# Building a race shop



## tjet princess (Oct 27, 2008)

I'd like to build a race shop for my dad, do the building part like the floor, walls and such. I've been looking at the other shop dioramas for detailing idea's but I'm first interested in dimensions. I'm figuring at least a 6 car bay, which I have measured out to be pretty near 10" square. There will be a general work area with a lift and shop tools, a roll in-roll out paint booth that will be about 6" long and 4" wide, and two shop offices, one smaller for dad and a larger one for accounting, etc. Then maybe a showroom for 4 cars. So far I'm looking at some 18" wide by about 20" long. I can do everything from 1/8" thick foam board, walls would be about 3" high and the doors would all be about 1 1/4 high to be close to 8' in 1/76th scale for T-jets. 

If anyone can post pics of their shops from a plan view perspective I would appreciate it. I hope to have the blueprint done by the time he gets back from his anniversary trip on the 3rd. Also I have some links saved to some of the shop tools, thanks for those.


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## bobhch (Apr 22, 2007)

*It's bigger than a Pop-tart...*

I hope this picture helps? You can get an idea of the size by scaling it off of a 1/1 bar stool.










I work with sheetmetal at my work so, this is made of sheetmetal with a flooring piece cut out for the floor and spray painted the walls.

Bob...bigger is better...zilla


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## ParkRNDL (Mar 20, 2002)

I kinda documented mine at this thread:

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showthread.php?t=298692

A more specific reference to the size is in the second post:

http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/showpost.php?p=3423829&postcount=2

Or to make it real easy, here's the pic that gives you an idea how big it is. Notice I cheated on the size. The set on the left is supposed to be the inside of the building on the right:










I used foam board for mine too. What you should remember, though, is if this is supposed to be a backdrop for pictures, you NEED to cheat on the size. My walls are way taller than they should be if it was to scale. If I made my walls the right scale height for a 1:1 shop, I'd never be able to get pictures without the tops of the walls showing. 

If you get as far as the last page of the thread, you'll see that the whole thing breaks down and stores in a little Tupperware type box:



















Dunno if that'll work out for you, it's just how I did it.

Hope this all helps! :wave:

--rick


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## tjet princess (Oct 27, 2008)

All of that helps. I didn't think of making the walls taller than scale, I guess that helps in the photo back drops. I'm rethinking the needs for the office but the showroom and paint shop are something I really want to include. Dad did a lot of 1/72 scale aircraft modeling in his lifetime and has a nice junkyard of things I could use to build some items. For some reason there is an absence of 1/72nd scale figures and I know there use to be a grip of them in the junk box. Since this shop is going to be time stamped around 1968 or so the equipment needs to reflect that as well.


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## Hilltop Raceway (Feb 12, 2006)

I agree with Rick, Your walls need to be higher than 3" to keep your pics "inside the shop" for posting. Take a few pics of some cars in different size cardboard boxes to see what size you might need in size. If you are building a diorama, then you need to try and keep the building to scale somewhat, maybe use a backdrop or other scenery outside the shop... RM


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## slotcarman12078 (Oct 3, 2008)

I really like Rick's method, not so much for the way it breaks down quick and easy (which is great) , but by the way each wall can be removed so the camera can get at different angles and directions within the shop (which is really great!!). The ability to virtually move around and snag different points of view is fantastic!! Also, if you are able to trick the auto focus into zeroing in on what you want, the foreground items get just a little blurred which makes for awesome scenes!!


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

Yep, there's several really cool shops on this board.
If i recall, Pete had yet another very original idea, a shade tree shop in the yard.
Any ideas on building a small garage and a yard scene????


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## tjet princess (Oct 27, 2008)

Probably not. The shade tree thing sort of went away when he started working on the 1960's Grand National cars. Right now the work bench is full of 1967 GTX's and Chevelles and a few 1968 Chargers. No Torino's or Fairline's yet but the dry erase board has a few listed on it. If the layout is 18" square it'll fit perfectly on the end of the work bench and only take up about a third of the desktop. There's 9 cars already painted but no decals, 6 in primer and another 4 that have been sanded but nothing else done to them. If the shop can hold 6 cars at a time then the parking lot can deal with the rest.


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