Mocked by the Mockup (Part 1)

Once the track was laid for General Motors, and then modified to match the new and improved structure plan I made for the area, I thought it would be good to actually start working on the assembly plant structure. To be honest, I’ve been itching to build a structure for a while now.

No question, the GM plant is going to be a big building. Huge. Cavernous. And in my mind, I have no option but to scratchbuild it. I don’t think a kit or a kitbash will cut it.

Normally, I’d jump right in and start construction on what would become the final styrene structure, but to be honest, that doesn’t always work out so well. In the past I’ve gotten mixed result going that route for bigger projects, and while I’m not new to scratchbuilding, I’ve never undertaken anything on this scale before. The dimensions are big, it’s not a “plain old rectangle” and it’s got some weird corners to fit around door moldings, etc. So, while my normal modus operandi is jump in head first, this time I took pause.

• Even though strip styrene isn’t ridiculously expensive, it isn’t cheap either. Mistakes could be costly in terms of material.
• I don’t have a really good hobby shop anywhere less than 45 minute drive away (which is just ridiculous in New England if you think about it), much less one that has a decent stock of styrene, so I would need to plan ahead to order the right amount of strip, hoping I didn’t mess up and waste a lot. Waiting for replacement styrene could be costly in terms of time.
• If I hated the final result, I’d be out materials and time.

So I decided to go with that old standby. The cardstock mock-up.

I’d never really gone this route before, and certainly not on anything this big. Lots of guys like Tony Koester swear by mock-ups as a quick and easy way to create a stand-in. And the concept had some benefits that I liked:

• I could get 1/4″ wood from Home Depot pretty cheap, and Home Depot is 10 minutes away; no mail order required
• I could print texture and doors and windows onto the cardstock to give a better feel for how the final structure would look; moving doors and windows would be a piece of cake (cut… paste…)
• It would be a quick way to get a stand-in built that I might even be able to live with for a while, meaning I wouldn’t have to jump into the final version right away

I was in. I went to Home Depot, got my wood, and started cutting and gluing.

How’d it turn out? We’ll cover that next time…