Quote from: Hertsblue on 30 November 2012, 08:51:06 AM
If you're going to go down that route, Rudy, surely it would be more economic to make an entire street as one unit? The whole thing would be stronger and you could still have individual roofs. 

Having said that, your initial experiments look good to me. 

Yeah, in the end the idea wold be to make combinations of these bits and create larger fronts.  But, to be honest, I struggled with the windows - might have an alternative now, and it was a lot of work.  The idea would be to glue / putty parts together, put some plastercon the stones so the show through here and there, and in the end cast larger parts, like a few houses.  The roofs were hard to design though, as I have no real experience in the matter.

Hi all - loving all the comments and suggestions.
Re flat packs - it's certainly worth looking into for 10mm.
I agree, large 'thin' resin panels do tend to warp due to the heat generated during curing, but the main problem here is they are rather brittle - (just drop one on a hard surface and see). The panels for a typical 10mm Normandy house would still need to be min 4mm thick to create the necessary strength, and creating a mitre on the sides for joining may pose a slight air bubble problem during casting, plus the roofs would need to be solid triangular blocks. - Now you've got me thinking ... am off in the workshop - see you all later.

Quote from: levenminiatures on 01 December 2012, 02:58:42 PM
Hi all - loving all the comments and suggestions.
Re flat packs - it's certainly worth looking into for 10mm.
I agree, large 'thin' resin panels do tend to warp due to the heat generated during curing, but the main problem here is they are rather brittle - (just drop one on a hard surface and see). The panels for a typical 10mm Normandy house would still need to be min 4mm thick to create the necessary strength, and creating a mitre on the sides for joining may pose a slight air bubble problem during casting, plus the roofs would need to be solid triangular blocks. - Now you've got me thinking ... am off in the workshop - see you all later.

Drop a solid resin casting on a hard surface and you'll wish you hadn't! I speak from sad experience.

The sad fact is that the technique lends itself more to plastic than resin. Don't know anyone who does such a thing though. 

Sadly....
Even for something as 'simple' and flat as a wall, it would still be horribly pricey to produce something in plastic Ray.
The tooling costs wouldn't be as awful as they would be compared to making plastic men, but they'd still be way too high for most people.
Cheers - Phil.

Oh, I understand the complications involved with plastic, Phil. I was just wondering aloud if any of the model railway firms did anything of the sort. Saw a huge layout yesterday (in OO admittedly) on which there were all sorts of wonderful kit buildings. 

Pico Armor produce plastic buildings, so they are obviously set up for injection moulding. Maybe they do them or would consider it.

I know John Sweenie of Pico Armour quite well since I set up the 3mm yahoo group, If its the Monopoly buildings your talking about then I think he buys those in from else where...The other terrain pieces are resin and metal

Good point - I like that - 'monopoly buildings' - you're right they look exactly like 'em. Am still trying to get my head around the 3mm stuff myself - tools bigger than the windows like!.

Hi All

Talking of plastic N gauge buildings there are is the Kestrel range (Edit:My old teacher would have had fits  )



http://www.gaugemaster.com/search_results.asp?searchstring=%20%20brand~~667~~brand%20%20scale~~%ACn%AC~~scale%20category~~1229~~category#24

Very useful for VBCW.

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

Hey Grumpy - stop giving me ideas!!

Quote from: levenminiatures on 01 December 2012, 02:58:42 PM
the main problem here is they are rather brittle - (just drop one on a hard surface and see).

...or knock one carelessly against another one. 

Hi LM

Quote from: levenminiatures on 03 December 2012, 11:09:57 PM
Hey Grumpy - stop giving me ideas!!

Always good at coming up with ideas that mean work for somebody else 

But the Kestrel buildings (with the window bits closed off) make good examples of how to structure flat pack buildings:-



Leaving the gutters, downpipes and and chimney pots aside (white metal?), the main issue would be designing the edges so that they are easily cast without air pockets yet can fit together for gluing.

Still, as I said, I'm the ideas man - my job is done!

Cheers

GrumpyOldMan

A vacuum pump would help.

having played in the workshop on the challenge for an evening or two, I have come to the conclusion that flat packs are definitely for injection moulded plastic. Resin versions would not be cost effective, and not of equal quality. Sorry guys I've failed.

Your other stuff is still pretty dam' good. Apology not required.

I don't know if it would make a difference, but the buildings I have from Artitec come with the flat pieces in a single sheet of resin, and maybe some extra bits seperate. It means that when building the model you have to cut out the pieces first, but that's not a big problem, I would think. But maybe it would make the manufacturing easier/more efficient?

Quote from: levenminiatures on 04 December 2012, 11:23:44 PM
having played in the workshop on the challenge for an evening or two, I have come to the conclusion that flat packs are definitely for injection moulded plastic. Resin versions would not be cost effective, and not of equal quality. Sorry guys I've failed.

No failure just the restrictions of the material.

Quote from: WeeWars on 05 December 2012, 07:35:10 PM
No failure just the restrictions of the material.

No, indeed. Just bash on with the 10mm stuff.