More Background Flats

As I said a few months ago, I periodically get into project jags where I build a number of background flats. The best by far came from King Mill. When he went out of business, he had a big clearance, and I picked up a good number of them. At this point, I'm getting to the end of these, and I've been looking for other sources.

The current project jag came from wanting to build some structures for the new extension onto the shelf in the next room. I haven't decided exactly where they'll go, or if they'll eventually wind up on the shelf at all, but the great thing is that they're very inexpensive. I build most to a standard depth of one inch, so they're interchangeable wherever I decide to use such low-relief flats.

King Mill made two kinds of flats, those that had no side wings to allow them to be made into low-relief buildings, so you had to glue them directly to the backdrop, and those with side wings that would allow you to build a basic shape out of foamcore to which the image can be glued to create a low-relief building flat. However, I've been able to kitbash pieces from other flats, as well as building papers from other sources, that can turn the flat-image versions into low-relief buildings as well.

The two examples below are low-rellief buildings made from flat King Mill images, merged with bits and pieces from other King Mill versions and other building papers, mounted on a basic form made from foamcore.

Below are two low-relief buildings from a different source, Trackside Scenery. His flats are very similar to those from King Mill, printed on a large sheet of high-quality photo paper, but the builder is left to make his own substructure from foamcore or similar material. Also, somewhat like King Mill, the "kits" aren't really complete; sometimes images aren't available for a full set of walls or corner pieces, and you have to be creative. For me, that's part of the challenge. On these buildings, I added roofing from a sheet King Mill used to sell, and I built up basic forms from foamcore with additional interior bracing.

So far, the flats I've built up from foamcore have held up very well for as long as eight years or so -- there's little or no warping, but it's important to add interior bracing. They're very lightweight and easy to relocate. Also important, the images themselves are quite inexpensive, and a sheet of plain white foamcore is about $3.00 at Michaels. Depending on building size, I can get three to five from a sheet.

George Sellios seems to have loaded up on King Mill flats, probably when he ran his final clearance. Here are some shots I found on the web of King Mill and similar flats on the F&SM: