Beginings - And A Grotty Hut

Unfortunately I'm one of those modellers who hardly documents their building. Not for any particular reason other than becoming so engrossed in the task at hand that I simply forget and it's something I want to change, mainly so that when asked I can direct people to a source. I'm also fairly lacking in my writing skills, so this blog is an attempt to try and kill two birds with one stone: Improving my modelling documentation and my writing at the same time.

Hopefully.

So, here goes:

One again I find myself in the midst of creating a small 009 layout. This time however I'm taking the approach of making some of the more generic structures first to help with planning. There is of course the danger of spending so much time creating a model that won't fit comfortably on the finished layout, but in this case it's certainly a building that would fit in almost any setting I could plan to model: One of the Grotty Huts from the Wills Kits range by Peco.

Nothing particularly taxing build wise, the main structure was assembled as per the kit intentions, the minor alteration to the parts being notching the underside of the top and bottom edges of the corrugated iron roof the make the part look thinner than it actually is. 

A few minor additions have been added to try and help distinguish it from the countless others that have appeared on many layouts. Firstly, the small bolt and padlock on the door, simply a piece of 20x10thou plastic strip for the bolt, with a small square of 20x40thou strip for the padlock. It's a tiny detail, but one that looks right.

On the rear side a strip of guttering has been added and due to the sloping nature of the roof probably aiding in water collection, a small water butt was created from odds and ends in the spares box. The barrel was left over from a Wills Garden Conservatory, a small hole was drilled in to the base to a piece of 0.5mm for a tap with a small square of 20x10thou again for the handle. The completed butt sits on a stack of four pieces of 60thou square strip to give it the necessary height to fill a small bucket sat on the floor.

Hut complete, onwards to the next build.