What feels like a return to full-time model-type things, the pressure to keep moving is on. The first on the list this month was to get Drovers Brook more or less done for the Steyning exhibition. This is not really an exhibition beast, so lots of jerry rigging of lights and curtains was needed. Above; the pre-show test. In the end all went well and I'll pop a couple of photos up later.
While not really a very recent task, the disused chapel for the Scottish is complete. In fact the last few days seem to have been to working through the Peco catalogue, or so it seems, with brake vans, signal boxes and the like. Almost done is the Arisaig station building kit; my forth laser-cut item this year. Not sure about these yet, the jury is still out. The fit for all these is just about perfect, but the detail and final finish is less than the equivalent plastic kit. I note that we used to have plastic kits in carboard boxes, now we have wood kits in plastic boxes. Just an observation.
As you already know, I'm really taken with Drovers Brook. Despite you saying that that there's very little "real" Southern about it, you've got the atmosphere spot on. Seems a pity that it won't get out much.
ReplyDeleteI've been making American laser cut kits for years, a few in H0, but mostly N. It's always struck me as odd that it wasn't really taken up over here, though of course that's no longer the case.
I know what you mean about the details, the nail holes in Wills planked flooring and odd sheet lengths on the corrugated iron springs to mind. I wonder, too, about the bashability of laser cut wood, though I have altered some of my US N Scale buildings.
There's now quite a lot of laser cut Continental stuff, Busch in particular have a very wide range, and I'm told this is driven partly by taxes on plastic...though actually some kits contain elements of laser cut plastic sheet and tiled roofs, rainwater goods and many small details are still injection moulded.. The boxes are mostly cardboard, though.
Phil Parker recently wrote up the major kitbash of a laser cut station for his NG7 layout. For me the sweet spot remains using the right material for the right job. That is something the model kit world seems to have long understood.
DeleteAnd it is time the use of interlocking bricks at corner joints was abandoned, the joins are usually harder to sidquise than a single vertical mitre joint.