We’ve been working for a while on a set of 15mm sci-fi building components for scratchbuilders. The 15mm SF community seems to be a very creative bunch of people who come up with lots of clever items of scenery from all sorts of bits and pieces, and we thought that a set of building parts would help towards this.
Rather than separate doors and windows, we’ve created a set of frontages, all around 70-80mm long, made up of a variety of doors and windows cast as one piece. This means that to create a simple building, you just need to stick one of these pieces to the side of a small box or piece of packaging, and there you have a basic house. If you need more flexibility, it’s a simple matter to score along the lines between each section and snap them apart to separate the individual doors and windows.
The range also includes an all-important set of roof vents for ventilation, along with larger industrial and hangar doors, chimneys, balconies and awnings.
For many of these buildings we’ve used UK-pattern surface mount pattress boxes – these are the plastic boxes that electrical sockets are fixed to. A single box will make a simple house, you can stack them to make a small apartment block or there are double-depth boxes that can be used for garages or workshops. These are a couple of pounds from DIY stores, but if bought in bulk from specialist trade counters (eg Screwfix or Toolstation) they can be as cheap as 50p each. Random bits of plastic or polystyrene packing also make a good basis for a building, or vac-formed blister packaging also works. A further option is to use them to dress up commercial vacform plastic buildings (Amera Mouldings have several North African buildings) or MDF ones (I have a couple of Middle-Eastern buildings from Blotz that I’ll be looking at in the near future). Just use your imagination – I have a pair of hangars I made from a salad crisper box that came with an old fridge!
B15-901 – Frontages (x5) – £3.00
B15-902 – Balconies (x2) – £2.50
B15-903 – Industrial Doors (x2) – £2.00
B15-904 – Roof Vents (x3) – £1.50
B15-905 – Chimneys (x2) – £3.00
B15-906 – Awnings (x3) – £1.75
B15-907 – Porch and Window (x2) – £2.50
B15-908 – Hangar Door – £1.50
The components are all resin castings. We’re hoping to post some blog articles over the coming weeks about making various buildings from our selection of components, to show what can be done with them.
6 thoughts on “15mm Construction Codes”
28/02/2020 at 19:56
I am confused. Not unusual, just ask the wife but
B15-907-1 Porch and window
I know what a Porch is, but what do you mean by a Porch and how is the object with door (Porch?) a Porch?
Also I don’t really understand the window object. Both are nice but… what do the objects they are part of represent? The window, especially, is part of (or attached to?) an object that is 37mm(?) (inch and a half?) deep.
B15-906-1 Awnings
I’m completely lost here. To me an awning is cloth used as a sunscreen. Or as wikipedia sez:
“An awning or overhang is a secondary covering attached to the exterior wall of a building. It is typically composed of canvas woven of acrylic, cotton or polyester yarn, or vinyl laminated to polyester fabric that is stretched tightly over a light structure of aluminium, iron or steel, possibly wood or transparent material.” But then we all know about wiki so…
The rear structure looks like a wall/fence, the middle could be two large windows in a frame. The one in front smaller industrial use windows.. at the top wall edge? Or all three could be balcony railings?
28/02/2020 at 19:59
Those descriptions seem to tally with the items for my money.
28/02/2020 at 20:25
I think these look great, although I think they need a couple of generic sci-fi walls without doors and windows. Imagine the wonderful corridors you could make too.
29/02/2020 at 05:40
Mike I’m begging you, how is a door a porch? Is the thing it’s attached to a porch? Obviously it’s a language thing I just don’t get.
29/02/2020 at 09:01
Their model is not just a door though?
It is a door attached to something, that something being a small extension from the main building.
I am not sure where in the world you are but context is key I think.
If someone in say the US said check out my porch, I would expect it to be very different to a UK porch.
The below being my understanding of the two:
So for me, given Brigade Models are a UK company I would not be surprised they used the word porch to describe that small extension as in the UK that is a style of porch.
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“To me an awning is cloth used as a sunscreen.”
Me too, or in the sci-fi world, maybe not cloth, maybe a different materiel.
You can after all build boats out of more than wood, and they are still a boat, same with awnings?
01/03/2020 at 22:25
Ah.
Thank you.
More to learn