Bashing An Inexpensive Plastic Structure Kit

[Drew]

I used to do these “Kitbasher’s Diary” threads a long time ago at the old Gauge, & this was one of them… I’m sure some of you have seen these before, but I thought since this is a fairly new site, I’d re-post this one…It probably won’t be of much interest to the “old hands”, but I thought some newcomers to the hobby might get an idea or two from it…

This will hopefully demonstrate how you can take an inexpensive plastic structure kit, & by moving things around, taking some things away, & adding others, you can transform it into something that is unique to your layout…
I’m also hoping to demonstrate how mistakes & flaws can lead you on to even better ideas…


This was an N scale project, but it could be any scale…

Here’s the kit I started with…(keep in mind that the manufacturer’s description of the kit means nothing to the kitbasher…we look at them as simply a collection of parts)



Built per instructions, they’re a bit toy-like…hopefully, we’ll be able to improve on that a little…
The first thing I did was to discard the molded plastic base…this frees you up as to the “footprint” of the structure…
I glued the walls together, & the little annex that’s supposed to go on the rear of the main structure, I attached to the side, keeping the tops of the walls even…



I needed some kind of foundation for the annex now, so I cut some pieces from some HO scale brick walls…I also cut a hole for a door in the main section, rather than using the large arched door assembly that came with the kit…I primed everything with gray primer…



The back wall of the main structure was basically a blank…it was just calling for something, so I fashioned a lean-to addition from pieces of an old Model Power farmhouse kit…Made another little foundation from the HO brick walls…



I painted everything, & glued in the windows…If you look back at the 2nd & 3rd photos, you’ll see a large gap where the annex joins the main structure…I hid this with a chimney I made from styrene covered with Holgate & Reynolds brick sheet…