In just about any era, newspaper stands have been a regular fixture on sidewalks from small towns to big cities. Newsstands were built following many different designs and it’s very prototypical to have several newsstands on your layout, each with a different style.

Because of this variety, and because commercial N scale newsstands are simply not available, we’ve decided to provide you with two different scratch built newsstand projects. First, we’ll start with my design for a newsstand. We’ll immediately follow my series of articles with another series featuring a design by Chris Brimley.

The Prototype

For my newsstand, I spent quite a bit of time looking for decent reference photos from the 1940s or 1950s. A Google search turned up several examples, but none were quite the design I was looking for.

Ultimately, I found just what I was after for from an unlikely source. I decided to base my newsstand design on the one shown in the recent Warner Brothers movie, Watchmen. I haven’t seen the movie, but it turned up in Google and it was exactly what I was after. The Watchmen newsstand is not a 1940s example, but it still fits.

Because images from the movie are copyrighted material, I can’t display a photo of the newsstand here. However, a Google Image search for “Watchmen newsstand” should show you what I’ve chosen.

Materials Needed (for Part 1)

• .010″ sheet styrene
• .030″ sheet styrene
• .010″ x .030″ strip styrene
• quarter round styrene
• clap board sheet styrene
• Styrene cement

Construction

On the prototype, the side walls wrap around to the front, creating about a 6″ front face to the stand. Rather than create thinner side walls on the model and reproduce the small front-facing pieces, I opted to make the walls a bit thicker than they should be (almost 5 scale inches) to create the same illusion of these front pieces.

Side Walls

The side walls are cut from .030″ sheet styrene. First, I cut two pieces measuring 4.5′ x 9′ using an N scale ruler. Once cut, I measured 8′ from the bottom of each piece and cut an angle from the 8′ measured point to the 9′ corner. This will create the slope for the roof. You’ll want to make sure these parts are sanded and relatively identical because differences in height or top angle will result in a lop-sided newsstand. At this point, you should have two rectangle pieces with matching angled tops.

Next, there are raised supports that run horizontally and vertically on the face of the walls. To create these, I’ve used .010″ x .030″ stryrene strip.

Working with one wall piece at a time, I first glued a strip vertically to the tall end of the wall, leaving it longer than the wall on the top and bottom so I could go back and trim it to exact height and match the angle later.

Next, I did the two short horizontal pieces. These are placed so that the top horizontal is even with the lower corner of the angle — at about 8′, but it’s more important that you get this lined up with the angled corner than it is to actually measure it. The lower horizontal is approximately 2 scale feet below the top one. Again, placement isn’t critical.

To get these cut properly to size, I glued extra long strips into place against the vertical strip already attached, making sure to glue only the end touching the vertical strip. That left the other end free to be cut to the proper length. To cut to these size, I took another .010″ x .030″ strip, laid it over the two horizontals, flush with the shorter edge of the wall. This provides the proper .030″ guide for cutting. I then trimmed the two verticals, glued them in place and then glued the last horizontal .010″ x .030″ on to the shorter end of the wall. When completed, you should have a completed wall with two vertical pieces, one at each edge of the wall with two horizontal pieces between them.

I then did the same exact thing for the other side wall. Make sure you do the second wall as a mirror image of the first so that the bracing .010″ x .030″ will be on the outside. To make sure that the horizontal pieces match, I used the first as a guide to mark the second wall before gluing.

Back Wall

To create the back wall, I again cut this from .030″ sheet styrene. This is cut to 8′ by 8.5′. The shorter side is cut to match the shorter height of the side walls so if you’re side walls are a little off of 8′, you’ll want to match to what you have.

For the bracing strips, I followed a similar approach to how I did the side walls, but this time, starting with the bottom strip. I glued this along the bottom edge (left long and trimmed after gluing for accuracy.)

I then did the center vertical, trimming it as I did the side wall horizontal pieces, but using the side wall pieces to determine where the top horizontal pieces should be placed.

The top horizontals were added to the very top edge and the to match the placement of the lower horizontal on the side walls. The back wall does not have any vertical pieces along its left and right sides.

Wall Assembly

To assemble the walls, glue the back wall between the two side walls. The raised bracing of the back wall should be flush with the back edges of the side walls. This will create the illusion that the corners share their bracing between the back and side walls.

Roof

The roof is cut out of a piece of .010″ sheet styrene and placed on the newsstand so there is a slight, equal overhang on the left and right side of the stand. I made sure the overhang over the rear of the stand matched that on the left and the right. The remainder of the roof overhangs the front of the newsstand. Size of the roof isn’t critical.  With this step, I just made sure it looked correct.

Overhead Door Housing

For newsstands that don’t have side doors that allow the merchant to close up shop at the end of the day, there is usually some form of overhead door that rolls up into a housing. This is true of the prototype Watchmen newsstand. Alternatively, you could build side doors and have them opened flat against the side walls.

Overhead housings are typically an angled cylinder but I’ve opted to use quarter round styrene. This was from my scrap bin, so I don’t have the exact size.

I cut a simple length of quarter round to match the width of the assembled stand. I glued this in place to the front top of the stand under the roof overhand, as high up as this could go and still sit flat.

Interior Detail

To the inside of the newsstand, I added a strip of .030″ styrene as a top shelf. I measured the available width, cut the strip to size and glued it in place. I matched this up with the lower horizontal braces on the side wall, since the side supports would help support this shelf.

This is thicker than a prototypical shelf would be, but I did this purposely so that I’d have more surface area to attach hanging magazines in a later step. As I get into detailing the interior itself, this should make sense. You could use a thinner styrene if you’re concerned about the thickness of this detail and don’t intend to cover it.

I added another shelf to the side wall, about 3′ from the bottom of the newsstand. This is .010″ styrene glued to the side and rear walls. Note, the photos show a thicker side shelf before I replaced it with .010″.

For the large magazine rack, I used Evergreen clapboard siding styrene sheet. I then angled this piece into the stand and marked to location that the styrene met the front of the newsstand. Since the styrene is ribbed, it’s very easy to mark the length this piece should be and accurately cut it along the proper rib. Once cut to length, the rack piece was glued into the stand. Be sure to turn the clapboard siding upside down to give the appearance of a shelving unit.

To Be Continued…

In Part 2, we’ll apply paint and explore a technique known as “sea salt weathering” to create the appearance of chipped paint. We’ll also utilize weathering powders and drybrushing to give an aged look.