Card Structures

[Hobby Dreamer]

Quite right Mark, I am probably many years or even decades out of date.

 

There was a school of architecture at my university and they used almost exclusively card stock for their projects, but my friends there often got internships in the summer with various firms and Plexiglas seemed common for the final models but the mock ups were still done in paper, at least then. I totally forgot about that since the paper models were everywhere in the architecture building on campus.

 

I still went to the campus until the mid-90s and walked through the A-building, and the models were still all or mostly card, but that is a long time ago... come to think about it!! I've skipped almost 2 decades and somehow we are in 2010!

 

I also worked in a building about 20 years ago that had mock-ups of several Canadian embassies and these were card and plastic - plastic for fences and windows etc. But the models themselves were probably from the 1970s.. They were in the lobby so you saw these every day, so I guess the card material imprinted upon me.

 

I suppose with 3D printers and stores that sell various plastics, card is no longer exclusive.. I was at he main store for the A-students about 5 years ago and they still only sold card and similar product.. I was looking for something to build in 1/6 scale - and a lot of peopole seem to use foam, but I lack any talent and ended up finding something at a doll house store, of all places!!

 

Quite, right, my apologies..

Rick

[IST]

About 2 years ago, I tried some Metcalfe kits. I was very impressed with the result and was very easy to build those with my very basic modeler skills. Little bit off topic because these are British type buildings, but here are some pictures:

http://www.vonatmagazin.hu/?p=289

http://www.vonatmagazin.hu/?p=2027

[scott]

Those are some impressive structures...

[qwertyaardvark]

Man... this thread is getting me all excited for my Sankei card kits I'm hoping to receive soon!

 

The warping does worry me a bit, esp with my layout finding a home in Houston, TX where humidity is extremely high, typically high 80% and beyond (with many thanks to the warm Gulf of Mexico). What methods exactly should i take to keep walls from warping (aside from interior reinforcement, i.e. thickening the walls, gluing toothpicks, etc)? Would a coat of some non-water based paint, like clear/topcoat enamel or lacquer be an adequate reinforcement against humidity?

[Mudkip Orange]

Dehumidifiers, dude. My parents have one in their basement in Philly. I hung up some clothesline down there and put the dehumidifier in between the rows... my shirts dried out in a couple hours.

[qwertyaardvark]

Hmz... dehumidifier... didn't think about that! x_x Sounds like that ought to take care of that of a renovated attic space...

 

Yikes this hobby is getting expensive... trains plus expansion sets, structures/scenery, airbrushes/compressors, and now dehumidifiers?? what did i get myself into?! :P

[Mudkip Orange]

I swore off trains completely in summer 2007... at that point I was running mixed freights and 10-car rivarossi smoothsides on an HO Unitrack layout that took up the entire 8x10 breakfast nook plus some branches into other areas of the apartment.

 

Then Christmas 2008 I decided to set up the HO around my girlfriend's sister christmas tree... and the rest is history

[Hobby Dreamer]

Those are some impressive structures...

 

IST, Is that your own BLOG? Really nice site!!  Great photos!

 

I was very impressed with the result and was very easy to build those with my very basic modeler skills.

 

Result... easy... basic skills... - these are among the reasons I am thinking card structures!

 

Most people here seem to be adding to their existing hobby but if you are starting out there is a lot of building to do! And a lot of glue to sniff.... 

[cteno4]

Man... this thread is getting me all excited for my Sankei card kits I'm hoping to receive soon!

 

The warping does worry me a bit, esp with my layout finding a home in Houston, TX where humidity is extremely high, typically high 80% and beyond (with many thanks to the warm Gulf of Mexico). What methods exactly should i take to keep walls from warping (aside from interior reinforcement, i.e. thickening the walls, gluing toothpicks, etc)? Would a coat of some non-water based paint, like clear/topcoat enamel or lacquer be an adequate reinforcement against humidity?

 

Quertyarrdvark,

 

i dont think the sankei models will be very prone to warping as they are several layer so of chipboard, not card stock. chipboard is a much denser, more stiff stock than card stock that is basically thick paper. the sankei also have wall built up of at least 3 layers of the chipboard so you get a plywood effect with the layering. if you are concerned then just a few stiff battens on longer wall stretches inside should ward off the chance of warps.

 

all this talk of warping comes up in many different areas actually and its always contested some. when living in calif i never had much problems with most materials warping, papers, chipboards, cardboards, foamcore, masonite, plywood, etc. but after moving to dc and living in the swamp atmosphere part of the year and in a dry desert atmosphere part of the year, i have seen a lot of things do warping that i never saw in calif! so there are some variables there that will change your personal experience some! i know i would be singing a different tune 10 years ago than i do now.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Jeff, depending on the brief, anything and everything!

 

A lot of what I built were simple study models - our practice called them massing models - these were nearly all made of blue extruded styrene foam. I could form the basic shape of the building very quickly by carving, sanding or hot-wire cutting.  Then I'd spray it a neutral grey with acrylic paint. If the site wasn't level, I would use either foam or laminations of card to build up the basic contours. On many projects only massing models and renderings were needed for the DA to be approved.

 

For more detailed presentation models, my preference was to use acrylic sheet - Plexiglas - to make the carcass of the structure, and then skin it with ABS or styrene. Acrylic sheet and ABS glued with CA/superglue goes together very quickly, and can be immediately drilled, sanded, cut or trimmed. Details could be anything from Evergreen styrene through basswood or cast resin to etched brass.

 

The skills and techniques applicable to architectural modelling are no different to those used in railway modelling, with perhaps the obvious exception that there's always a deadline, so I was always looking for the quick and dirty way to do something.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

 

Mark,

 

thanks, interesting. most of my architectural and exhibit modeling was in the 80s and it was mostly chipboard and matte board based. used the extruded foam for doing the more full scale exhibit mock ups. was great and fast and fun creating all sorts of foam cutters to do different things.

 

we used little styrene as most of the main exhibit models were 3/4" scale so styrene usually was too hard to use for the main elements and chipboard ruled mostly. details were styrene usually, but even then it was a pain at that scale as most were in 10-14" segments and many times needed more like 20-30" so balsa wood was usually the main backup there (was hard to get basswood in longer lengths).

 

Rick, i did cement my model making position by one night taking a set of plans for the aquarium (proposed at the time) that were reduced down to 8.5x11 at maybe 1/1000 scale and created a card stock model of the whole aquarium that you could pull each floor level off to see what each gallery area was going to be. luckily i had done a lot of train stuff and model building as a kid, so when the 16 yr old showed up a day later with the whole aquqrium modeled in a 10" square box they were quite surprised! i just did it for the kicks one night, but it became the model carted all over the place for meetings for a couple of years. we build a first class 1/8" scale model (mainly matteboard construction) like 4' x 4', but that was too big to easily cart around and every time we moved it another piece seemed to pop off no matter how well we kept trying to secure things!!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[IST]

IST, Is that your own BLOG? Really nice site!!  Great photos!

 

Thanks but not only mine, we are writing it with some of my friends. Where you see IST as author, that was me.

 

Result... easy... basic skills... - these are among the reasons I am thinking card structures!

 

And this is why I tried these kits. After building these, I believed that I could do anything. (And a few days later I made a lot of mistakes with a Kestrel plastic kit, so I forgot that I have any modeller skills.  )

[cteno4]

just an interesting cross post of a new source for some japanese cardstock kits. very affordable and look pretty interesting!

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/index.php/topic,3117.0.html

 

cheers

 

jeff