"Easy & cheap build office block idea." Topic

These two items are going to be the basis for a couple of office blocks for my games table, so I'm going to start with the Surface Mounted Plastic Electric Junction Box 150x98x50mm which will cost £4.50 GBP post free and some 15mm vinyl black gloss stickers 200x for £3.00 GBP enough for several office blocks also post free. This should be a simple and solid build which is just the way I like my terrain to be, so just screw the junction box together leaving off the plug feet then glue on any external bits and pieces such as guttering and piping, air vents and roof fans then paint as desired and when its dry just stick on the vinyl stickers at correctly measured intervals and that is it at it's simplest version but you could really go to town on these no pun intended. :) Zac

Sounds like an excellent plan to me.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Nice idea!
If you can cut away the bottom edge of the rim around the recessed area, it would go a long way towards breaking the "box" look of the building. Best of luck!

Also, Have you seen the Proxie Models Office buildings/Warehouse wall kits? even with shipping across the pond, they aren't much more expensive than the materials used in your project.

I will need to cut or file away some of the lower recessed rim of the junction box so that a door will fit flush against the surface, if i think the general shape of the office block looks better without the lower rim i will remove it at that part of the modeling stage.

Yup i actually have quite a few of the Proxie Model ruin sets that i plan to put to good use at some stage and as i recall the postage was reasonable for the amount that i bought.

What's your source for the labels? Tried Googling that type of label, no joy

I did find some WHITE vinyl labels that you can use with an inkjet printer.

This will allow you to make your own window/door/sign designs.

Waiting to see how this one looks. Great idea.

Actually, I think the bottom trim looks fine.

Many/most buildings have thresholds that you have to step over, made of metal, cement, etc. Just paint that part white, metallic, or cement colored, to give that impression.

Of course, you could also just cover it up with a suitable colored plate insert, to represent high, or sectional windows/glass as well.

Another way to go would be to create a small, concrete ramp to cover up the threshold, if you decide you don't like it.

I've seen similar patterns on adhesive shelf lining, 'Contact' in the US.

A roll of that could do buildings for the whole list. ;->=

On the other hand, always the possibility a significant other has some ALREADY.

Doug

I'm imagining you will be standing this on it's end making it 150mm tall. Is this the plan?

If that were the case, wouldn't the trim be 'face down'?

Doug

What's your source for the labels? Tried Googling that type of label, no joy

Here you go Maj Diz Aster here is the EBay link, im just hoping they are of a good quality. auction

I'm imagining you will be standing this on it's end making it 150mm tall. Is this the plan?

Yup the plan is to stand it up on one end, the molded trim is at both ends of the junction box so when the office block is complete it will be at the top and bottom which isn't a big problem for me…

Ok just to say that i received the vinyl stickers yesterday and they are great, they are of a nice quality and not to shinny and they are sticky enough not to worry about them falling off once they have been applied to a surface, 215 stickers for £3.00 GBP is a pretty reasonable price. Now i'm just waiting on the hard plastic electric junction boxes to arrive, this is usually the only down side with free postage from abroad it takes ages to arrive but i guess this has given me some time to plan out how i want the finished office blocks to look and also source out a few external add on pieces. As soon as the junction boxes arrive i will post a brief review on their quality and then my plans on how to go about constructing these easy terrain items.

Or you could try Outland Models on ebay? auction

Lots less fuss, and a tenner or so each.

Ok this is what I was working on last week; some of you may remember the original post on making some cheap office buildings from electrical boxes and some vinyl sticker to be used for windows, well I managed to go one better as I had some of Scotties resin building accessories which I used instead of the stickers. As you can see the junction boxes arrived in the post they are cast in thick hard gray plastic and the top and bottom sections slide into place before you screw the two halves together making them very sturdy indeed. Next I needed to find some bits and bobs to make them look a bit interesting, I was going for a simple MechWarrior clicky-tech building look which I feel I've achieved by adding a couple of cooling unit from ‘The Scene ' to both the rimmed top levels and as luck would have it the right amount of resin doors and windows from Combat Wombat. I just need to give them a basic paint job and maybe add some graffiti decals on the ground level and the job is done. At the bottom of the building you can see one of my stripped Matchbox toy Commandos IFV's as someone wanted to see if it was possible to add a open gun turret from Rebel miniatures, well as you can see and if I didn't know better I would say they were made for each other if you mount the Rebel's gun turret on a 18mm washer. Thanks Zac

Ended up a bit skinny, but the better as table terrain for your fighting to move around.

I give an A!

Doug

Ended up a bit skinny

If only i wasn't such a cheap skate i would have spent the extra £1.00 GBP per junction box and got the larger ones which were 40mm wider i think, but as pointed out they are good enough to be used for troop cover or a high vantage for a sniper team.

What retailer did you get the junction boxes from mate?

What retailer did you get the junction boxes from mate?

Here is a link auction to one of their current EBay auctions, but just go to the store and have a look around as i know they do several different sizes of these junction boxes.

I think they work for a future where space is at a premium, and real estate prices/rent are too high for average workers, e.g. like tomorrow, or even yesterday.

A lot of people are looking at, or being put into shipping container-sized cracker boxes, so these are pretty representative of that "new", dark future, reality.

Nice work.

Looking forward to seeing them painted up.

There is some solid reasoning for you and i think that the general size of office or now accommodation units are not to far off the actual size of a large shipping container, thanks for the input Mako. :)