clapboard and metal sheds)




Alberta Wheat Pool elevator at Dawson Creek (clapboard siding)




More photos on the Structures Page of my website.

Tim

[Dave Schneider]

Chuck,

Now that we have you safely off the ledge, I will try to more helpful! 

I have done a couple of different things. Mainly I use cheap cardboard that I have saved over the years from things like the back of notepads, packing inserts, cardboard boxes, etc. I just cut out the sides and roof and tape them together. In the photo below I pasted a Google streetview image on one building to make it look better. I have also mocked up more elaborate structures like the green houses in Powerpoint and then printed them on card stock. Again, just taped together. Photocopies of kit walls work well too if you are going to kit bash them, and I just tape them over a cardboard shell. Paper towel rolls make nice storage silos. Hope this helps.



Best wishes, Dave

[cv_acr]

I made this guy out of foamcore and tape for the club layout:



The thing to remember about a mock-up is that it is simply a placeholder. The size needs to be right, because you're testing for fit/layout/appearance, but the details aren't important.

[chuck geiger]

Thanks Chris, Dave, Tim and asshats - Yeah I have some
DPM walls that will work well and you can GOOGLE building
backgrounds (flats). When I took pics of the area, I didn't
think about taking pics all around of the structures and I
learned yesterday, the depots where demolished in July.

http://www.ivpressonline.com/probe/ivp-probe-can-we-save-the-old-railroad-station-20110728,0,1874045.story


They are still on Bing and Google maps.

[RWCJr]

Scratchbuilding structures in styrene is one of my favorite parts of the hobby. Building without plans can be very costly, and I contribute enough to the great folks at Evergreen Plastics, so my cardboard mockups are tests in building sequencing. I don't use the mockups as placeholders, they are purely rehearsal. Cardstock lends itself to laminating, which is often a large part of styrene structures. I choose my styrene based or grossly close thickness  of the planned styrene model, most of it stuff headed for the garbage.
But I also keep an eye out for sources of consistent thickness material, for the larger models. Our dear totally spoiled house cat used to get a treat of some soft cat food, and I saved the nice flat cardboard in those boxes. But it doesn't matter what the source is, choose something that is a regular consumable at your place. BTW, even though I work in styrene, have found that balsa is much cheaper for framing than plastic.
Below is a could of pics showing the mockups and the near final models (the base final  models will be masters for a casting project).

[chuck geiger]

Thanks for your help here, I did El Centro Motors (now closed) a large
Ford dealer next to the tracks and The SD&AE Depot in El Centro. I
did it in PAINT and glues the walls to foam and then a cardboard
roof. It's only a partial of the dealership that runs into the backdrop.
Not bad for a white kid from California.

[mionerr]

Another "mockup" idea. I saw implemented recently. I was operating on a layout in Minneapolis . The layout was the St. Paul Bridge and Terminal, a switching intensive layout. The flour mill was represented by a sack of flour. Oil dealer was a can of oil. General Mills was a box of cereal. Simple and effective.