Advice on How to Secure Buildings?

Anyone?  Thanks for any suggestions ...

 

 

Peter 

If you secure your buildings to the layout, its okay but you have to think about if someone hits it, will the building survive better if it was loose or firmly attached?

I chose to let gravity secure my buildings. I may build them on a separate base, but usually they are just placed. I learned from my telephone poles to just "peg" them to the layout. if they get slapped they will pop out of the hole and survive better.

Its easy to replace the peg...

The roofing paper I am using for blacktop streets, but there is a thread on here that shows cut and sanded, then painted hardboard, or masonite. I use both methods... and of coarse, real dirt for the dirt roads....

All of my buildings are secured to 1/16" Masonite that can be removed from the layout.  Each has its own scenery components installed so that these can be removed, reworked, etc. as a discrete unit.

 

Roads are dirt........

My city buildings are glued to the sidewalk, but they, and all other structures just sit on the surface.

The Laws of Gravity are strictly enforced on my layout.  Just plop down structure and wire.  If a runaway loco hits it, it won't smash up into pieces.

  I use 15# roofing paper for my streets, works great.

I like to use roofing paper, but I don't have a good solution for seams that are difficult to cover or blend together. I though about and iron that would melt two pieces of paper together at the seam, but I have not tried it yet. 

       
       


HOW are they secured?

Peter

       
       


I'm new at this. How would one "peg" a building?  Just cut a perfectly sized hole for it in the pavement and set it into the whole?  Unless the holes are absolutely perfectly sized, wouldn't a gap or cut line be obvious?

My layouts structures are far from complete[dormant layout]but the ones I have positioned and the flats on the wall are secured with a tab of Velcro and the light wires are currently disconnected.

 

Also I attached 1/8' Masonite panels to the background wall [only 13" h.] so that I can hopefully remove for mounting on an easel for decorating at some point [painted sky blue now].

 

I "peg" my trees and telephone poles in the following way; I guess you could peg a building as well.

I use welding rod available at my local ACO or ACE Hardware store. I believe it is 1/16 of an inch in diameter. Snip about a half inch, then drill same hole size into base of pole or tree, then slide the peg in.

Next drill the same hole size in the layout and peg it to the layout ... this helps my sanity...

I have a bad habit of moving things around this early in the game.

They all interlock like a puzzle to fill a space; shapes are not simple squares or rectangles.  Everything inserts into its space.  I'd have to find an edge and pry up with screwdriver to actually lift anything out to work on it.  Then, there's a bit of gravity and the electrical connections that I'd also have to disconnect. In fact, one building is an entire lift-out section of the layout and I can then also change that entire scene.

 

After having to demolish layouts for estates while hoping to salvage structures, and generally failing since most folks glue everything down, I decided that I would not do such a thing which also let's me handle them more safely myself and to be able to work on them as need be safely, too. 

I'm with Martin, Trainman 2001, and others. Buildings have their own "footing," held in place by gravity, that allows the removal of the building to the workbench for further refinement. The building wiring needs a disconnect of sorts to allow such a move. There are so many variations of that to chose from so your personal preference will rule. I'm using euro-type terminal strips for the smaller gauge wires.

 

Neil

1/4" Masonite base. (Correction, the masonite picture is a little over 3/16", surprisingly it matches perfectly with the Midwest cork road bed).   

And maybe a bit more.

Thanks. As a first-timer, all the advice and dos/don'ts here are so helpful.  Peter

If your buildings are hollow, I have a simple, inexpensive suggestion: foamcore.  By "hollow" I mean that the walls which contact the layout base do not already have a floor flush with the bottom of the structure.

 

So, the first step would be to trace the building outline onto a sheet of 1/4" foamcore.

 

Then, draw a parallel line inside the building outline.  The parallel line should be inset by the thickness of the wall, plus a tad more depending on how tight a fit you want your building to be positioned.

 

With the inner line drawn, and a fresh #11 blade in your hobby knife, cut the foamcore board along the inner line.

 

Check the fit of the cut board to the underside of the structure.

 

Then, put a few dabs of tacky glue on the bottom side of the foamcore and position it roughly in its final position on the layout.  Lower the building carefully over it and final position the building.

 

THEN WALK AWAY, go have a beer, watch some TV, run some trains, kiss the dog, take the wife for a walk, .....whatever....and let the glue dry.

 

About an hour later you should be able to pick the building up, and return it over the foamcore plug to its exact original position. 

 

This should be sufficient for most table bumps and an earthquake of say 2.0 on the Richter scale.  Rampaging cats, dogs, kids, and vermin bounding across the scenery?....all bets are off!

 

Hey, it's cheap.  Hope it helps.

 

BTW, I use Martin's (mwb) suggestion, too.  Having more buildings than layout real estate can absorb, I use the 1/8" Masonite as a mini-diorama base for turning the buildings into 'shelfies'...they keep the 'queens' (excess locomotives/cars) company!

 

FWIW, always...

 

KD

 

Did anyone really read the full question? 

Mark - appreciate you noticing that my original query was about how TO secure buildings, given most of the answers are about not affixing buildings. But this gave me food for thought and I may end up trying to figure out how to non-permanently keep them securely fastened for the reason stated - each block will be a pop-out.  No complaints on my end as most posts are helpful.   Compare this to another thread I started asking for votes for choice of most realistic STEAM engine in terms of operating features (e.g  Smoke, etc.). People posted arguments along the lines of the realism in terms of rivets or detail, to photos of diesels (??), to photos of a favorite engine, whether or not it had anything to do with the thread (e.g. no operating features other than stack smoke). Ha!  But it's all part of the fun.

Peter

I like caulk for securing buildings. Depending on substrate I carve out small grove where building is going, add caulk along inside edge of building.  This way building looks like its in the ground not floating on the top with visible spaces. To remove use razor knife, then peel off caulk.

 

Yeah, sure did, but when "permanently" and "non-permanent" are in the same sentence referring to the same question/problem seeking the same solution, well.... 

 

So, we/I throw out a few techniques, FWIW...

 

Heck, if you used 1/2" foamcore cut to a 'plug' that was fairly snug-fitting, you'd probably double your Richter capability!

 

KD