High Rise / Skyscraper building kits ??

[cteno4]

This comes up a lot on train boards about how much is too much to pay for a custom building like this. many folks just cant think about spending more than$20-30 for a structure, ever.

 

Folks that build stuff like this will tell you that it can take dozens of hours to produce a custom building, so if you guy it for a hundred or two hundred you are getting a great deal as you end up maybe paying only $2-3/hr for all the labor that went into it. If you dont have the time or skills or experience to make something like this then unless there is something massed produced this is your only route.

 

this looks like a very nice and interesting building and its seems to 'speak' to you so it sounds like its a good deal for you. others may never think of dropping money on something like that, but they are not you. you certainly are not getting ripped off in price or shipping it looks like, only question is is it worth it to you and that seems a strong yes!

 

please post lots of pictures of the building when you get it as its really interesting and would be a good thing to simulate folks in making high rises! I am thinking my hexagonal atlas high rise kit is going to go this way now! never was really happy with the look and feel of the hexagonal building on layouts. this triangular form with multiple towers really has a nicer feel for a smaller city scene and still lets you have a tall and good sized buildings. also packs in well with other building around it and lets you have a nice off angle street as well as a nice straight face for the front street face. also the different height towers give you setbacks which make seeing into the scene with a few other larger buildings around it better.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[domino]

Hey guy`s

 

Yes , i really wanted this building, it is what im looking for and since i cant build one myself(at this point)i must pay for these buildings.

I paid $ 300 including shipping(260 for building and 40 for shipping)to Denmark,i dont think it is very expensive considering the time and effort that goes into build something like this,ofcause $ 300 is a lot of money but i think i got a great deal im happy with,and besides no one else has one like it 

 

Brian

domino

[cteno4]

another interesting high rise on ebay

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=110423530083&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_2464wt_978

 

this chap has a few neat ideas of using the metal angle stock on the corners. makes for an interesting corner detail while covering up corner joints that can be the pits to make clean and pretty!

 

i cant wait till i get some time to start fiddling on a bunch of high rises like this, too many ideas keep rolling around in the back of my head.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Some atlas square and hexagonal building kits are up on ebay at a steep starting price of $70 or buy it now of $75

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270442900063&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270442904725&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Bernard]

Some atlas square and hexagonal building kits are up on ebay at a steep starting price of $70 or buy it now of $75

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270442900063&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270442904725&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

I bought mine years ago for $25 USD. Does Atlas still make these buildings or are they discontinued?

[cteno4]

Bernard,

 

same here i got mine like 6 years back for about $20. yes the have been out of production for quite a while.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Bernard]

I remember Altas made an extension for their Skyscrapers for $10 USD. But the building were so tall to begin with you really didn't need the extension kits.

[cteno4]

a square and hexagonal set were just snapped up with buy it now for $75 ea!

 

jeff

[quinntopia]

In my view, the best bet is to go with several sets of the Kato (or Tomix) modern high rises.  They look great and are relatively easy to modify to extend.  I have the Atlas Square skyscraper kit (still unassembled), despite the fact that it would probably look pretty cool, its so big it doesn't leave a lot of space for other buildings (and I can of think that you can't just have this big, monolith looking skyscraper next to a bunch of tiny buildings).  I will probably cut it down to reduce its footprint by at least half, but haven't figure out a good way to cut it.  Yikes! 

 

The other issue I have with the Atlas kit(s) is that they used very thick plastic with not chance for interior lighting.  Since everyone of my buildings does have some level of interior lighting, I'm concerned that it would look like something more appropriate from 2001 a Space Odyssey than a real city!  :hal:

[cteno4]

Quintopia,

 

you are right these will really stick out unless there are some other heafty buildings around them as well. doug dig wiggle them into setagaya pretty well though. it is tough to do interior lighting as you say. i think what you would need to do it just paste some small boxes on the inside 1 floor high and maybe 1" long to represent an office and put an led into it. that way you could just have alike a dozen offices lit on a face randomly around the building.

 

im more inclined to make my own when i get there as i think layering strips of plastic on top of tinted plastic will work well to create some interesting high rises that will not look like the plain old atlas kits!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

hexagonal just started at $25 now

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350243770346&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_5220wt_942

 

also hex and square at $70 start and $75 buy it now.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-IN-BOX-ATLAS-HIGH-RISE-HEXAGON-no-2836_W0QQitemZ270446048485QQcmdZViewItemQQptZModel_RR_Trains?hash=item3ef7d734e5&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_500wt_957

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-IN-BOX-ATLAS-HIGH-RISE-SQUAIR-no-2835_W0QQitemZ270446048045QQcmdZViewItemQQptZModel_RR_Trains?hash=item3ef7d7332d&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_500wt_957

[quinntopia]

im more inclined to make my own when i get there as i think layering strips of plastic on top of tinted plastic will work well to create some interesting high rises that will not look like the plain old atlas kits!

 

I agree!  Any good leads on sources for good tinted plastics?  It seems like there should be a lot of options, but I find it really hard to find 'dark black' and transparent plastic, or something that is both reflective and semi-transparent.  There's got to be a source for this stuff somewhere!

[CaptOblivious]

im more inclined to make my own when i get there as i think layering strips of plastic on top of tinted plastic will work well to create some interesting high rises that will not look like the plain old atlas kits!

 

I agree!  Any good leads on sources for good tinted plastics?  It seems like there should be a lot of options, but I find it really hard to find 'dark black' and transparent plastic, or something that is both reflective and semi-transparent.  There's got to be a source for this stuff somewhere!

 

A search for "mirrored plastic" and "mirrored acrylic" return promising results. Your best bet is to contact one of the manufacturers, explain what you want to do (you might compare your project's goal to mirrored sunglasses?), and see if they have something that meets those needs and a retailer to sell it to you…

[cteno4]

Quintopia,

 

first thing to do is look in your yellow pages to see if there are any plastics or sign makers in your area. these are usually the best place to start looking for acrylic and other plastics. usually after some poking around and a few visits to industrial parks you were not aware of in your area, you will find a gem of a place with a wall of misc scrap plastic they usually sell at $1-2/lb! this makes it a worthwhile place to stop buy now and then if you are nearby to see whats laying around! last time i picked up a bunch of clear acrylic sheets like 1/16" 2'x4' for like $2 each. lots of other interesting scraps there as well! they usually also carry 4' x 8" sheets of styrene, gaterfoam, syntra, and other interesting plastics and the cost for a 4'x8' sheet is usually cheaper than a much smaller sheet you can get at the hardware or hobby shop so you can divvy it up with friends and get it really cheap! also when i have bought some sheet and scrap they sometimes just throw the few $$ of scrap in for free to get rid of the stuff and make me want to come back again (can we say junkie...)

 

on the tinting lots of folks use the tinted mirrored tile sheets. these are glass or acrylic tiles like 0.5" square that are stuck to a plastic sheet. you can easily cut them apart along the tile lines. to me these usually just look like reflective/tinted glass tiles, and dont give a good building look to me.

 

another approach for tinting is to use the mylar tinting film for windows. you can get this in a whole range of tinting and reflectiveness. you just wet your clear acrylic and press this stuff on and squeegee out any air bubbles and let it dry.

 

other techniques you can use on acrylic sheet are to use a plastic scribing knife (its kind of a backwards facing knife point on a handle for a few bucks at the hardware store) that will make a small grooved scribe line on plastic sheeting. you are meant to then bend it away from the scribe line to snap the plastic off w/o having to cut all the way through it. what you can do with this is scribe small vertical and/or horizontal lines that appear in the faces of glass sided high rises.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[cteno4]

atlas high rises on ebay now at reasonable starting points, wonder what they will end up going for?!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200381627586&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_500wt_1112

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200381628799&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_500wt_1112

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200381631133&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_500wt_1112

[cteno4]

nice little scratch built highrise.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300348290605&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_774wt_840

 

jeff

[Bernard]

nice little scratch built highrise.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300348290605&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123#ht_774wt_840

 

jeff

 

Jeff - I see it's the Wachovia Bank building. The present bid is 36.99 USD but does the winning bidder also get the "Federal bail out money?"

[cteno4]

Jeff - I see it's the Wachovia Bank building. The present bid is 36.99 USD but does the winning bidder also get the "Federal bail out money?"

 

LOL, yes but you have to pay it back to paypal later...

 

jr

[quinntopia]

I was one of the lucky ones who had one of the Atlas Skyscraper kits (the square one) however, as others point out, the footprint of this thing is HUGE!  So, I left it in the box trying to figure out how to fit this huge monolith on my layout...and did I want it that bad to take up so much expensive real estate?

 

The answer was YES, but, a modified yes.  I cut it down.  Seems sort of sacrilegious to cut and hack away at something in such demand, but I did really want a modern looking skyscraper.  So, here it is! 

 

 

I took about a third of the fronts off, and cut the sides by about half.  The result is that its still huge, just not so much.  Cutting it was a pain though as Atlas uses a really thick, brittle plastic for the castings.  The upside is that they are sem-transparent (barely), so I blacked out the inside walls and have it backlit to make it look like office lights are on.  For the ground floor, I added an "HMV" along with a small office door area (a bit hard to see in this photo).  What do you think?

[cteno4]

Quintopia,

 

very very nice! much more in proportion to most of the other n scale buildings that most reasonable sized layouts would have.

 

love your use of internal screens to block the internal lighting to only have some offices lit!

 

excellent work!

[serenityFan]

With the tower light and the HSBC signage, for a couple of seconds there I thought that picture is of a real life scene! :grin

[cteno4]

this scaled down building has me really thinking the simple high rises i have been noodling on using just smoked acetate and some cross pieces on each floor on the outside will make some great medium sized high rises like this.

 

thanks for the great stimulation on this. it really is a great work, even love the radio tower light on the top. again excellent work!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Bernard]

Incredible! I have the Hexagon building and I could never figure out how to light it. The results on your building look great. I'm not sure if I understand how you did the lighting because I know the plastic used by Atlas is thick.

[quinntopia]

Bernard,

 

For the interior lighting, I used those strips of LED's that are sold at hardware stores for 'under cabinet' lighting for kitchens.  They are about 30 or 40 dollars, but depending on the type you go with, you get 10 or 12" strips with about 10 led's on each strip (the 'hockey puck' versions could also be used, but didn't seem as bright).  The number of LED's also helps to diffuse the light (LED's are sort of narrow by themselves).  I wish I had more as I would like to have it a bit brighter, but happy with it for now.  An alternative I considered was those light bulb's they sell for Department 56 houses.  A much cheaper route, but I get nervous with having too much incandescent light and its heat in a confined plastic space!

 

I have three of these LED strips hot-glued to a central column in the middle of the building, using the power supply that came with the LED strips also relieves power drain for other buildings (where I use a more conventional LED w/ resistor to a 12v DC power supply that I wire myself), just finding room for the plug on the power outlet strip was the hardest part!

[Martijn Meerts]

I see you have the vollmer church.. Lovely model that one =)

[quinntopia]

I see you have the vollmer church.. Lovely model that one =)

 

Yes, its one of my favorites! One of my 'inspirations' was the models of downtown Gotham City used in the Batman films....this cathedral has a great gothic look to it! What I wouldn't give to be around those models when they are done filming!  And to know some of their techniques?  That would be awesome.