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Monday, March 27, 2023

MPC's Take On Western Towns - Pt 7 Cabin v.1 as Log Cabins - Caramel Brown/Chocolate Brown SP

Well, I finally have the very last MPC Western Town building for my collection - at least that I'm aware of. It's the early style cabin walls/roof with the log cabin façade. I ended up getting a few surprises with this batch of toys. First, the front pieces only fit on the wall structures that you see in the photos. For example I tried to place the Fire House front on the black walls ultimately used for the Texas Rangers building and it just wouldn't fit. While all of these are a bear to assemble, the Fire House front only fit on the yellow walls/red roof combo. Another surprise: the Fire House and Texas Rangers are made of a different type of plastic than the Log Cabin! The first two are a rubber-like vinyl similar to that used by Auburn. The Log Cabin utilizes the same plastic as most of MPC's other plastic toys. The Log Cabin must be a 'later' early style building and has no tabs on the front walls to help hold the façade in place - nor are there any holes in the façade which would accept tabs. My next challenge will be to build some kind of dioramas highlighting all these buildings. But don't hold your breath - I'm a s-l-o-w worker! Enjoy! Opa Fritz


I'm postulating that the tooling for this particular wall/roof casting survived and that is what's used today to make the styrene plastic recasts.

You'll notice there are no tabs sticking out of the front walls.

Overall, this was the 'straightest' of the three early style buildings with only a slight bend to the floor.












Another bonus - the door is intact!! Yay!

Thw wall/roof casting is in more of a caramel brown while the façade is more of a chocolate brown.










Dimestore Dreams - Pt 14 No. 20070 Taxi

This is a welcome addition to any vintage or retro 1/43 scale fleet, especially for us with O-gauge train layouts. Of course it resembles the iconic Yellow Cab but I assume because of copyright issues, does not use the name. Enjoy! Opa Fritz







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Sunday, March 26, 2023

MPC's Take On Western Towns - Pt 6 Cabin v.1 as Texas Rangers - Black/Brown SP

Here's the early version cabin walls & roof, coupled with a Texas Rangers false front. I imagine this building was made to represent both office and jail space for the Rangers. The first photo is a good example of how these fronts connected to the wall/roof superstructure. I have the third and final cabin in this series but have yet to photograph it. Hopefully I can post that in a day or two. Enjoy! Opa Fritz


Two closely spaced tabs just above the door simply slipped behind the front wall, while the two nubs that flank the tabs pressed up against the roof top.
Two small, thin slots on either side of the windows accepted tabs protruding from either wall.
large tabs on either side of the bottom fit into holes in the floor