So this past weekend I wanted to build a completely scratch built structure for our HO Scale layout. My goal was to build a new building for our own custom layout that wasn’t part of a kit, wasn’t modeled after any other buildings and was 100% custom to our layout.. At least until now, if anyone uses this as a concept for a new building, and if they do, that’s great! We love innovating and more power to you!
The first step was to cut the walls to the desired shape and size that we wanted. This new building was going to be a shanty / cabin in a wood mill and lumber industry area within our layout so I was thinking a cabin or lodge type of structure.
I grabbed some sections of balsa wood that I picked up a few months ago at the local craft store and cut them to the desired shape with my jigsaw.
After cutting the wall sections to the shape I liked, I carefully cut grooves every ⅛” into the wall sections to create a vertical wood siding look for the exterior. Though this was a tedious process, it added some depth to the structure.
Once I was happy with the wall sections, I stained them with a dark wood stain and let them dry. The dark stain allowed the cuts to form the siding to be darker and added more contrast to the final structure.
After allowing the walls to dry for a full day I dry brushed the walls with Folk-Art Barnwood latex craft paint to add some variation to the walls. At this point I glued the plastic windows and doors to the walls.
Once all was dry I attached the corrugated cardboard roof, which I painted with Folkart Steel Gray latex craft paint. To glue the roof, actually all of the wall pieces, I used the craft store “Original Tacky Glue”. This just happens to be the old standby glue for most of our kits. We love this glue and it works great (plus it’s cheap).
I also made a deck with some ⅜” wood balsa strips from the local craft store, and added ¼” posts to elevate the structure on the layout to add more dimension. And personally, a little cabin in a logging industry looks good elevated and built into the land! Have you ever seen a cabin perfectly flat into the land around it? EXACTLY, Change up your elevations!
Finally once all of the pieces are parts were glued together and dried, I weathered it with the good old standby chalk pastels (black, brown, orange, tan, yellow, and white).
Oh! I forgot to mention, the only parts that weren’t hand include the steps and handrail for the steps. Those parts were salvaged from leftovers of a past kit.
Have you made custom structures on a budget? Let’s hear about your custom scratch-built HO Scale buildings below:
