Timeline Miniatures Buildings Review Part 1

I recently stumbled across yet another producer of mdf terrain, Timeline Miniatures on ebay. I thought the product shots looked very promising so I bought a couple of items from the store - a Saxon house and hut to add to my growing dark ages collection. I ordered them on Wednesday evening, they arrived on Saturday, so just a couple of days to wait, which is excellent service.

The items arrived in a padded envelope. Each building is flat-packed in a plastic sleeve, with mdf components and teddy bear fur included - yes, teddy bear fur. Opening up a pack there are mdf parts for the walls and roof, doors and a base. There's also a set of  very simple instructions included, which explains the obvious bits - don't force out the parts from the frame, do a dry run first and use pva glue and acrylic paint. It would have been helpful to have some guidance on the more difficult bits - for example, some of these parts have to be removed from the "sprue", there's usually a corner that has not been completely laser cut and requires a final cut with a sharp blade for the bit to pop out of the frame. It's obvious to experienced builders but maybe not as much to newcomers to mdf materials.

Assembly is pretty simple for the most part. Four walls and two roof sections - how hard could it be? It's worth noting that there's an integral base which also helps guide you in deciding which way around walls fit. My other buildings are free standing and so I decided not to use the bases. This meant I had to cut away the tabs that slotted into the base. I used a sharp blade and a steel rule, scoring through the mdf tab several times until it came away cleanly. Without this (self-imposed) extra step I could have had the hut built in five minutes, it's that easy. I decided to part assemble mine, paint the walls and timber sections separately to hopefully make the painting a bit easier.

The final step is the application of the roof. This is where the teddy bear fur comes in. And this is the bit that I feel is missing from the instructions. The idea is to glue the fur on, trim to size, coat in dilute pva glue and allow to dry. The fur stiffens and can be painted, weathered, or could just be left as it is I suppose. I have a handful of buildings already thatched and will use the leftover fur on these buildings, to maintain consistency across all my roofs. The fur in these packs I will use in some other terrain project.

That's it for part 1 of the review. The buildings are well made and well packaged and go together quickly, though I do think that the instructions could be more informative on the roofing material. On the whole, they come highly recommended. In part 2 I will be looking at roofing, painting and comparing them with alternatives, hopefully some time next week.