Flabbergasted....

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

A few days ago, and again just now, I went looking for a shotgun house kit and could not believe the price was nearly 20 dollars for one kit and if that was not bad enough another manufacturer was asking almost 30…

I sat down the other night with my quad pad and in a fit of rage made a rough sketch using the base dimensions given in both ads for these kits… The problem came in when I went looking for my n scale ruler and caliper and of course they were casualties of one move or another and so I ordered new ones, along with multipacks of sheet styrene and hobby plywood. I spent less than the cost of one each of these kits to get supplies to make 50 Shotgun houses.

A couple of years ago I had this same sticker shock and threatened to find a better was to get the stuff I needed and build a better (for me anyway) mousetrap… Well I know of a local firm that does laser cutting… I have the skill to be able to design the structures I want (I did scale drawings of real estate as an appraiser)…

Coming soon to my ebay store… my own line of affordable structures… Well maybe not but I’ll gladly share plans that I create with anyone who wants them…

2

Well, I’m sure you’ll have a fun challenge, particularly if you need 50 houses.

Best of luck with your project.

3

I only need a few, but I got enough materials to build about 50…

Incidently, If I am considering actually doing this, I’m going to design midwestern style houses… Any requests or ideas?

4

Kind of surpirsed then that you didn’t choose the Blair Line 3-packs, since they are under 45 bucks from on-line vendors. But I guess this way you’ll get exactly what you want and have the challenge of scratchbuilding to boot.

At some point you’ll want to look into the differences between elevation drawings of buildings and the drawings that laser-cut kits are made from. All that tab-and-slot stuff seems pretty intricate.