I'm currently building a Dapol loco shed, but think I must have misread the instructions, as it looks a bit different to the picture on the packet!

All through the late 70s and 80s when the original Abbotsbridge was on the exhibition circuit, I got away with telling viewers that the loco shed had burned down, so I thought it would be rather nice for the new Abbotsbridge to actually get its shed! As this is intended to be a quickie layout, and getting something presentable to run my stock on is more important than strict accuracy, I thought a Dapol kit might be a quick solution. It would need covering in embossed stone Plastikard to match the other buildings, but that should be pretty straightforward. I found one on eBay for £6.50 including postage, so didn't have much to lose by having a go. Having ordered it, I thought it might be a bit short, but decided that as only one side would be visible I could get round that by pinching half of the other side! A few days ago, I got started.

Step one was to cut one side in half, and cover the inset area around the windows with embossed Plastikard:

Then I cut the window openings, and joined them:

I thought the plinth might be OK on a brick building, but not on a stone one, so packed out the walls with plain Plastikard:

The end wall may not be visible, but I thought it would be best to make that flush too:

Then I packed out the front wall, to remove the plinth and hide that horrible hole for the fan:

Next step was to make a new wall for the side that will go against the backscene, using plain Plastikard and the remaining piece of Dapol wall. The Dapol wall is at that end as it had the locating slots for joining to the end wall. I covered the other side with embossed Plastikard as it will be visible through the windows, and cut a small doorway:

To strengthen the new piece of wall, and to provide a reason for not adding windows, I built a lean-to on the side. The roof is roughly half of the main building roof, that wouldn't be needed elsewhere. Not much of this will be seen on the layout, so it's only partly stone covered, and I won't be adding much detail:

This is the inside view. I've stuck the window in from the "wrong" side, so it's a bit set in when seen from the inside of the building. The door into the lean-to has a frame, and is partly open, but not so far that I need to add detail inside the room! The door is one of the small rear doors from the kit:

It then dawned on me that as it's now a stone building it needs thick walls, and these would be very visible in the entrance, so I built them up on the inside. When covering the front with embossed Plastikard I added a new lintel from some plastic girders of unknown origin I've had for years:

Then it was time to stick the sides together. I attached triangles of Plastikard to each corner to help keep it square. It had needed a fair bit of fiddling around to get everything the right length and for all the corners to line up nicely, as they're all different. It was a trial and error job that I couldn't describe here, but the errors were resolved, or mostly fairly well hidden! I added the roof truss from the kit to the centre to help keep the walls straight, and to support the roof:

As you can see, it's being built to fit a particular location, and any parts that won't be visible on the layout aren't being made pretty! I wasn't planning to spend this long on it, or make so many changes to the kit, but got rather carried away. And anyway, I'm quite enjoying it, so it doesn't matter! Is it easier than scratchbuilding? I'm not sure, but I think I'd have put off starting a scratchbuild, and the kit is a useful starting point. And I'm looking forward to telling everyone who sees it that it's a Dapol kit, and seeing how many believe me!!!

In Part 2, I'll cover the roof, and whatever comes after that. At the time of writing this, I'm still making that part up as I go along!