Modeling the Old West

[S J Donovan]

I have been searching for books/guides etc for modeling the old west.  Two I have found most helpful are Knuckleduster's Cowtown Chronicles and Modeling the Old West.  Cowtown is great for planning towns and buildings.  Modeling the Old West (White River Publishing, $15.95) is the only book I have found that gives history and measured drawings for buildings of the Old West.  The book is meant for model railroaders so some of the buildings are geared for that, but most are of general use to gamers.  The book has drawings for over twenty buildings all of them scanned from Model Railroad Craftsman.  Unfortunately, nearly a third of the scans are nearly unreadable the rest are fine.  Useful details for buildings include an 1874 firehouse, water mill, grain mill, gold mine, loads of stores and a small stockyard.
I have a bunch of old west books with photos but, nothing else that has measured drawings or is geared toward modelers. If you know of any good books/booklets that I can continue to build my western town (closing on 30 buildings if I include the adobe) please post it here.

[FifteensAway]

No specific titles but don't overlook books for kids - they often have great illustrations to guide painting (or building) elements for games.  Think in terms of introductory efforts generally targeted towards early readers in the 8-10 year old range.  I've found good books this way for painting civilian clothing for the 18th and 19th century.  And congratulations on going past Hollywood's teeny-tiny towns that are constrained by budget more than they are any semblance of anything real (or at least pretty darned rare in these parts - being a denizen of the original US Old West - that being California, not the Old Northwest, that's different and a different era).  Even a very small town would have dozens of buildings.  And if you haven't done it yet, Google up Bodie, California.  And might I recommend the periodical Narrow Gauge and Shoreline Gazette where you can find many, many plans for the buildings of Bodie - though usually only one or two per issue.  But lots of other very cool modeling ideas in the magazine.  Have we seen photos of your town yet?

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

The Time Life series of The Old West has some very useful photos in The Townsmen volume. Also on pages 28-29 it has an extract from a mail order catalogue for buildings which includes their measurements. Flat-packed houses, shops and even a church delivered to you ready to build!

[warlord frod]

As far as books useful for model it all depends on what you are looking for. Most of model making for game purposes is focused on making things that "look" right but are not actual scale replicas. I find anything with old photos helpful in this regard. A good book with a lot of pictures  of Deadwood South Dakota for example is "Wild Bill and Deadwood" by Mildred Fielder. I wold also recommend "Newspapering In THe Oldwest" by Robert Karolevitz and "Picture Gallery Pioneers 1850-1875" by Ralph w Andrews. All can be found fairly cheep on amazon.

[Spooktalker]

Golden links to old west models, scale up and print or use as reference. I happen to do old west in 18mm (Blue Moon) which is dead on for HO scale though, so can print as is. I think 18mm makes a lot more sense, because how many here who do old west do it as their main thing, and who has the space to store a 28mm town for something that is not your main thing?

http://www.ypsfanpage.de/sonst/bastel.php?bogen=117

http://www.seite42.de/81_43.htm

http://papermau.blogspot.com.br/search/label/old%20west

There was a great "Lucky Luke" town on the above site that looks like it has been taken down. Might find it elsewhere though.

Smaller:
http://www.thrillingdays.com/frontier-town/boxbacks.html

Also "Cut and Assemble a Western Frontier Town" by Edmund V. Gillon, Jr.

[Heisler]

Another good resource is Clever Models. Not to many western buildings in the line yet but the ones they do have are very nice. These are paper models so I just purchase the O scale version and reduce it as necessary.

http://clevermodels.squarespace.com/models-gallery/

[S J Donovan]

FifteensAway thank you for the Bodie California idea, great photos, I can see more buildings on the way.
Madlordsnapcase well knock me down I never saw the Sear catalog in the Townsmen book.
Warlord Frod Thank you for the book are looking for them now.
Spooktalker My town is in 28mm and not necessarily for the old west.  I campaign using Hinterland figures in the late 1870s on a new continent so the western town filling with cowboys and everyone else of the period should provide me with loads of possibilities.  Of course, there are Brits and French, German, Danish, Egyptian etc. to fill the continent.
Heisler while I model in wood and plastic I will look to see what paper can offer.          Thank you all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays