Lost

It's not here.
Or here.

Turns out I've lost the E.L.Moore V.W pickup I used in some of the red shed photos I took last week. I've looked everywhere and haven't found it. I'll need to be more careful when taking photos outside. Well, it's a good excuse for building another one.

Red shed

I've been taking some outdoor pictures and posting them at my other blog, retroDynamics. Subjects in those photos are in 1/24 scale and I thought I try it with some HO-scale buildings.

Since I'm using a natural environment as the stage, I thought a backwoods type of building would be most appropriate. The Shack #2 and the V.W truck seemed good picks for this project.

I also used some HO-scale sheep and a figure.

Shack #2

A few weeks ago Mike Hamer graciously invited me to visit his Boston & Maine railroad. It's as spectacular as the photos at his blog suggest.

The visit inspired me to try my hand at building a laser-cut structure kit. For a first project I thought I'd try something straightforward, and the Bar Mills Shack Pack [changed from Blair Mills on 30 June - thanks Mike!] I bought at George's Trains in Toronto was just the ticket. Shack #2 in this three shack pack looked like it would fit in the E.L. Moore industrial park - it'll be part of a windmill park sub-scene - so I picked it as the first project.


I won't give a step-by-step summary here since the kit instructions are very comprehensive. Basically, the only modification I made was to dry brush the colour coat with Tamiya Hull Red, and to leave off the side extension since I didn't think it would fit in with the windmill park I have in mind.

It went together very quickly and I'm satisfied with the result. It was a fun little project that I highly recommend to anyone looking for an easy way to try a laser-cut build. It was almost too easy, and at times I felt like I was cheating on my first love, old-school scratchbuilding :-)