My shanty is another of my free lance scratch building projects. Right from the outset, I resolved to scratch build everything as far as possible. Although the walls were cut from Mt. Albert milled basswood, everything else was scratch built, door frame, window, stove stack and even the roof shingles.

The other deviation from the scatch built resolve was the use of a brass Campbell scale models HO-scale lamp shade and the Berkshire Valley desk and shovel.

My fellow model railroaders told me that producing CAD drawings for such a small project was over-kill.

Well, they were right - it was and I do over-kill real well! The reason I did it this way was to test and perfect the approach for future projects. I feel there's no better way than this to visualize the finished model's final size and construction approach before the construction itself starts.

The exposed roof joists were pre-scribed with an inexpensive Atlas razor saw and then stained with diluted floquil paint. When they were dry, I lightly sanded them to highlight the wood grain effect from the razor saw.

Note the floor boards and desk inside the shanty. The floor boards were laid on top of some 0.020" card stock that was pre-blackened with a black marker pen in order to make the gaps stand out.

The roof shingles were individually cut and stained from HO-scale 1x12" basswood and glued to the card stock sub-roof.

The stove stack was scratch built from various diameter brass and styrene tube.

Click here for part 2 of this construction project...