Lawn Chairs

Folding lawn chairs are and have been a fixture in American life. Making an O-Scale lawn chair is a pretty straight forward project that only takes a 2 to 3 hours to make. You don’t need to be exact, and are only trying to capture the visual appearance of a folding lawn chair. To start this project, I would recommend either looking at a lawn chair you already own, or do a quick search on the internet to find a view that shows a lawn chair from the side. This will help you better visualize the angles of the back and the legs.

The basic frame for the lawn chair is galvanized steel wire that can be found at any home improvement store like Lowes or Home Depot. The steel wire is used for picture frame hanging, and can be found typically in the hardware section. For this project, I used 20 gauge or 22 gauge steel wire. Using your lawn chair or a photo as a guide, take a pair of needle nose pliers and bend up the frame that will make the seat and back portion of the chair. As you bend the wire into basically a rectangle that is bent in the middle, the wire will automatically take on proper looking curved bends at the corners due to the rounded tip of the pliers. This framework should be about 3/8” wide, with the lower seat section about 11/32” long, and the upper back section 17/32” long. These dimensions were just eyeballed by using a seated Arttista figure as a guide, and by looking pictures of a typical lawn chair. Keep in mind that these dimensions are not super critical. You will want to go with what looks right to you. The important thing is to make sure that the rectangle has close to 90-degree bends at the corners so that the rectangular frame is parallel across its width, and from lower front to upper back. Also, pay attention to the fact that the upper back on a lawn chair is not perpendicular to the lower seat. The back generally will tilt back about 15 to 20 degrees. To complete this frame, cut a straight piece of wire that is as long as your frame is wide, and use CA glue to attach it to the top of the frame at the bend between the lower and upper section. Without this wire, the webbing will not be able to bend around and go from the seat to the back, just like a real lawn chair.

Since it is practically impossible to replicate all of the folding tubes that make up the legs and arm rests, you only need to visually capture the look of this portion of the frame. Again., using the same steel wire and needle nose pliers, you will need to bend up this section to look similar to the photo below.




Because you will not have a square cut on the ends of the wire, make sure that the break in each bent frame is in an area that will be hidden. For the chair seat / back, put the break near the middle of the lower front wire, as this will be hidden under the webbing. For the legs / arm rests, put the break on one of the top portions that will be hidden under an arm rest.

The webbing for the lawn chair will be made from just ordinary colored copier paper. I went to Office Depot and bought two sheets [1 white and 1 green] for $.04. You’ll want to pick a sheet that is fairly lightweight. Cut the paper into strips just a fuzz under 1/16" wide. The important thing is to cut the strips quite a bit longer than you need to cover the seat and back, because it helps a lot with trying to manipulate them in place. I would recommend making the strips 2” to 2-1/4” long.

To start attaching the webbing, you’ll want to start with all of the strips that run in the vertical direction of the chair [lower front edge to upper back edge]. Starting at the lower seat, curl the strip around the wire, and glue it back onto itself on the underneath side. This will go easier and faster if you use a fast drying white glue like the Scotch Tacky Glue. This glue will dry in under 30 seconds when bonding paper. You will continue attaching all of the webbing strips across the lower width of the chair. When done, you will then need to snake the strips under the wire at the seat bend, and back over the front of the upper back. Next, curl the strips over the upper back wire, and then trim them to the final length that will allow you overlap each strip over itself on the backside by about 1/8”. Glue each strip back to itself on the back side.

With the vertical strips in place, you will now need to weave the horizontal strips cut from a contrasting color through the vertical webbing. Again, make the strip lengths about an inch or so longer than you need. I found it was easier to weave through all of the strips in a section that overlap the same way... over the outside wire and under the first white strip... at the same time. Then use a dental pick to spread these apart once woven through. Going this route makes the alternate weave strips easier because you have only two strips to weave under instead of three. To weave the alternate strips, curl the strip and poked it through straight down at 90 degrees between the vertical strips, and then curl back the other way to come back from the backside. Don't worry about mangling this end of the strip to get it through. Because you made these strips longer, you just take tweezers and pull the strip out until the mangled end is beyond the end of the wire. To attach the horizontal webbing to the frame, you will use the same technique as the vertical webbing and glue the strip back onto itself on the backside. Start with the lower seat first, and then do the upper back portion. It will be easier if you glue all of the strip ends on one side, and then glue all of the strip ends on the opposite side after you have trimmed them to their final length.




Now we are ready to assemble the chair portion to the legs portion. To get the chair level to the bottom of the legs, take a piece of 5/16" square tubing and set it over the lower leg runs. Next, place the chair portion on top of the tubing, and align it so that the straight wire at the bend from chair seat to chair back is just inside the back legs. Use some CA glue to glue the points where the chair portion comes on contact with the leg section. When the glue is dry, slide out the square tubing.

To make the arm rests, use 1/32" thick basswood and cut a strip 1/16" wide by at least ½” long. You will want to have a good contact surface for the arm rests to attach to the wire. Use a dental pick to form a groove or notch running down the length and on the backside of the strip that will be set over the wire. Cut the basswood into two 1/4" long pieces, and then CA glue them onto the wire. When dry, you will need to apply a stain to color the arm rests whatever color you would prefer. On the chair I made, I used a natural redwood stain from a sample pack I got at Lowes to stain the basswood.




It took me about an hour to bend up the wire, about 1-1/2 hours to weave the strips, and 15 minutes to make the arm rests. If you do this as a production run and make several chairs at one time, It will go a lot quicker. It takes a little bit of time to initially size your bent wire frame and to learn the best way to weave the strips.

This project may “appear” to be challenging, but it really is pretty easy once you started bending the wire and weaving the webbing strips. Don’t be intimidated…. Just jump in and you’ll have fun making a sliver of Americana that is seldom seen on layouts. You CAN do it!

Shipping Cases

Creating realistic shipping cases is an easy one-day scenery project that can be done by any modeler, regardless of their skill. These shipping cases can be used just about anywhere on a layout from inside a box car, on a freight platform, to interior detail for any storefront or industrial warehouse. To create a shipping case, you will need to make an outer “skin” [or use the linked template below], and wrap and glue this to a rigid block to form the case. The only time consuming aspect of this project is creating the case skin. If you are used to working with your graphics software program, or if you want to create a different sized case, the instructions to create a skin are below. Or you can choose to use the skin template I’ve created, and skip down to making the case.

On the box size, I went with a scale 18” x 18” x 24” long case. I chose this size because it is a fairly standard size, and by having the width and height the same dimension it will make it easier to make the block that you’ll be wrapping the skin around. You can go with different dimensions… it will just create a little extra work. An 18” x 18” x 24” long case scales out to 3/8” x 3/8” x ½” at 1:48 scale.

Getting the color right to mimic the color of corrugated cardboard can be tough by using just colored paper or selecting a color from the available palette in a graphics software package. Corrugated cardboard has a lot of subtle hues, and shipping cases are rarely ever pristine without any sealing tape or shipping rubs and damage. For this project, I wanted the cases to look as realistic as possible, so I took digital photographs of a couple of cases I had that had been previously shipped. I picked a case that was fairly clean, and one that had some shipping damage. This will give you some variation in your case skins. Make sure that when you take your digital images that you have plenty of lighting, or your images will be too dark when they get scaled down. Take pictures of both the end and side of your case(s). This will ensure that you get the proper views so that the shipping tape will look correct. Make sure when taking the pictures that you hold your camera straight on and parallel to the case, and back about 36”to 48”. This will help eliminate any foreshortening of the case height / width / length, and will make it easier when cropping your images.




Using a graphics software program, crop your digital images for both the end and side view. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just make sure that your cropping selection is just inside the outer case edges so that you don’t pick up any pixels that feather the case edge with the photo background. Next you will need to create a new graphics file, and size it to about 8” x 10”, so that it will completely print on a single sheet of paper. If your software allows you to set your image resolution, pick a resolution that will allow for easier math. In my case, I went with 150 pixels to the inch, but should have went with 160 pixels to the inch to make these easier. I chose this resolution because 3/8” equals to 56 pixels, and ½” equals 76 pixels; or 60 pixels and 80 pixels at 160 pixels/inch. Do a copy and paste of your two cropped case views into your master graphics file. Next, you will want to resize the cropped image of your case end to match your desired scale size, which in my case was 56 pixels x 56 pixels. Do the same thing for the side view. Again, for the size and resolution I picked, it was 56 pixels tall x 76 pixels long. At 160 pixels per inch, it would be 60 x 60 pixels and 60 x 80 pixels.

Next, you will need to create your flat pattern for your case. Copy as necessary the images, and place them with an end view on each side of the side view. Copy the side view and place it against one of the ends so that you end up with a back side, end, front side, and then end. You will need to make some flaps to wrap around the bottom of your forming block, so take your end and side images, copy them, and crop them down to a narrower height. 20 pixels works well for these bottom flaps. You don’t want the bottom of the case to be fully wrapped with your skin so that you will have a good surface to glue your case to whatever surface you’ll be placing it on. When cropping for the bottom flaps, remove the upper portion of the image because the colors of the cardboard will only match on the common side. Next, you will need to flip or mirror your flap pieces before placing against the bottom of the ends and sides. Again, this is needed to make sure that you are creating a mirrored flap for each end and side so that the colors match perfectly. For the top flaps, you will need to once again copy your end and sides, and then flip or mirror them around. On the top flaps, use the full height of your end and side images. This will allow you to have proper flap widths if the case is to be made with the flaps open, or will give you full top coverage if you make the case with the flaps closed. Place these images up against the corresponding ends and sides. Lastly, you will need to make one more narrow flap that will be placed against the outer end side, by using the same techniques described above. This flap will be your initial flap that you will glue to your forming block when wrapping and gluing the sides and ends around your block. If you don’t have this flap, you will end up with one side/end corner that your paper edges may or may not line up perfectly. By having this flap, and wrapping the back side of the case over it when gluing, you won’t have to deal with not having enough “skin” to hide any mismatches.

For the next step, you will need to create some folding and cut lines for your skin pattern. Draw either lines or rectangles that match up with the sizes of your ends/sides/flaps. Your lines and rectangles need to be 1 pixel thick. Choose a light to medium brown for the line and rectangle color. You want a brown that is just dark enough to see when printed out. Look at the image below to get an idea of what you are trying to achieve with these lines. On cases where you decide to go with a closed look, the brown line in the middle of the top flap attached to a side will end up looking like a closed flap seam.




At this point, you will have your base skin template done. If your graphics program supports grouping objects, select all of your images, lines, and rectangles; and then group them into one block. Do a copy, and then paste the single case template multiple times on page. If you paste your copied block directly over the original image, and then use your arrow key to move the block either up or down, you will keep the blocks inline in both columns and rows. This will make cutting them out easier, as you will be able to trim across multiple blocks at one time. For my use, I copied the blocks to give me sixteen (16) skin templates per sheet. If you are creating two different looking shipping cases… clean and with shipping damage like I did… you would create the second skin template exactly like the first one.

Now you are ready to add any custom features to your skin templates. For my use, I added the text “FIREWORKS” to various box sides in both different locations and in two different colors. I also added a small rectangle to look like a shipping label on some of the case skins. Go with a light grey color for your rectangle fill. Pure white would look too contrasting and would stand out too much on your final product. Make sure that you place these shipping labels in random locations, and rotate them differently to give some randomness to your finished cases.

With your page of case skins done, print it out. I used regular copier paper and an ink jet printer. Next, spray your printed sheet with a flat finish like Krylon Matte Finish to seal the paper.

Below is a link to a skin template that you can use. The cases are generic, and you can add whatever text or graphics to the individual cases to meet your needs prior to printing. This file is a vector based .PNG. If you are using a graphics program like Fireworks from Macromedia, this template will be fully editable. For other programs, you should still be able to edit the file images, at least be able to add your own text or graphics. On this template, you will see that some of the skins are set up for just three box sides. When I created this template, I knew I had some cases that I wouldn’t have an end that showed, so I didn’t add this end on. In hindsight, I didn’t need to do this because you can, and will, cut out the portions of the skin that you don’t need.

Link to Case Template File


Now we are ready to make some shipping cases!

Because of the case size I picked, I took some 3/8” square dowel, and cut it into 1/2" long pieces. This will make the block that you will wrap the skin around. Take care when cutting your dowel to make sure the cut ends are square. Otherwise, this will cause the skin to not wrap properly around the block. Next, use an X-Acto knife and carefully cut out one of your case skins. Keep in mind that the template has everything needed to make either a full four-sided case with open top flaps, a full case with interlocked top flaps, or a sealed top case. If you are putting together a sealed case, you don’t need all of the flaps… but, make sure that you keep enough of the unused flaps to have a surface that you can glue the case top over to prevent your wood block underneath from showing. When cutting the skin out, don’t forget to also make the cuts at the edges of the flaps, just don’t cut where you will be folding the paper. I found that it was easier and faster to cut the skin out by making all of the vertical or horizontal cuts at one time, and then going back and making the opposite direction cuts at one time.

If you are making an open top flap case, and you are not going to glue a product image on top of the case that will be showing, you should now paint the top of the wood dowel either a flat back or flat dark grey, and let it dry. Otherwise, you will see the raw wood dowel behind your open flaps when finished.

With the skin cut out, you will then need to pre-fold your skin using the 1-pixel brown lines as your folding guides. If you are making a case with open or interlocked top flaps, you will now need to glue the folded over paper for each top flap. I used a fast drying craft glue by Scotch called “Tacky Glue”. This glue is like a white glue, excepts it dries in about 30 seconds when working with paper. It does dry clear, like a white glue.



At this point, you should take a brown pigment ink pen and color over all of the exposed paper edges. A magic marker will work, but if it is water based, the ink will run and bleed. Using a pigment ink pen will reduce the bleeding quite a bit. You need to do this step because the white raw edges of the paper will stand out like a sore thumb, and give away that this is just folded paper. Also, if you don’t do this step now, it will be much harder to control the edge bleeding after the skin has been wrapped and glued onto the wood dowel.

Now you are ready to begin gluing the skin onto your cut wood dowel. Start with the narrow side flap off your end or side panel. Apply a thin layer of glue and glue / wrap your skin around the outside of your dowel, working one side at a time. With the sides completed, you should now glue down all of the narrow bottom flaps to the underside of the wood dowel. If you are making a sealed top case, glue over the narrow top flaps and then your full top flap over those, and you are done. If you are making an interlocked top case, fold your flaps over and interlock as you would a real 1:1 shipping case. If you are making an open top flap case and will be showing some case contents, you will cut and glue this image on top of your wood dowel. On the cases I made, I wanted the open cases to appear like they were full of fireworks, so a glued a 3/8” x 1/2” image of fireworks on top of the dowel. The end result looks pretty realistic.

Once you start putting the shipping cases together, you will find that it goes pretty quickly, especially if you use a quick drying white glue. The first case may take up to 10 minutes to put together, but multiples can easily be done at a rate of one every five minutes.

March 2010 Token Build : Corn Crib

One of our most unusual builds since the Token Series began a few years ago has been the Corn Crib. I must admit, I didnt have a clue what one was until it won the vote. Mwb, vulcan, bmac, and bfishma were four of the twenty-five voters who committed to the month long build and went to surf through the internet for prototype pictures from which to model. As with all of the builds, each participant chose a different style of crib and this diversity combined with their unique building strategies resulted in another spectacular display of ingenuity and talent.

With the choices made, the modelers set to work transforming their ideas into scratchbuilt reality. The first step was to create the 'superstructure' of the model. As you can see, this depended on the style of crib chosen to model.

The next stage involved filling out the frame. The purpose of these cribs was not only to serve as storage but also provided an opportunity to dry the corn. In order to accomplish this, air had to flow through the structure. As a result, many of the walls required slats between each board to allow drying to occur. You can see this detail in some of the builds.

Once everything was squared and finally glued into place, the last stages could be finished. The addition of a roof, painting, weathering, and details rounded this project out. As you can once again easily see, each builder brought their own unique styling to bear on their individual builds.




Again, the Token Community extends the greatest of thanks to those who participated in this build. So many times we have legitimate excuses for not taking part: too busy, too expensive, not a build I need, not my skill level. Not every modeler needs the structure voted into play, nor does every participant have the same skill level. What they do have in common is a willingness to learn from others and from the experience itself. These Token Builds ask for nothing more. Vote, participate, and learn: join the next build and experience it!

September 2009 Build : Windmill

When the votes were finally tallied in August, the windmill won the honor of being the September Token Build. While many voted, three brave builders decided to tackle the challenge. David Baran, Jim M, and Vulcan all completed their builds and have agreed to share pictures of their progress here on the blog. While admiring their unique choices, and building expertise, its our hope as Token Builders that you can take some ideas and techniques home with you and use them on your own build.

As with most scratch-builds, the modelers first had to choose a prototype to model. Here in southern Texas, windmills are everywhere. Many are smaller than I had imagined they would be and served to bring water up from wells to troughs for livestock. I had always thought their was one standard windmill, but a quick image search on the internet came up with many different styles of windmills located throughout the country. Each participant chose one that best suited the style they were looking for and began their builds.

First, the modelers had to build the support structure for the windmills. All the different builds had this part in common as there didnt seem to be many styles that diveated from the norm. In most cases, a template was used to help keep things centered and squared.

Next came the most recognizable feature of all windmills: the blades. This would also be the most difficult and time consuming part of the build. Not only did the blades have to be cut out individually, but they also had to be arranged in a symmetrical pattern, evenly spaced, and at a slight angle in order to spin in the wind. Once again, each modeler chose their own technique to manufacture this part of the build. As you can see, their patience and skill paid off.

With the appropriate weathering and paint applied, the builds were ready to be photographed for their debuts on the OGRR forum's Scenery Section. Soon they found places on their owner's layouts and will forever be posted here for others to admire and learn from. As with every post here on the Token Three Railer, we thank the modelers who participated and hope to see more from them on future builds. And if you are up for a healthy dose of scratch-building fun, check out the latest Token Poll and see if one of the choices might be of interest to you. The community of modelers associated with this blog are anxious to see your work!

Bottle Making with Vulcan

I had been working on a bar interior and of course it wouldn't be a bar without liquor bottles, so...... Here's how I am making the liquor bottles. Starting with these small glass beads, they can be found at any craft store.





I first pick out appropriate colors, clear for Vodka and Gin. I like the orange-ish looking ones for Bourbon, whiskey, etc. I then insert a piece of 30 mil fiber optic cable. The ID of the beads is almost a perfect match to the OD of the cable, on most it's a very tight fit, so I need to use no glue.



I then cut the cable so that the overall height of the bottle is 1/4" (a scale 12", using a wine bottle for this reference). Then insert a round toothpick into the other end, as a holder. I spread a bead of Testors Clear parts cement around the base of the neck to form a shoulder.



When that has set up, if no other painting is needed (I painted a couple of the bottles Jade Green for wine bottles) I paint the tip of the Fiber optic to represent a cap. Black, brown, maroon, gold, etc. Then apply the labels. The labels are printed on label stock, this eases the attachment greatly.

Modeling the 7-11 : JohnBoy

After completing my first two downtown buildings, I decided to give a hand at trying to make a model 7-Eleven. At first I thought that the only really challenging part would be the roof, which as you can see is a standard annodized aluminum siding with the classic raised runes running vertically down each side. But I had already made three similar pented-style roofs for my second office building, so I figured this would be very similar, except that the sides are less slanted (more vertical).

I actually only got motivated to build this thing when I noticed a spray can of "annodized bronze" at Home Depot. When I looked carefully at the color, it was a kind of very dark brown - black, really, with a hint of brown in it. This is the actual color of annodized aluminum - the stuff used for the window trim around modern commercial buildings such as the one modeled here. It's also the color of the roof sides

I was mostly right: this thing went pretty fast at the beginning. I used cold-press illustration board ("matteboard") for almost the entire exterior, including the walls, roof sides, and roof top. One extra detail I added is I used an X-Acto blade to etch brick detailing into the exterior walls. This really took a lot of time, though, and if I ever make something like this again I will either use cast pieces with the brick pattern already etched in, or I will simply cut horizontal etches to simulate siding.



What I realized half-way through it, however, is that in order to look like a real 7-Eleven, I would need to use clear plexiglas for the front store window. What I have always done for my other layout models is use a foggy Mylar material for the windows, which allows the interior light to illuminate the window, but does not allow you to look in and see any interior details (or lack thereof). To do this to the 7-Eleven would render it entirely unconvincing, no matter how I tried to rationalize it.

So once I realized that I needed a clear glass for the front store window, I then realized in horror that I would have to at least partially finish the interior. What followed was some rather comical visits to the local 7-Eleven stores with my digital camera. Taking pictures of the insides of a 7-Eleven is odd enough without having to make special spacial adjustments to compensate for the camera's lack of a wide-angle lens. I needed at least a few shots of glass refrigerator doors, at least a couple shots of the racks of snacks, and of course the quintessential Slurpee and Big Gulp fountain soda dispensers.

Once I gathered these, as well as a picture of the exterior sign, I cleaned them up in Photoshop, and scaled them down to the proper dimensions. Then I printed the images out onto white self-adhesive label medium, and trimmed the stickers down to size, and mounted them directly onto the interior walls. The entire perimeter of the store is just flat imagery done in this manner. You can see this plainly when looking into the store from the top with the roof removed. But with the roof on, and looking into the front window, the effect is much more realistic, and satisfied me.

What helps is the counter, and the four "snack racks" mounted in the floor. These are just rectangular cubes of wood painted black with more photo-stickers of snacks mounted on them. These elements add depth to the scene when looking straight into the front window, and this helps lend credibility to the "flatness" of the wall images.

Another thing that helps is the transparent stickers that were mounted on the front store window. These advertisements also obscure a little of the interior detailing, making it just a little more difficult for your eyes to discern the truth about the details inside.

Late in creating this model, I started flirting with the idea of making the exterior sign actually illuminate like the real thing. The bright, familiar 7-Eleven sign over the top of the front really characterizes the store, and would make for especially appealing night-time scenes.

But creating this kind of sign is one of the hardest things to accomplish in scale modeling. The real thing lights up like a big, flat, white light panel, with the image of the sign on the surface nicely illuminated evenly throughout the whole area of the sign. To accomplish this, I knew I needed to find an ideal plastic jewel case that would allow me to open and close it in the future to replace light bulbs. This case could then be painted black except for the front panel, and then I could insert little lights into the bottom. Then, I just had to print a 7-Eleven sign on transparency film, and mount it on the front and I'd have the beginnings of something workable.

What you see in these pictures is what resulted. The jewel case came from a kind of dental floss available at most grocery stores. Using this hinged plastic case allows me to replace expired light bulbs without having to do major surgery to the model. To get the best "glow" from the sign, I ended up having to install seven micro lights (from Miniatronics) evenly spaced apart to give the sign its "illuminated light panel" effect. It came out better than I expected. Finding the right light bulbs for this proved to be the hardest part, since they had to be bright, very small to fit into the slim profile of the sign, and they also had to burn cool enough to not cause heat problems in the plastic case (i.e. melting).

The next challenge came when trying to light up the interior. My first attempt involved mounting four standard mini incandescent bulbs into the ceiling. This was far too dim. Real convenience stores like this have very bright, flourescent lights which illuminate the store to almost direct-sunlight levels. I experimented with more light bulbs of the same kind, but this still did not achieve what I was looking for.



Enter Miller Engineering. These guys make the perfect solution to this problem - a miniature flourescent light fixture, which exhibits very much the same light casting ability as real flourescents. Although pricey (a set of 2, eight-inch tubes costs $25, which does not include the necessary power adapter), the lighting ability of these things may be worth it.

The end result is, like all my buildings, highly stylized. Taking a close look at the details will immediately let you know that it is a model. But standing back a few feet and looking at it in place on a layout with other similarly-styled model buildings yields a fairly realistic impression.

Weathering Track

Here is the answer to the long asked question as to how I weather my track.

I weather my track with Poly Scale paint and it is in their Military color line. It only comes in the 1/2oz. bottles and is called Imperial Japanese Army
Brown (FS 30108)505276)


























I airbrush the rails sides with it and then wipe the rail head before the paint dries. I use a piece of cardboard behind each rail as I am spraying the rails sides. I also airbrush the ties with RR tie brown also made by Poly Scale. Once the paint has dried. I go back and give a wash with watered down grimy black here & there to vary the color a bit. I also use Bragdon's weathering powders and use a dark gray or black and dust the ties in the center between the rails to give a grungy/ dirty look to some areas. Here is the finished look. Thanks for looking!