Adding new life to old classics

I have always liked the style of theHornby buildings used in their trackside range, but the finish is very poor and detail is usually provided by paper stickers.  I thought it would be fun to see what could be done to make them look a little better. 
For the beginner this would be a good option to acquire cheap buildings from the second-hand market and bring them up to a standard for a model railway. It also does not cost too much if you mess up!
The first building is a favourite of mine, consisting of a little country station building, with tall brick chimneys:

By adding embossed plastic brick overlays, a new roof , window sills and other detail, as well as some painting and weathering it can be made to look quite good:


Next is the Water Tower:

Once again the model has received embossed and laser cut overlays, with new windows and doors.  I have still to finish painting and weathering on this item:


And finally the signal box:

For this model (which I did a few years ago) brick embossed plastic walls are used. The roof is from the kit, covered in tiles made from paper strips.  I kept the original windows and woodwork:

Nice Bob - making a silk purse out of a sows ear !

An accurate observation Ron.  I still think these buildings offer goodt potential for the modeller on a limited budget.

What a difference Bob  :shock:.  They really do look good and by now I suspect, not the type of structure you'd see on every layout as one does with the card kits ………….

Well done Bob, I've also upgraded a Hornby station building with simple detailing and the piggies' ears soon dissapear!

A most worthwhile method which saves much time in building the basic structure.

Bill

 :cool: