Large Scale Central

Need opinions on a project

So this is sorta a modeling question. I have been considering a shelf/diorama to hold my work train I am building. Thought it would be fun when it is not in use to be displayed on a shelf and if you are going to display it on a shelf why not make it a diorama. Someday before I am dead, I hope to move into my sons room as my new hobby room. He is supposed to be moving down stairs into my current hobby room. Anyway this gives me kind of a blank slate for this project. I have decided some sort of bookcase affair would be a great way to get storage and also have a long flat spot for this diorama. So with that said. . .

I want to do just front facades of buildings with a little depth to them so I can put pictures in the windows and have them be lit. I love this idea from the challenge. How deep should a shelf be so that it can hold a double set of tracks and facades with a walk between the tracks and the building fronts? How deep do you make the facades so you can have the pictures set back an a light above them. I am thinking a total of 18 inches deep should be enough. But i would like some thoughts and opinions on this since I am not really sure what I am doing with the fronts of these buildings.

i kinda need to move forward with this as I am starting to get a string of cars and would like to give them a home. The book case won’t be anything to awful fancy.

Balls deep!

Rooster: has reported himself to the moderator so Joe Zullo doesn’t have a job anymore

I am not working in z scale.

.Well by my feeble thinking you want to have enough room behind the cars to give some depth . 2 tracks should be about 12 - 14 inches so at least 18 to 20 inches sounds good. Having too much would be better than not enough, 2-3 inch profiles on your facades will probably be good enough to give the impression of the building.

Late to the party as usual.

What I find that works for me is;

4 inches from front edge to track center line, 7 inches center line to center line all tracks,

4 inches from track center line to scenery/buildings.

I like my 3-D flats a minimum of 3 inches deep but 5-6 is better as it allows room for loading docks

and you can even squeeze a vehicle in there.

So based on 6 inches you now have a minimum shelf width of 21 inches. Make it 24 if you have the room,

more room for scenery and better use of dimensional construction material.

Sounds like a cool plan, waiting for pictures(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)

make a fist - measure from the middle of your fist to your armpit. that is the maximum you can maintain and service easily. (in between 25 and 35")

backgroundbuildings and flats should be half an inch away from the background (“pushes” the background farther away)

inside the flats: i use between 1" to 1,5".

boardwalks: i use 1.5 to 2"

optics: i like “flats”, where one of the sidewalls is a bit longer than the other. meaning, the housefront does not run paralell to the background. (adds perspective and depth to the view)

DON’T lay the track paralell to the front edge of the diorama. that looks boring!

you want a train IN a landscape - not a train in front of a background.

so either put the track diagonal into the scene, or use a curve.

if you can place at least one (smaller) building and a tree or two in front of the train, it looks more natural.

" Rooster " said:

Balls deep!

Rooster: has reported himself to the moderator so Joe Zullo doesn’t have a job anymore