Re using HO-OO card buildings for 28mm .

[tin shed gamer]

I've really enjoyed the run of great buildings been used in Pulp games of late.But following links to manufacturers has often left me out in the cold with postage costs.Or planing major reworking of kits to make them fit my needs.
So I thought I'd take a look at card kits and came across Metcalfe card kits,and thought it's worth a giggle at £11.50 including p&p.
Now I've bumped the costs up to £12.25 with an old picture frame from a charity shop to make the base.So it's not an expensive test.
I'm not going overboard on detail or finish as its a proof of concept (that I'll actually use if it works and bin if it doesn't)
The trick seems to be removing the detail/visual cues that shout 20mm rather than worrying about the overall size of the building.

Here's the first stage and a picture of the 20mm set as it was intended.
Mark.

[eilif]

It really depends on the building chosen, but as you've shown, industrial buildings are particularly easy to convert to 28mm.  It's mostly the single-person-sized doors that need swapping since windows and garage doors come in a variety of sizes and the actual footprint of 28mm is almost always quite compressed anyway to fit easier on the wargaming table.

Your conversion work (and general construction) looks great. 

Here's a similar example. I found a Walthers Train Engine Shed kit at a resale shop. It said HO scale which at 1/87 is even smaller than 20mm.  However, with no person sized doors, it ended up being a great structure for 28mm with a bit of converting.

More details here for those interested. I even put in an interior and second floor...
http://chicagoskirmish.blogspot.com/2011/10/how-to-turn-model-railroad-building.html

[tin shed gamer]

Thanks ,
It looks an interesting building ,I suspect a little to big for my storage though.
This build is only four hours in( from opening the packet to pictures)I'm treating it as a useable proof of concept so I'm not looking for neat and symmetrical card work as it has a good solid net as a starting point,and I'm working at speed.if it works then it'll probably be used at the weekend if not then it's not a huge sum of money or more importantly chunk of time.

If it works well then I think I'll rework one of their railway station kits as you seem to get a surprising amount of building for your money.

As for detailing I've used a couple of different methods to form the corners hence the slightly odd and un even look to some of the edges.settling on a halfway house between a single layer and a shaped double layer for the other buildings as it's good mix of speed and texture.

As for doors there's three simple solutions ,build a larger door over the existing one(sliding door on the ramp)
Cut a larger door into the existing door way ( taking care not to go to far above the lintel height of the ground floor windows)
Raise the height of the building so the existing doorway is right for 28mm.by adding a card skirt to the ground floor(added on this building but I've not raised the building height its to blend in with the building I will be raising )
It's more than likely which ever method used you'll need to increase door widths on single doors or turn double doors to single in 28mm.
I'm going to have to spend some time touching up paint splashed areas before building the next section,as working at speed can often mean pillock with a brush
The size of the buildings are just about right for my needs (not sure of the actual dimensions as I've not finish tweaking them but the core of the building is roughly 12cm long and there's three of them plus loading docks etc.)
I've not actually done that much to alter them the only real changes are ,that I've added roughly 15mm height to the bridge and the same to its length (to ensure there's a reasonable amount of room between the buildings.
I also raised the height of the loading bay porch by 15mm.This took seconds as the sack hoist is printed with horizontal lines.i simply cut off the desired section placed the cutoff over the top and used it as a template for the diagonal cuts for the roof angle.

[gary42]

Those look pretty damn good!

[tin shed gamer]

I'll be honest this took a lot longer than I thought it would to finish as free time has been hard to find ,so it never made it to the game ,I've still some sign work to add.The trees are recycled I reuse them when they're  getting thread bare by trimming back the bald areas and gluing them up against buildings,and walls,and so on.

[d phipps]

Great ideas! THANKS for posting.

[eilif]

Wow, that is an excellent final result!  A really nice example of building compression that looks completely natural.

[MalcyBogaten]

Excellent! So many uses and superb look to the project!

[tin shed gamer]

Glad you like the way this is shaping up.it's proved a really relaxing project (a little obsessive but fun).Still needs a third board to finish it ,just haven't thought of what to make to even up the other side.
I think I'm going to do a few more buildings as this seems a great way to build up the background buildings for a game,as its dawned on me that I don't have what I need for my Ealing project.
I think I'll do this as a workbench project,and post in Pulp when it's a finished game.
Mark.