I'm talking about actual historical ones; there are no doubt plenty of simulated ones, like an apartment building not too far from home.

I did some research but found not much information; I'm not sure how widespread they were or how many still exist, or how they were modified over time, or if there are places such as small towns which might comprise mainly those types of buildings because they escaped war and catastrophe and modernization.

I suspect a large part of the reason you've had no responses is that it's not at all clear just what you're asking - or, is it everything?

I'm surprised that you haven't been able to find material online - you probably want to target your searches to central European countries / sites.

I would suspect that most preserved examples are not so much a matter of escape, but of proud owners (individuals or towns) wanting to maintain their historic structures.

One thing I've learned is that for something like this it's much, much better to do the search using the target country's term / language, then you can translate and /or look at images.

Ola Tom

I'm not completely sure what you mean with half timber buildings but if I had to take a guess you are probably looking for Fachwerk houses. (google Fachwerkhauser or Fachwerk Hauser) and you will find a lot of pages with pictures of this type of house.
If you go to the southern areas of Germany like the Mosel Area or Bavaria, Luxemburg, certain parts of Belgium. The North east of France, Swiss and Austria you will find out there are still a huge amount of villages and cities that pretty much consist of this type of building and they often are hundreds of years old despite them looking all nicely painted and fresh. If you think away the modern streetlights, cars and other paraphernalia that comes with modern life you are essentially in the same village but 100 years back.
Here is a picture I made of a small square in one of the many towns in SOuthern Germany


Another pic from me from Landsberg Bavaria with a building that has a bottom section of stone with wooden levels on top. Nice wooden facade with a wooden walkbridge over the road.


And I have a picturesearch from Google on Fachwerk hauser maybe it is of help to you
Google Picture search "Fachwerk Hauser"

In contrast to Robert's images, I present this daub and wattle in Heiligenstadt - which may well be "hundreds of years old", but is hardly "looking all nicely painted and fresh".



And, off the Continent, there is the British Tudor style, with many preserved examples.



MiniArt has a number of half-timbered structures in their range, and there should be many articles on the net if you want to build your own. I believe there was a series on building one on this forum, perhaps around the turn of the year.

Whether you use balsa or basswood for the timber part, I would suggest taking some time to distress the wood (a razor saw works well for overall grain, with an X-acto, etc. for detail work) before assembly, perhaps creating some knots and cracks. I have a vague memory of the wood looking much too new and tidy in the referenced build. If you wanted to get really radical, you could mix in some squared off imperfect (not truly straight) branches, or even use them exclusively for a poor family's house.

Lots of good advice already here. Another nice town with a mix of restored and unrestored fachwerkhauser is Nordlingen on the romantic road of Germany.
I am working on a dio just such as this.




Be happy to give any answers you need. Robert,thanks for those very cool pics. I love the wooden arcade and the walk-over,hadn't seen those! Mr Vieck would be in ecstasy.
J

I'm in ecstacy! Thanks! I looked up "Half-timbered" on Google because that was the term I had known.

I know of many scenarios these could be used in, but I was thinking of the former East Germany, which I trust had at least some towns that still looked old-fashioned. I wanted to avoid making it look pretty or quaint, but rather depressing. (I'm sure you might have heard of Wetzlar and Sorrows Of A Young Man by Goethe.)

Very fine work Jerry. I appreciate that you haven't tried to make the wood look perfect. I imagine that, like anything else, the quality of the wood and joint-fitting would depend on the wealth of the builder's client.

One comment - the incisions in your stone walls (not the small section of foundation on the left) look too shallow and unvaried to my eye, so they don't have the same three-dimensional feeling as the fachwerk.

I just discovered that "fachwerkhaus modell" brings up some amazing images.

Tom - the structures in-filled with brick are almost always commercial or governmental structures.

To refute the above statement, here is some of the amazing work of the Swiss modeler, Marcel Ackle, who works in 1:22.5. He uses individual bricks, although I don't know where he sources them; I wouldn't be surprised if he makes his own. As a teaser, here is another shot of his mind-blowing work.

mind-blowing indeed!! The guy is a genius!