I don't..

Where possible, I do not glue buildings to the board. I try to bed them in with the surrounding scenery. They might not be as firm as some would like, but it is easier to replace / update / access lighting etc. And, if you do damage them, they can be repaired on the workbench.

Brian

It is all about location, you

It is all about location, you know that building you glued in front of your track to hide it, well your going to regret it 

So I would say don't it will make maintenance easier and allow for interiors/lighting later in time.

don't glue

Don't

I would also say don't glue them in place.  Locating pins are good, or magnets, so that vibration doesn't move them.

Here is an alternative to

Here is an alternative to gluing buildings down:

I don’t like to permanently glue my buildings down, but it is a problem getting the foundations to look right unless you glue ground cover or dirt, in place, right up to the edges, which effectively also glues the building down. The solution is to make what I call “footprint boards”.

The first photo shows preparation for my added wharf scene by scraping old ground cover off with a putty knife. The second photo shows a footprint board that is made by carefully tracing the building base outline on a scrap of wood (1/4” plywood in this example). Cut the board out and sand the edges smooth. The next step is to wrap the board in saran wrap.

Drill a hole through the footprint board so you can fasten it to your base with a screw. The 3^rd photo shows 2 footprint boards screwed in place. I used fine beach sand in this case, spread it right up to the board edge, and glued it down with diluted white glue, but you can use the ground cover of your choice.

The 4^th photo shows the footprint boards removed (Saran wrap allows boards to come up easily after unscrewing), after glue has completely dried (I waited 2 days). The last photo shows the buildings installed inside the depression made by the footprint boards.

You will find that they will be a tight fit with ground cover coming up to edges with little or no unsightly gap. If you want the buildings semi-permanent you can use “blu tack” or “handi-tac”. One of the advantages to this technique is the ability to easily remove your structures for lighting installations.

My method...

I use foam core board as a base. Cut to fit inside the building and provide secure and repeatable location without gluing the building to the layout. I can remove the building without damage and I can replace it exactly where it was.

Bases

I am putting all my buildings on bases that include surrounding details like sidewalks, people, cars etc. Once a year I lift the entire scene off, take it to the workbench, and give it a good dusting. At the workbench I can be more careful of dusting around the details, and if I do knock something off, it is easier to glue it back in place.

Originally, I glued buildings down on the layout, but it quickly became apparent that cleaning the dust off was going to be a problem, vacuuming never gets all the dust off, I use a soft brush, like a shaving brush to dust everything.

I put plugs in for the wiring for lighting so it can be removed easily. Sometimes the base has several buildings all on one piece. The edges of the base can be hidden in the scenery along the edges of tracks or roads or by simply throwing some grass over it and leaving the grass loose.

One thing that I would try to do different next time is to make the bases a standard size, that way I could swap out scenes with different ones.

corner dowels

I don't generally glue structures down.  I glue a short stub of dowel rod (wood or styrene) inside opposite corners of the structure and then corresponding holes in the layout.    The structure is then just "plugged into place" where a jolt won't dislodge it.   But it can be pulled straight up to release if for maintenance etc.

Dave

Some folks also use small

Some folks also use small foam blocks glued to the layout and slip the structure over the blocks. They are positioned so as to provide a snug fit to the inside of the building.

I've decided not to glue down

I've decided not to glue down my buildings because I have a small layout and eventually want to be able to change them out.  Some day......a long, long, time from now when my layout is "finished" I don't want to have to take it down to have something new.  I love building structures so I can continue to build them even after my layout is "full" and change them out.  This will take a little planning to make sure the footprint of the structures are simular so they can be changed

Portable Free-mo

On my Free-mo module I use double sided tape to hold the building in place.  Pins are nice but sometimes when the modules are being moved they get turned sideways and the tape holds the buildings in place very well.  To remove the buildings I use a thin blade under one edge and wiggle it until the tape break loose.

Dan

Not gluing structures down

I have modified my post to delete my redirect to another site. Enjoy this new post.

gary60s

I don't know about anyone else, but I can't see any of your photos. Just a white space where they should be.

Foam Core Foundation

I use foam core cut to fit inside the base of the building to make them both removable and relocatable. A couple of photos as an example:

Don't glue buildings down

Recently I helped to dismantle the layout of a friend after his death. He had glued the buildings to the layout. Many of them ended up being damaged when we tried to remove them. A FSM coaling tower fell apart when we tried to remove it.

John Slean

well done

Ken, that joint looks fantastic. I especially appreciate the foundation board around the foamcore - your ground treatment really sells it. 

This is one of the most under-emphasized points of visual realism on many layouts, and your strategy looks both practical and effective. 

Jeff Allen

Being involved in portable

Magnets?

Has any one used magnets to hold their structures down? I am considering this because I would rather knock a model askew than break it when I hit it with my elbow.

pqe

pics

Fixed invisible pics with dropbox.

Do not glue,  On other hand

Do not glue,  On other hand they do get stuck to the layout after all the other scenry glues and products get under them and stick them in place.

I used to use pins on some

I used to use pins on some structure, but some where glued down. I do regret gluing down some of my structures on previous layouts like this one, which I couldn't salvage.

Now I just make a foundation that can be separated from the structure, and just make a new foundation for it on the next layout.

@Pelsea

The building in the pictures in my post above has been "knocked askew" a number of times. It is close to the edge of the layout. It has survived well but has had some repairs. I wonder if magnets would give you really good repeatable location.

Magnets

High power magnets work fine to hold buildings down. I used magnets on my Freemo modules to hold the buildings in place, worked fine. Now I would build the magnets on a base, and then consider the magnets to hold the whole thing down. I just used screws into the scenery that the magnets would hold onto. The screws can be screwed up or down to adjust to the correct depth to suit the strength of the magnets.

I know of one modeler that

I know of one modeler that glued small foam corners to the layout and placed his buildings over them. The buildings were removable but also held in position reasonably well. The magnets might be better if the building could get bumped.