"Cheap housing"

Use CAD and your computer printer to turn real houses into models.

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GP> Dan Merkel wrote: GP> GP> > I posted this on the MR forum and thought I'd ask for suggestions here as GP> > well. Does anyone have a solution for affordable HO housing for their model GP> > cities/towns/villages? Plastic kits today seem to be hovering around the GP> > $20 mark and I need enough of them that that is kind of expensive. : GP> > ( I was just wondering if anyone knew of any off-brand for good houses. GP> > It's funny that we have industrial kits for everything from blast furnaces GP> > to pet shops, but normal HO houses seem to be few & far between. Afterall, GP> > our HO citizens need to live somewhere, don't they??? GP> GP> Use CAD and your computer printer to turn real houses into models.

Someone posted an URL to a website of PDF files meant to be printed on card stock and then cut out and put together to make a number of little houses. The PDF files were 0 scale, but it should be possible to re-scale them (by 1/2) to get H0 scale houses.

I think there are some (commercial) supliers of 'card stock' buildings out there as well. These are *much* cheaper than plastic kits.

One of the reasons there are many kits for *industrial* building and few for *houses* is that few people build single-family housing in the midst of the train tracks. *Often* industrial buildings and train tracks share space. So, for "housing" most modelers just include a

GP> GP>

\/ Robert Heller ||InterNet: snipped-for-privacy@cs.umass.edu

Try

Thanks!

dlm

--------------------------- Dan Merkel

Any plastic kit of the complexity of a "simple house" will cost around $20, and may cost more if the market will absorb at most a few thousand copies. That's just the economics of making plastic kits. I think you're transferring the model railroader's natural low rating for houses ("they're just background for the _real_ action") to the pricing of kits. Unfortunately, the price of the kit is based on its costs, not our valuation of it.

Sigh.

Try "Rix" and "City Classics" or "DPM" (Design Preservatiuon Miniatures). (I forget which of the latter two has a series called "camany houses)

Both have older small houses under $10.00

Don

-- snipped-for-privacy@prodigy.net

Dan=A0Merkel) I posted this on the MR forum and thought I'd ask for suggestions here as well. Does anyone have a solution for affordable HO housing for their model cities/towns/villages? Plastic kits today seem to be hovering around the $20 mark and I need enough of them that that is kind of expensive. : ( =A0 =A0 I was just wondering if anyone knew of any off-brand for good houses. It's funny that we have industrial kits for everything from blast furnaces to pet shops, but normal HO houses seem to be few & far between. Afterall, our HO citizens need to live somewhere, don't they???

----------------------------------------------- Some of the IHC (Internaional Hobby Corp.) houses retail for around $10 and several DPM (Design Preservation Models) are less that $10, I believe.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire N Scale Model Railroad:

I tend to grab a bit of .040" thick plastic stock and do the basic house and then cover with .010:" thick if special stuff is needed, Then again, I buy my styrene from a large plastics house in .010, .020 and .040" thicknesses in large ( 3'x4' sheets) at a very low cost and failrues are easy to amortize towards a better product.

-- Why isn't there an Ozone Hole at the NORTH Pole?

WK> Dan Merkel wrote: WK> > I posted this on the MR forum and thought I'd ask for suggestions here as WK> > well. Does anyone have a solution for affordable HO housing for their model WK> > cities/towns/villages? Plastic kits today seem to be hovering around the WK> > $20 mark and I need enough of them that that is kind of expensive. : WK> > ( I was just wondering if anyone knew of any off-brand for good houses. WK> > It's funny that we have industrial kits for everything from blast furnaces WK> > to pet shops, but normal HO houses seem to be few & far between. Afterall, WK> > our HO citizens need to live somewhere, don't they??? WK> > WK> > Thanks! WK> > WK> > dlm WK> > --------------------------- WK> > Dan Merkel WK> > WK> > WK> WK> WK> Any plastic kit of the complexity of a "simple house" will cost around WK> $20, and may cost more if the market will absorb at most a few thousand WK> copies. That's just the economics of making plastic kits. I think you're WK> transferring the model railroader's natural low rating for houses WK> ("they're just background for the _real_ action") to the pricing of WK> kits. Unfortunately, the price of the kit is based on its costs, not our WK> valuation of it.

Right. Manufactured kits are fine for one- or two- of. When, as a modeler, you need a lot of something, it is going to be cheaper to mass produce it yourself -- eg. bulk plastic sheets will be cheaper for example. Even, 'hand' mass produced from plastic sheets is not super cheap (and can be rather labor intensive). Fortunately, technology has come to the 'rescue': PCs, CAD software (or PhotoShop/GIMP), and color inkjet printers. All you need is some medium card stock and you can

WK> WK> Sigh. WK>

\/ Robert Heller ||InterNet: snipped-for-privacy@cs.umass.edu

I've heard about this... I guess there are even "home design" programs that are available that have the ability to print 3-D models in HO scale.

Has anyone tried any of these home design programs for this purpose? It seems that the ones I saw at Staples were Punch Software offerings. How do the models turn out? How does the computer handle roof lines? In my limited scratchbuilding efforts, it has always been the roof of a building that has caused me problems, especially where that roof intersects with another oneat a weird angle or different pitch.

Any input would be appreciated...

Thanks!

dlm

And by the time you pay for the ink, what have they cost you?

I printed some window scenes for a block of stores and was amazed at how fast I used up an ink cartridge.

Bob -

Where are you located and what is the name of the large / bulk plastics house from which you obtain the 3' x 4' sheets?

Thank you.

LB> In article , LB> snipped-for-privacy@deepsoft.com says... LB> > Fortunately, technology has LB> > come to the 'rescue': PCs, CAD software (or PhotoShop/GIMP), and color LB> > inkjet printers. All you need is some medium card stock and you can LB> > *print* your houses. Cut them out and with a little Elmer's, you are LB> > done. LB> > LB> And by the time you pay for the ink, what have they cost you?

Even so, it will be less than $20+ per kit...

LB> LB> I printed some window scenes for a block of stores and was amazed at how LB> fast I used up an ink cartridge. LB> LB> -- LB> H*mo sapiens is a goal, not a description LB>

\/ Robert Heller ||InterNet: snipped-for-privacy@cs.umass.edu

Hi- Here is my attempt. It worked out ok, but not great.

I think this would work if people put the time into making them look more realistic. I tried to modify the brick work in my building so it wasn't so sterile.

The best example of this was a barn, where it was constructed from actual pictures of a barn by Bob Boudreau. They are at

A good project would be to photograph some oter buildings and post them to a site ;-)

David

Was it the cartridge that came with the printer? They're notorious for being only partially filled, since making money on the cartridges is why they sell them so cheap.

I know people who buy cheap printers and throw them away when the cartridges are used up, because it's cheaper than replacing the cartridges.

You might also consider the refill kits, or professionally refilled cartridges...

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 10:12:57 -0800, Larry Blanchard purred:

Try a Canon printer. I get over 500 colour sheets from a cartridge. Besides you can refill ink and save as well so the per page cost is minuscule, well under 3 cents US.

cat

Cheap printers are also known for cheap quality, so I went against that notion when I bought my printer, I just replace one of the four tanks (one for each color, plus black) and/or the printhead.

Alan

Also make sure if you buy a Canon printer, that you get one with the Thinktank ink system, then you just replace whatever color you run out of.

Alan