A
Alec K
Guest
My garden line can only accommodate small buildings, and to try to capture local character, I've been scratchbuilding them all. Working this way has allowed me to use fairly small quantities of material and to complete a variety of modest structures quickly; I've been impressed by the pictures of 'small buildings' I've seen on GSC and I'm certain there are others to follow. For starters, then, here are:
Locomens' mess hut
This started life as a scratchbuilt 'Conflat' type container but I was never quite happy with it, followed prototype practice and converted it to staff accommodation! There are a number of examples of these containers quietly rotting away on farms not far from where I live, having suffered similar indignities. The body is made from old 'clipframe' clear plastic, plastic card formers and strapping, track pins and solder tags for the lifting lugs, and has been suitably weathered. The faded branding for the Pensilva Philanthropic Co-operative Society was created using Microsoft Word Art and inkjet waterslide transfers, which have been sealed with acrylic matt varnish. The Society was real enough, and used a siding on the Liskeard and Caradon at Polwrath.
I've imagined that a coal stove was installed inside the container and its chimney has been made from a firework rocket nose cone, a half button and a washer. The 'fits where it touches' window is part of a spare Jackson Miniatures item.
Two for the price of one, here. On the left of the picture is a very small ore bin to represent the real much larger structures at the various L and CR Depots; although much tin/copper/lead ore was stacked in neat piles in the open air, the L and CR used open-sided roofed shelters of the type shown here. To be really accurate, the model should be around six feet long! It's made of coffee stirrers, plywood scraps and plastic card, with Jacksons Miniatures roofing shingles embossed sheet reprenting the tiled ground surface on which the ore was stacked. Inside, out of sight, is a small stack of crushed ore collected from various mines in East Cornwall.
On the right, in the shadow of the water tower, is a scale model of the famous firebox toilet once to be found over the East Looe River (yes, really) at Moorswater Sheds. Although it was equipped with a wooden seat and door, it was perforated with holes for the firebox stays, making it reputedly the coldest and most draughty facility of its kind. Once the firebox wrapper for the L and CR's Caradon, you can see it now, restored so that it is far too smart, on the platform at Bodmin General Station. I remember it in situ, coated with a century of rust, and tastefully surrounded by undergrowth. My model is made of laminations of thin plastic card over a former, drilled with the stay holes and covered with plastic rivet sheet. The door is made from thin balsa wood.
All the best,
Alec K
Locomens' mess hut
This started life as a scratchbuilt 'Conflat' type container but I was never quite happy with it, followed prototype practice and converted it to staff accommodation! There are a number of examples of these containers quietly rotting away on farms not far from where I live, having suffered similar indignities. The body is made from old 'clipframe' clear plastic, plastic card formers and strapping, track pins and solder tags for the lifting lugs, and has been suitably weathered. The faded branding for the Pensilva Philanthropic Co-operative Society was created using Microsoft Word Art and inkjet waterslide transfers, which have been sealed with acrylic matt varnish. The Society was real enough, and used a siding on the Liskeard and Caradon at Polwrath.
I've imagined that a coal stove was installed inside the container and its chimney has been made from a firework rocket nose cone, a half button and a washer. The 'fits where it touches' window is part of a spare Jackson Miniatures item.
Two for the price of one, here. On the left of the picture is a very small ore bin to represent the real much larger structures at the various L and CR Depots; although much tin/copper/lead ore was stacked in neat piles in the open air, the L and CR used open-sided roofed shelters of the type shown here. To be really accurate, the model should be around six feet long! It's made of coffee stirrers, plywood scraps and plastic card, with Jacksons Miniatures roofing shingles embossed sheet reprenting the tiled ground surface on which the ore was stacked. Inside, out of sight, is a small stack of crushed ore collected from various mines in East Cornwall.
On the right, in the shadow of the water tower, is a scale model of the famous firebox toilet once to be found over the East Looe River (yes, really) at Moorswater Sheds. Although it was equipped with a wooden seat and door, it was perforated with holes for the firebox stays, making it reputedly the coldest and most draughty facility of its kind. Once the firebox wrapper for the L and CR's Caradon, you can see it now, restored so that it is far too smart, on the platform at Bodmin General Station. I remember it in situ, coated with a century of rust, and tastefully surrounded by undergrowth. My model is made of laminations of thin plastic card over a former, drilled with the stay holes and covered with plastic rivet sheet. The door is made from thin balsa wood.
All the best,
Alec K