Good start! It takes me back

I think that is a great start.  Nothing like the feeling of accomplishment of making anything from scratch.  And, with practice, each new project gets better.  Your post takes me back to the first time I tried to scratch build something-- in 1962, from this article in the January, 1962 issue of Boys Life magazine.

I built it for a friend's HO layout (did not have $ or space for one of my own) and it ended up looking very rough, but I was proud of it.

Keep scratching,

Dennis

Looks good!

You should be proud.  What will it be used for?

I enjoy scratch building and kit bashing too.  It’s very rewarding.  

Keep up the good work!

Nick

Keep it up!

Can't wait to see you finish this

Nice!

Nice structure!

Joe

First scratch build.

Looks like a nice simple project. That is the best way to start. The simple techniques will build your confidence and take you on to more and more complex projects.

AH, To Be Young and Feerless Again

Nice work, please don't be afraid to tackle any project. You will only learn and get better. It's the same way all of us older (more mature ?) modelers got started.

I think my first scratchbuild was a 50' Pennsy double door boxcar from plans in MR. I remember I used a hacksaw and small triangular file to make the boxcar ends. This was back in about 1964 or so. I also remember the Boy's Life articles. I had a cousin who also had built the grain elevator.

Good Job !

Espee over Donner

One suggestion

Feel free to ignore if you're already planning to but consider adding some bracing to the long side wall with the big windows. I see you used the scribe and snap method to create the window openings - great approach and I use it myself - but when you glue all those butt joints back together you're left with some inherently weak spots that will never truly straighten out if you don't add some bracing. 

Bracing

kinda hard to see in the photos but I do have 1/4" square strip along the top and sides of all the walls for bracing

Great job!!!

Great job and welcome to scratch building!! I would WAY rather scratch or kitbash than build a kit. As someone mentioned, bracing is certainly key. Secondly, each new build gives you a bit more insight in making the joints, better ways to lay the building out.... Sometimes I have had first iteration good enough to keep. It works fine and I keep it. A couple of them are on their 4th iteration. The other 3 are in the trash. My encouragement would be to keep building, evaluate each one and while you don't want to get to the point where you keep scrapping a building because you realize it could be better, also don't hesitate to realize your skills have increased to the point where some of your first work should be revisited, and most importantly...have fun!!

Great start to scratch building!

You're off to a great start to scratch building! I love scratch building structures and I always save way more than buying a kit. We have built a lot of scratch built structures for under $20 total in parts and materials when the building would have originally cost us a couple hundreds had it been in kit form.

Check out some of our work over at hoscalecustoms.com and you'll can see some of the tips & tricks we have for building scratch built structures if you're going to continue down the hand-made structure path!

The greatest part of scratch-building (and really model railroading in general) is that it's your world and you can do whatever you want as long as it makes sense for what you're trying to get your layout to look like! 

Have fun and keep on modeling!