# Buck A Building



## Tom Parkins (Jan 2, 2008)

The Elm Creek RR is runs through Appalachia and is set in the 1960s. Those were not prosperous times. The real Elm Creek is located in my back yard in Newark, DE is also not terribly prosperous. I model on the cheap. Guys like me are a big reason that the large scale industry is struggling. 

My overall philosophy when modeling is to present a "feeling" of the area. I am not a detail guy. I want the viewer to feel that Maplewood was part of a company town in Appalachia. Obviously I practice the 10 ft rule. 





These houses cost about a buck a piece. The biggest expense is the glue. I use E6000 and Titebond III. The houses are built of 4x4 treated lumber and coroplast sign material (think campaign signs). 



Windows are made from vegetable plant carrier trays. I use plastic corner protectors for smooth edges. The roof is asphalt shingle and the porch roof is sheet metal flashing scrap.


----------



## Tom Parkins (Jan 2, 2008)

Maplewood is a small community stuck at the base of.....a maple tree. The houses are nowhere to scale. They are about 5-1/2 in wide....roughly 12 ft wide in 1/29. But I employ forced perspective to make the houses look a little further back from the tracks. Otherwise they are only 30 scale feet away from the tracks. The area needs some more landscaping, leveling the houses, patching the road. It is in intense shade. 

I enjoy building real houses....I volunteer one weekend a month with Habitat for Humanity. A group of us also travels to Appalachia each summer to help with home repairs, although the past 2 summers were to the Jersey shore for Superstorm Sandy repairs. Yeah I have been known to pick up a few scraps. Almost all of the buildings on the Elm Creek are buck a building with some perhaps not even a quarter.


----------



## bobbycoke (Feb 24, 2014)

*50 MPH at Midnight*

Tom love the town of maplewood I too know the feeling of trying to build my RR empire on the "fixed Income express" .......Prices seem to be crazy but maybe I am just stuck in the past.........The ten foot rule is better but my late father-in-law [boy I miss him] grew up though the depression and he could make do with anything had an expression when cobbling something together it was " 50 miles an hour at midnight it will look fine" well now back to some scratch building that at ten feet and 50 mph at midnight will look just FINE!


----------



## CliffyJ (Apr 29, 2009)

Very nice Tom, they remind me of the "company housing" sometimes built in RR towns. Very well done, they look you like spent a whole lot more!
Got a chuckle out of your porch railings!


----------



## Mike Reilley (Jan 2, 2008)

Very nice...gonna build a whole logging camp this way!


----------



## Sjoc78 (Jan 25, 2014)

Wow such cute cottages and nice details for cheap!


----------



## rntfrmme (May 23, 2013)

Caliente Nevada has a string of homes that are still lived in that those models could easily pass for. If memory serves me correctly there are about a dozen in a row. Some well kept, some a little less so.

Bill


----------

