The Little World

I don’t know which comic book empire is which, but I can recognise super-talent when I see it. I’m even more delighted to be able to report that it has surfaced in one of my favourite people – me. Captain Frugal. Nicknamed Cheap John.

One afternoon I decided to get down to it and build some structures for Wet Dog Regional Airport. We needed a firehouse, an air cargo depot, and a hangar for Hughes Aerial Surveys. It was hot outside so I holed up in the air conditioning and started googling and drawing. The google was inconclusive – few images of suitable buildings were coming up. So I cellotaped some sheets of typing paper together and designed my own.

Then – 9 hours later, there was a hangar and a firehouse out in the Little Workshop. They’re made of foamcore, matt board, wood strip, and corrugated plastic sheet – with holes for a few commercial windows cut in. The forms are still blank, but the structures are done. By the start of the week I should have the doors done as well. Then it will be painting, decoration and signage.

Scratchbuilding used to be the most frightening word in the language. It might still be, if I had not produced an entire airport by doing it. But the thing is made ever so much simpler by the fact that there are materials for it everywhere. This latest building boom owes some to the art supply house, some to the hobby shop, and a lot to the local hardware store and $2 Indian crap shop in the mall. I’m pleased to report that Captain Frugal has also succeeded in using scraps of older materials to do the buildings – no new purchasing. I end up with the entire set for essentially no new out-of-pocket expenses. This might even have been the time to spray my Canadian Back Porch Enamel paint on something – the weather was warm enough to dry it, and it would have  seen gone the last of the Humbrol dregs.

In a month I am going to need a modern concrete water tower. The HO toy train people want $ 75 for one. Captain Frugal laughs very much at this…

ADDENDUM: Next day…Canadian Pacific Air Cargo, the firehouse, and Hughes Aerial Survey …plus a new big hardstand.

Still haven’t spent any money. And the firehouse will have operating doors.