Trashbashing 101

Okay, so it's not 1985. But it was when I brought home my first large scale train and started looking for accessories for it. In addition to railroad buildings like stations and water towers, I wanted a town of two-or-three-story brick storefronts, like you'd find throughout the part of western Ohio I planned to model. To my dismay, most of the buildings I could find in catalogs or stores cost more than my train, and they all looked like they came from "International Street" in a theme park. Having shallow pockets and even shallower woodworking skills, I began looking elsewhere. Thus began a dangerous habit of "shopping" in the most unlikely places for things to adapt for use on my garden railroad.

When a model railroader adapts a model of one prototype into a model of something else (maybe even splicing together parts from different kits), we call it "kitbashing." By extension, when I adapt an otherwise useless old toy or flea market item into something I can use on my railroad, I call it "trashbashing." The whole point of this article, like most of our pages, is to get folks thinking about affordable ways to have a unique railroad.

The first victims of my spray paint cans were a set of Fisher-Price Sesame Street Houses. No, I didn't use my kids' set (it's sealed in the attic waiting for grandchildren that I hope are still a long way off). Rather, I found a set at a garage sale for $2. Later I found a Playskool set that was supposed to represent the same scene, also for about $2. Neither set was playworthy at the time, or my kids would have confiscated them, I'm sure. But both had possibilities. (One has a very nicely detailed storefront and the other has a nicely detailed brownstone). Unfortunately those pieces are nearly impossible to find now, but I have seen them on other people's garden railroads, so I know I'm not the only one who kept his eye out for that sort of thing.

Sesame Street to Heartland Downtown Buildings

The Fisher Price set had a "floating hinge" arrangement connecting the two building that I hacksawed off. The Playskool buildings were connected by a molded-in "piano hinge" that I left alone. Both sets had handles on the top which I also hacksawed off. Then I removed the bases of the Fisher Price buildings, which were screwed on. To get the buildings ready to paint, I also had to soak off stickers and labels. One way to do that, once I could lay the building down flat, was to lay a washcloth over the building front and soak it with water. Eventually, I scrubbed off the residue, wiped the plastic clean, and got out the spray paint.

Here is where I made a less-than-superior judgment. The Fisher Price building used pressed-wood sidewalls. Had I really been serious about creating a weather-worthy structure, I would have replaced those walls at the start. As it is, I was never certain the pressed wood, no matter how I prepared and sealed it, would hold up to long-term exposure. A damp spring this year proved me right, as the building sidewalls have swelled and distorted. Since then I have accumulated some good-sized chunks of Plexiglass, from old signs and the like, that I hope to cut to the right size and use to replace the walls as a winter project. The other thing I should have done was to replace the pull tabs on the doors with little doorknob, but I left the tabs in place at first because my kids still were young enough to like playing with the buildings. On the Fisher Price storefront, I carved a window into the left side, where a sticker had shown a side door.

At any rate, I painted everything flat primer gray, then masked off everything that wasn't supposed to be gray and painted it again with various shades of red and brown. With some signage created on an ALPS printer, I was able to create store fronts that were every bit as believable as most of the "G Scale" store fronts being produced at the time (and a lot more American-looking). The versions shown in the photo at the top of the page have goosneck lamps that were marketed for O scale mounted on each corner.

Note: In late 2008, I did some rework on these to get them ready for an after-dark open house on my railroad. The work included cleaning them up and adding curtains and lighting. They still have pressed-wood sides, which is a problem. But they look fine from the front. For information about that project, please see our Blog-Like Article on the subject.

Goodwill (and Garage Sale) Hunting

Of course, early success lead to excess, as I followed up by tracking down several more pieces and converting six more sets. I also found a schoolhouse that made a nice church, a firehouse, which makes a nice tire store/garage, and a Cape Cod house, which makes a nice Cape Cod house. You may never see any of these items at a garage sale or flea market, or if you do they may be in "collectible" condition that makes a hacksaw seem unwarranted. But I include them as ideas of what sort of things to look out for. Each, building, in turn, had the labels soaked off, the surfaces prepared for painting, and Lucite windows added. (For information about using acrylic glazing materials like Lucite or Plexiglass to glaze your buildings, click here

Schoolhouse to Church Conversion

For the church, I lengthened the "porch roof" with a bit of vinyl siding trim. I also used a bit of the same trim to make the roof on the steeple a little larger and to disguise the hole left when I cut off the level for ringing the schoolbell.

For the stained-glass windows, I used an ALPS printer (a discontinued version that would print waterproof ink - nowadays I use color laser printer for similar projects). I printed the "stained glass" pattern on transparency film, and glued that inside the Lucite windows. (Subsequently, I put that pattern on our Free Large Scale Signs and Graphics page.

To get a rough look for the roof, I sprayed it with "car trunk paint," a textured spray paint that isn't weather-worthy, by itself, then covered that with flat black.

The church stayed out one winter and a few summers. To my relative surprise, the textured "car trunk" paint on the roof held up just fine. But by late 2005, the base had completely deteriorated, and the paint on the pressed-wood ends had started peeling. In late 2008, I replaced the base with a piece of plexiglass that was spraypainted gray. repainted the ends with white acrylic house paint.

I also added 12-volt lighting that complements the low-voltage garden lighting systems I installed the same year. For the first time, you can see the stained glass windows glowing at night. As George Peppard used to say on the A team, "I love it when a plan comes together." Note that this building comes with a hinged roof that I left intact when I trashbashed it, a nice place for storing sanding pads and things.

Cape Cod Conversion

I soaked the labels off the Cape Cod, then primed and painted it. For the windows I cut out mullions (frames) from a strawberry basket. I also added Precision Products shutters that were left over from another project. Then I glued Lucite pieces behind the mullions to provide "windows" and to keep the (rather frail) mullions from being pushed out by careless handling.

Unlike the schoolhouse/church above, this building never stayed out in the winter. But by late 2006, the base had deteriorated to the point where it no longer held the building together. Fortunately the end walls are real wood instead of pressed wood. Though the paint had peeled, they were still in good shape. So I repainted those with white acrylic house paint.

To get the house ready for an evening open house, I also installed "curtains," using printouts that came with a Piko building kit. I then installed lighting, using the same kind of fixture I used for the church above. Finally, I replaced the base with rectangle of gray-primed Plexiglass with a hole in the middle for the wiring to come through

The photo to the right shows the house with curtains installed, on its plexiglass base. It is sitting on a 2x8x16" steppingstone, waiting to be "backfilled" with gravel.

Northline Products Barn Feeder

I planned to disassemble, paint, and detail this, but once I tried it out (sans the silly base), I liked how it looked well enough to put off upgrading it until I got some other things done. From the start it gave me a place to put all of my cow and goat figures. It also made a nice companion piece for the Cape Code above.

Other "trashbash" projects I've done over the years include:

• An Artline "Western Town" bird feeder that got a paint job and new signage.

• A "gazebo" bird feeder that was cut down to scale height (visible in the second, third, and fourth photo on this page). I unscrewed the thing, cut out the "gingerbread," and flopped the vertical members 180 degrees so that the "shallower" criss-crossed patterned panels formed a sort of "fence" around the base.

  The result has done good service on my railroad for several years, and recently gained some improvements. It has also become a popular projects among my readers and fellow hobbyists. Since this product is still available, I have added an article with more details and photos.

• A Fisher Price A-frame that I have yet to realistically detail, but which has a great roofline

• A New Brite watchman's shanty that is close to 1:48 but which I doctored to fit my 1:32 town

Possible Future Projects

Fisher Price Victorian Dollhouse - I haven't yet started on this, but I realized early that if I simply fill in the "open" sides and keep the same "footprint," this will become the largest building on my railroad. And frankly, I don't need something like this to draw attention away from the "serious" models. So I'm thinking I will cut this thing in half, and use the materials from the half I cut off to fill in the remaining "open" sides. This would also make a cool "haunted house" if I ever wanted one. In fact, I will probably never get around to this one. But it cost me $2 at a garage sale, so I'll keep it on hand in case I ever get all caught up with my other to do lists.

Other Things You Can Trashbash

Rules of Thumb for Trashbashing

Now that I have more buildings than I can fit on my existing layout properly, and access to a far wider variety of building kits than I once did, I don't feel as compelled to track down so many potential projects. But it was fun, and when you get to open houses in your area you will probably see that my efforts along this line were far from unique.

Tell me about your projects

Reader Response

I had my 9 year old build some "forts" out of some knock-off lincoln logs. The sets, especially the non-Lincoln log types, are CHEAP and can be used to build several log cabins near a mining or logging location. Robby did just that this week.

Also, some of the lego-knock-offs have castles and buildings that you can pick up at garage sales. Find families have garage sales and start buying.

I use the parts of old pull trains for display around the engine house (like a mini-junk parts bin behind the engine house. It's realistic.

David DeMoss says: . . . one of my "conversions" . . . started out as a "Hello Kitty" playhouse. As made, it came in bright cheerful colors, but the scale is close, and I thought it would look good in the layout. The back is flat and used to unfold for the "yard", but I glued that in place and the house sits against some fence with a cow farm as it's front yard.

It was painted with house paint, and has held up well. It's in the shop for repainting, after its 4 year stint on the layout.

The chimney in the center was made from "brick" styrene sheet,and covers the spot where the carry handle was. The bricks sheets were painted, and over time it has weathered nicely to a realistic brick color.

All told, I probably bought the house for a buck or two, and used some leftover paints and a little time, and ended up with a cute additon to my layout.