Make Expresso Stands for Your Train Scene

The easiest way is to start with a shanty kit, or similar small shed.

1. Find some bigger windows. Most latte stands have large and lower windows to serve drivers. If you don't have any scrap windows, you can use small strips of wood or thick cardstock for framing.

I will use these two windows, and take the middle sill out, so it looks like 2 sliding windows.

2. Next you need to make the window holes bigger to fit the new window sills. Dremmel works best, But I did this one with a small wire cutter and xacto while I wasn't at home.

After you get your windows in, put in a piece of clear plastic half way across to look as if one half of the sliding window is open. Then put your shack together

3. Gather some items you may want to put in, on, or around you latte stand. Plants, bench, fence, table, coffee making machinery, workers, and interesting things that would fit your name theme. Small things that may look like cups and jars.

I do a lot of crafts and models so there's lots of parts around. Flat clear plastic from the packaging of items from the store can be kept for windows, and flat white or black pieces also. The plain flat surface of latte lids on the coffee you get really works well with model glue. Model cars come with chrome parts. Cutting up the straight part of the parts tree make perfect tall coffee pots, and other car motor parts can look like latte machinery to fill the inside of the stand. Tiny beads can be used as cups and tip jars. I use some plastic beads that are meant to be melted into ornaments. Use you imagination.

Signage

4. Lots of the small print can be made on your home computer, then glued onto thin, flat black or white plastic or cardstock. You may need a name sign and sandwich board. For the menu boards it's fine to paint little squiggles to represent words and prices.

Sandwich board

I save lots of signage, logos and words incase I need it. You can also find photos of neon open, and latte stands on the internet. Copy and past me into your MS paint and print up. It's ok if they are big, because when you take them into the copy store to get them reduced, the quality is really good.

I once saw and a thing on Flickr where the guy had found a clear card at Starbucks with a tiny logo on it, that was just right for his café. Just keep and eye open for stuff like that.

This one I will call, Motion espresso, and use a decal from a car kit. I keep decals from any models.

Here's what the menu boards look like put up, and the chrome model tree cut up as coffee pots.

Putting it together

5. Many of the latte stands are brightly colored. Those colors are all up to you. I like some of the cool fingernail polishes that are out.

Put everything together any way you think looks good.

Here I have glued many things on the floor and kept the shack loose so the insides can be changed.

Sandwich board is loose to put by the street, a name sign up facing the way most of the traffic will see it. A place to sit opposite of the door for the workers to use. Maybe some flowers or grass. You can put a hole thru the floor to put in a light also.

Here's the front of a Metro liner that had been in my scrap pile for years. I'm going to make this one a lighted café/espresso stand. The gal has been waiting around here for a while for her own stand.

I found a window to fit and cut a piece of wall to fit it and to fit into the back. Painted some keratins in the window plastic and found a gal to serve.

I didn't want to cup off the front guards of the engine, so I built some land up with Sculpy clay. Raised up the drive thru part and fit the front part in a way people can go up some stairs to go to the café part. I cut a hole in the middle of the floor so a light could be put in. The piece of that hole was lifted up to hold the wire.

After baking the Sculpy it's painted, and plants added. I'll keep it so the engine is loose so the light can be replaced if needed.

A cat is added, she lives there. An entrance to the inside is under the coupler. The passenger car restaurant in Seattle has several strays they care for living under the cars.

N scale water towers can be used for HO scale latte stands. Small cabooses, small box cars, windmills or what every you feel like converting into a stand.

There is a model company that makes log cabins and shacks with the plastic already molded in color. They are quite nice for forming a latte shack. Pola, Kibri and Faller. There is a stand just down the road shaped like a caboose, but made out of logs.

Check eBay for build lots of houses and train cars that are already built and damaged for cheap. Yard sales are great for boxes of bits.

This one is in N scale. It will be a little green house place for people to hang out after getting their latte and donut.

Something that is cool for windows is Micro Screen. It's almost like Elmer's glue, but slimy. After you got the rims coated, wipe the coated stick across and it forms a window. It takes a while to dry, but it works great.

This building is curvy so the Micro Screen will be perfect. (Can you tell what model the building part used to be?)

I used the curved part of my latte cup lid to make the slide up door for the main entrance and built a Sculpy base to fit the building. In the Sculpy, pushed in a pond, drew in a trail and put up some pots and rocks around the pond.

After baking the Sculpy it was painted, plants added, and clear glue put into the pond to look like water, then a rock for a center piece. The stair thing is part of a track walk way. This is a tiny project, if you are making a big pond there is melt able plastic beads available. Some colored moss, a dude and a bench was added.