The Oasis

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The best made plans of Mice and Men...

This all started from a discussion I was having on a model web board I no longer frequent about an old SJS Camper that I had purchased many years ago.

I have since found out that the company that made it is out of business and it is a quite rare kit. Oh well, it is going to get built anyway.

I'm a builder, not a collector and enjoy actually building the model into something that looks like the full size item is is supposed to represent.

One thing lead to another while I was thinking of what I wanted to do with the camper and I ended up deciding to build a small diorama to go around it. Well, as things usually do, it steamrolled into something MUCH bigger than I had originally planned on.

After much thought, too many ruined pieces of paper, and a good many broken pencils, I finally came up with this layout. I'm not sure if everything I am wanting to put in the diorama will make it in there or not or even if this is the final lay out for the diorama, but I'm going to try to keep it as close as possible to this configuration as I can.

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The Beginnings

While looking through an old box of models for a pickup truck to pull the camper with, I ran across the 3 MRC gas stations I purchased and never built so I pulled one of them out as the thought to make one into a store for the diorama popped into my mind when I saw it. Sorry for the small picture, but it's the best one I could find at this point in time.

Anyone that has ever worked with one of these kits can tell you, they aren't one of the best or most complete kits out there. The kit only comes with 2 of the 4 walls complete and there are no interior walls or details other than the tools and garage lift included in the kit. The manufacturer did provide locating ribs for the interior walls and a depression in what little they did include for the 2 incomplete walls so you can add your own plastic to make the missing pieces if you wished. While they did mention this in the instructions, what they failed to provide is the dimensions for the missing panels! It took some careful measurements and a little luck, but I have the missing walls made on the two kits I am using for this project.

In doing the research for this project, I found that there isn't much at all available for the interior of a gas station or a bath house. I found some things that were made for garages that I can use, but for the most part I'm going to have to build what I want for the interior of the buildings. I also found out that G scale train accessories and half scale doll house accessories are close to 1/24th scale so they will work too. Unfortunately, once again I haven't found much I could use for my project, but I did get some inspiration from the sites I have visited. Especially the wall coverings and floor tile patterns. I have some things that I can put in the diorama for detail items that I found in my parts boxes and I have found a couple of more on the web that I can either make or purchase, but there just isn't all that much out there that isn't related to a (doll) house, street, garage, or drag race diorama.

I'm going to separate the rest of the page into categories for each piece of the diorama. I'm doing this so I can update the sections separately with as little confusion as possible. I will also have an update date on top of the sections so you can see if any changes have been made since your last visit.

Thank you for looking at my page and please send me any comments, suggestions, or complaints. The only way I know if there is a problem is when someone lets me know. 

-Scott H.