Thanks for everyones posts and feedback. Much appreciated. My Dad likes things as manufacturer intended so I built accordingly with no weathering so far.
Shed 72883I have read other threads re the colour of the Marklin engine shed and I have to say now that it is built, I prefer the cream colour. It lightens up the layout given all the grey from the C tracks. The doors mech works but the rear stop/door closing bar and the roof mounted slider rail are too flexible. If these were hard plastic/metal then the door mech would be reliable. As is, unless the rear section of the roof is glued on the mechanism plastic flexes when the loco bumpers hit it and can cause the loco to get stuck. But if one holds down the roof 99% of the time it works fine. To save problems during the 1% I will be gluing a hard old credit card or sim plastic sprayed grey or brown to the bar so that it touches/brushes the track so the bumpers cannot get under it. Glueing the rear roof section on would have the same result but IF a loco gets stuck then only having the middle section open would make it harder to extract the loco safely. The kit has nice FULL brown wooden plank replica flooring. This is different from the Dales kit build where his floor had big gaps that he (very nicely!) filled with plaster. I don't know if this is because Marklin gets a few changes made to 'their' editions of the kit or this is a general production change to the newer kits. It looks nice and, again, I find the colours pleasing. The exterior clock and phone/cable/line holders I have omitted until the final diorama is done as these are likely to get damaged. I didn't do anything on the interior walls, but if there is one thing I would like added to the kit would be card filling or sheeting mimic-ing the exterior surface, inside. The interior lighting set that came with the kit works fine but is a bit localised. I am going to play around with some facing up and perhaps diffusing it somehow. The orange colour is nice, much better than white but gives six big circles on the floor inside. Needs diffusing. I ran some of the cabling through the roof support rather than the supplied cream brackets as this looks better imo. The brackets look way out of scale if use for that purpose. Left alone they suggest part of the roof and look, imo, ok. I did use some matt black paint on the roof/chimneys, subtly but effectively finishes of an otherwise stock build I think.
Platforms Vollmer 3537Simple and effective. Pity no lighting, but I will rectify that with lights similar to those suggested by Dale
Will get some blue 2mm wire and shld be able to blend it with the pillars. Plats are not fixed together yet nor advertising boards/signs installed as we decided more would look better for longer plats, so have to source these and then set it up as desired, and then glue and finalise. These are the narrowest platforms available HO size. It took alot of searching to identify this. But given the constraints of the space available they are perfect. Perhaps useful for others to know.
Switching house Faller 120122Love the photo on the box but disappointed with how small the building actually is. Its a perfect building but I keep wishing it was bigger to look at, especially given how fiddly it is to build. There are more then 30 2mm parts in it. This means forceps are essential for this build and unless you are very stable or else not too concerned for boxart correct, I suggest you may not enjoy building this. I really enjoyed getting this model built right. I had some Tamiya TS matt black handy so I sprayed the cross braces and some of the switch leavers. Doing this on a holiday visit is a shame, with paints and time at home this model has so much that can be painted, modified and finished individually. Most of all I would like to have sprayed the all the parts to get rid of sprue traces, as even with very particular attention to sanding they can still be seen no matter what, the photos especially make them obvious/looks like they are not even sanded
. Just looking at the photos peeves me because you can see all the mold lines and it looks like noting was sanded which couldn't be further than the truth.
Back to the fidly size comment - the seat bases are only 4mm wide and are made of 3 pieces. The lap arm about 1mm. Bit OTT. It's ready for lighting which I will install sometime. Getting the walls, railing and ladder at the correct angles takes a little effort.
Other issue is that the house is designed for the HO track that doesn't have the C base height, so I had to cut some balsa to lift it the required amount. I will recut new pieces with a drop off angle and properly deco with gravel etc when the time comes to do the grass/stones etc base.
Faller EXPERT orange bottle glue. Fabulous stuff. Miles better than any model glue I have used in the past. Obviously its matched to the kit plastic, but it was still a revelation. Actually semi melts/fuses the plastic fully in about 2hours. Sufficiently fused in 5-10mins infact to allow you to progress. The tip clogging for me was less of a problem than others seem to have had. I simply used 200 sandpaper on the tip before and after use, and LIGHTLY left the top on and it was fine. After a week of use I had to heat the tip for an instant (fun seeing the glue ignite
) and then sand off the crap, and it continues to work fine.
I enjoyed doing this for my Dad hugely. Now I am looking for something else to add!
