Cabin Fever

Yes, right now the weather here in New Jersey is beautiful and beckoning me outside. But in this case, the post title refers to the homes on the Gorre & Daphetid. Unlike nearly every other structure on the G&D, these little cabins were pretty much permanent fixtures, although they weren't all in place until Version II was well along.

Originally I was going to use log cabins from RSLaserKits—I'd even assembled and finished a couple. But, while I'm not after a millimeter-by-millimeter replica of the G&D, they just weren't right; they looked as though they belonged buried deep in a northeastern forest, not sitting out on a southwestern desert. Then, in a stroke of excellent timing, Micro-Trains released their Logging Camp Houses (#799 90 940), which had just the right look—although this came at a price; I needed two kits, which was nearly fifty bucks. All things considered, they did save me a fair bit of effort.

As an aside, these kits are made from the new darling of some laser kitmakers, Lazerboard, which is a resin-impregnated cardstock material. I can't say as I'm thrilled with it; while it offers some advantages over wood, it has some drawbacks as well. For one thing, it's a very tough material that's more difficult to work with, and easts up X-Acto blades by the bunch. For another, CA responds to it rather strangely, taking its sweet time setting up, and leaving the modeler guessing whether the bond is good or not.

Materials issues notwithstanding, I must say the roof parts supplied in these kits are simply superb, having the finest shake shingle effect I've ever seen—well done, Micro-Trains! I liked it so much, in fact, that I used the roof parts to improve the little southwestern building in Daphetid; the cabins instead got corrugated metal (Builders In Scale) and tarpaper (StoneBridge Models) roofing applied over plain cardstock replacement roof parts.

To give the cabins individuality, I assembled them four different ways. I only built one of them as designed, complete with its porch. For the second, I cut all of the walls down shorter to eliminate the slots for the omitted porch. I made a new door opening in the peaked wall of the third, used the same doorless back walls from two kits for new sides, changed the slope of the roof, and added a stone chimney from StoneBridge Models. And for the last, I cut and spliced the remaining wall parts (above) to produce a little square shack with a slant (not peaked) roof, similar to one of John Allen's cabins, complete with a little covered entry—its exquisitely delicate wooden braces having come from the southwestern building in Daphetid.

As great as the kits' roofing was, the green paper doors and windows left a bit to be desired, so I substituted etched brass doors and windows gleaned from my bottomless supply of leftovers, which happened to yield parts that fit perfectly. Various shades of flat spray paint and generous applications of Rustall and powdered chalk wrapped up the four little cabins. And now that they're done, I'm going outside to play!

Original Gorre & Daphetid images courtesy of Peter T. Prunka.

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