This is a neat small structure that can be used on logging railroads as well as those without any connections to the logging industry.   As stated on the package, Weyerhaeuser used prototype skid shacks at their MacDonald-Vail camps, and they had over 90 of them.  The 10 by 20 foot structure was built on skids for ease of movement from one camp to another.  They could be dragged over the ground if necessary, or loaded on flat cars.   Many uses were probably made for the shacks, from dormitories to tool sheds to kitchens, etc.   At the end of railroad logging they were kept in use as crossing shacks and storage sheds, so could be in use on your railroad in any manner too.

The laser cut kit parts are enclosed in a zip top plastic bag, with a set of instructions printed on folded letter sized paper. No plans are included (nor needed), and many of the assembly steps are illustrated with small color photos.   These color photos are at times of other kits, but the methods are all the same.   While the use of the color prints is nice, their small size at times makes some of the steps a bit more difficult.  Larger ones would help or, if they could be on the web site, they would be even better.

This was only my second laser cut wood kit, and it didn’t take me very long to notice differences.  The plywood used in this kit is twice the thickness of my previous effort by Banta.   The additional thickness obviously makes the main structural pieces stiffer and means they do not require any bracing to keep them straight.   Thicker plywood requires more laser power to cut, and it shows on the cut edges of the kit parts, as they are all blackened by the laser.  This isn’t really a problem except in a few specific areas, to be mentioned later.

As suggested in the instructions, I stained the parts in my kit before assembly.  The outside walls were colored with Floquil Boxcar Red diluted with lacquer thinner.  I chose to do my shack as shown in the kit color photo, with white trim as if it had just been put in service or had perhaps been painted recently. I painted the corner trim angles and the windows with Floquil Reefer White.  The corner wood angles were very thin and delicate, and a few in my kit were actually broken.   They were easily repaired using wood glue.  The windows are actually laser cut from white cardboard but the laser left scorch marks all over their surface, so they had to be painted.  For the insides of the walls, the floor, and rafters, I used Floquil Oak stain to remove the whitish look of the supplied plywood.

Since the plywood is fairly thick, cutting the pieces from the sheets can best be done using a flat #17 blade in a hobby knife.  This chisel like blade makes quick work of the small hard connections that hold the pieces together.   A “normal” #11 blade needs too much force to cut the connections and can break.  The little nubs left on the wood shapes can be sanded off with a file, sandpaper or what I used –an emery board, often used by women to file their fingernails.

The instructions call for assembling and installing the windows and the door before putting the walls together, and I did it this way.  The window and frame cardboard material has a peel and stick backing, a nice touch.   The frames can be placed around the windows using the sticky backs.  The window openings in the walls are slightly larger than the window frames, so care must be taken to center them.  As has been mentioned previously, the laser cutter leaves all wood edges seriously blackened.  So I painted the inside edges of the wood window openings white before installing the windows.

The instructions suggest the window frames be installed in the openings, removing the peel and stick backs, and then pressing the pre-cut plastic glazing onto the backs of the windows. I felt this method would make it difficult to actually press the glazing against the frames, so I added the glazing before installing the windows in the openings.  I held them in place with a little bit of yellow carpenters glue.  I used this glue for all fastening in the kit. Windows include cut out sills, and these can be glued to the bottom of each window.  There is no mention of them in the instructions. Same for the single door, its sill can be glued in place.  The cardboard framing for my door was a bit longer than the actual door, so I had to trim a bit off the bottom after it was fastened to the wood.  There are two extra window frames included in the kit.

The walls are glued together after the windows are installed, one end and one side wall at a time.  They fit together fine, using the tabs on one into the slots in the other.  Ensure they are square while the glue is drying.  There is a sub frame for the floor, and it requires a fair amount of laser cut material to be removed before use.   Not much identification is made of this sub floor in the photos and instructions; it’s the ladder like shape the same size as the floor.  

One wall/end assembly can be glued to the floor, and when dry, the other assembly can be glued on, and the walls joined too.

On my example the floor is slightly shorter than the sidewalls, by about 1/64th of an inch.  This means one of my end walls was not actually glued to the shorter floor.   This doesn’t really make a whole lot of difference, as the gap cannot be noticed when the building is assembled. 

The roofing material can be applied per instructions.  I chose to use the shake shingle material, which comes in a light tuscan color.  As with the rest of the kit, I fastened it on with yellow carpenters’ glue, just a little strip applied with a toothpick on each strip was enough.   The instructions suggest double-sided tape can also be used.

The framing for the roof can now be installed, using the laser cut rafters.  I had stained them with the Floquil Oak previously.   I glued them and held them in place with clamps.  There are light lines marked on the roof undersides as guidelines for fastening the rafters. I used the lines as centers for gluing.  I did one side of the roof, then the other side, making sure the top edges of the roof material met at a point.  Test fitting the roof onto the four walls showed some of the rafters didn’t quite line up with the pre-cut slots in the tops of the sidewalls.  I had to enlarge a few of them to fit.  

To complete the roof, a ridge cap has to be installed.  The instructions suggest using a strip of leftover carrier material from the roofing material, score it down the middle, fold it and glue it down.  I’ve seen this done in the past and it really doesn’t seem realistic having a one piece roof cap.  I cut my strip into short pieces and glued them on, overlapping each other.  The original tuscan color didn’t look like cedar, so I painted the roofing material with Floquil Driftwood, a light grey.   After it had dried, I gave it a wash of India ink and alcohol mix, which gave the dark grey color of aged cedar.

The paper cedar shake shingles are actually too thin to represent wood shingles.  They should have some real thickness to them.   If I had thought of this before I did the roof, I probably would have used the black paper asphalt shingles.  

Since the door, windows and corner trim were painted white, I also painted the outside end rafters while on the roof.   I did not glue the door into the opening, but left it partially opened. This will allow me the option of leaving it open to suggest the shack is in use.  I added the head of a pin as the doorknob.   Since the door is cut from the rather heavy plywood as the rest of the kit, it is too thick to be realistic.  Wish I had noticed this earlier, as I could have made it from thinner material.

The last item on the kit is the skid assembly. The kit comes with four pieces of 3/16” wood dowels to make the skid, although the instructions call them ¼”.   This seemed to be a bit small to me, so I substituted some actual ¼” dowels.  The long pieces were notched to fit the short pieces and glued together, held together while the glue dried with some heavy weights on each side.  I scored and scratched the dowels with a razor saw to simulate rough wood, and trimmed off one end with a knife to simulate axe cuts.   I painted the skid with some water based brown craft paint before gluing it to the bottom of the shack.

The kit comes with laser cut bonus items to make two bunk beds, a neat touch.   As many of the laser cut wood edges would be exposed, I sanded off as much of the blackness from the laser burn with an emery board.  The edges were still fairly dark, so I painted the beds after they were assembled.   I did the first one with Floquil Foundation, a light tan color that can look like unpainted wood.  I had to go over the dark exposed edges of the wood several times to try and get the bed a uniform wood-like color.  For the second bed, I painted it with tan colored craft paint.  It actually covered better than the Floquil, covering the dark edges with one coat.

The RS Laser website shows this kit assembled by one of their customers, and it has a smoke jack.  The kit does not come with one, so I made one for my kit, using a small plastic straw to make the t-shaped stack.  I fashioned a metal plate for the roof and drilled a hole in it so I could insert the stack.

The fit of the roof on my model is fairly tight, I have to insert my finger into the door opening and pull the end out a bit so it will settle in.   I won’t be detailing the interior of my skid shack as removing the roof is a slow procedure.  As can be seen in the photo, the two bunk beds would take up a fair amount of room anyway.  I’ll save the bunk beds for another project.  Also the darkened edges of the rafter tails are almost black, but I left them this way to make them seem weathered from rain dripping off the roof.

I lightly weathered the bottoms of the walls with a wash of India ink and alcohol.  The bright white of the corner trim and the door was toned down with some weathering powder that I rubbed on with a finger.  The smoke jack was made to look somewhat rusted with some weathering powder.

The shack is a perfect fit on a Bachmann On30 flat car as shown in the photo.   Mine is just sitting on the flat car so it can be placed wherever it is needed.

This kit is offered in N, HO and O scales.  It makes a neat kit and isn’t very difficult to assemble.  Keep in mind there maybe some fitting/filing/cutting here and there to get everything together correctly.   This actually surprises me, as the laser cuts the material from computer drawings, which I would think would be quite accurate.

Bob Boudreau

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