It is a fair time since I built my last building, so feeling that it was time that I rediscovered my mojo for architectural things I have made a crack at a building that will be a fairly key feature on Glenmutchkin – its pharmacy .

This is inspired, and largely a facsimile of, The Kyle Pharmacy that could be found on the approach to the ferry pier.  Or at least it could until the 1970s when it was swept away to make a larger car holding pool for the ferry.  In addition to being a characterful building, as you can see below, the real pharmacy at Kyle was a key part of the local community and I wanted to capture this feature in Glenmutchkin.

The pharmacy building is going to be located on the most prominent position at the front of the layout, so it definitely deserved some time being spent on it.  Taking Peter Bond’s advice, it is going to be assembled in components which will make painting a great deal easier but rather than using plasticard throughout as he would have done, I have arranged to have the shop front and bay etched.  I did so as I concluded that getting the slenderness and crispness of these was going to be key to get the feel of the model convincing.  Peter is a professional architectural modeller and bending plasticard to his will is therefore his stock in trade – not quite so me!

So these are the basic etches back from PPD:

Some of the bay assemblies and the bay largely completed:

The real value of etching the components can be seen in the shopfront – I at least can’t get plasticard to look like this!