The reason I sent in the Fort and Palisade as Toy Soldier Contributions are that both were made entirely from 1960 HO Scale $1.00 Hong Kong sets, sisters to the Giant of Hong Kong sets.

The Fort comes from the "Fort Boone" headercard set. The Palisade comes from the "Fort Cheyenne" headercard set. Nothing is really scratch-built. Everything is original 1/72 HO pieces with slight modifications.

The Fort completely snaps together and snaps apart, all utilizing the original design of the time. The Palisade is now one-piece, as circles are challenging. All of the walls are permanently welded (melted) together using a simple pen-vise type soldering iron from any electronics, hobby, or leather-works store.

The Fort was planned to be a one-day project, but detailing ended at three. The Palisade was completed in a few hours.

Of course the real Palisades of the Eastern Indians would contain permanent huts, and not the collapsible teepees of the Western Plains Indians. But this is all I have for now. Regarding the front gate, it didn't exist, but they simply utilized a "concentric" design, wherein the ends of the palisade walls overlapped. I guess they barricaded themselves in if attacked!

Although I posted the National Geographic link to the archaeoligical dig of the Fort site and Indian life a while ago, it bears worth repeating here:

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/jamestown/

Happy Collecting!

Nice job on the forts! I quess those old Atlantic
teepees and canoes finally found a use. I visited
Jamestown last year. Its a great site (actually two sites) and I saw a 1/72nd scale fort there using the
Imex Pilgrims and Call To Arms English Civil War
figures. Your fort looked rather more spacious than
the recreated fort they've got there, but maybe that's
just because there is several buildings in theirs. At
any rate, a very impressive effort on your part.

Dear Britsfan,

Thank you for the kind comments.

I was limited to (and lucky to have) 5 complete Hong Kong "Fort Boone" sets. So, the Fort is actually smaller than real scale. But I hope complete enough to give us an idea. I layed out the tents to represent the buildings you saw. I simply had no more plastic to make buildings from the same sets, so in my imagination, maybe our mates in 1607 slept their first nights in tents! :-) I actually hope to upgrade it later.

At the end of the project, I had only 1 or 2 inches of walls left over. In fact, I had only one complete gate of 5 but could see no foreseeable future use for it, so I copied the gate from the Osprey "Forts of American Frontier 1820-91" and put the "Gate inside the Gate." The book states the double-gate was used to control an outbreak of "smallpox." Just possibly, common-sense leads us to believe the "Reception Area" was used to disarm potential hostiles, whether natives or angry trappers.

Although not historically accurate according to archaeolical digs, still, I loved the idea, and couldn't disagree with it and hated to see good plastic sit unused.

Cheers!