During some busy weeks I have none the less managed to work on the unbreaked 1/10 scale steel skip from Feldbahnfactory. Basic assembly was accomplished during a weekend in the cottage and priming, painting and weathering is almost done by now. I plan to add final touches once I have assembled the braked skip. That will make it easier to get both skips finished with the same look and faster, too.
Almost finished DIN standard steel skip in 1/10 scale photographed in the spring sunshine in the garden. |
I have never built a kit in such a large scale in laser cut wood. I didn't experience any problems during assembly and the instructions are top quality and easy to follow. I didn't make any alterations in the assembly sequence which I usually do. Probably not too many ways to assemble a skip, I suppose?
I assembled the kit while in the cottage with just basic modelling tools and standard white PVA glue. I was a little sceptical with the kit's prolific use of layering parts to achieve mass in e.g. frame, wheels and the skip rests. In reality, once finished, the layering is only noticable in a few places. I'm sure that with basic filler and sanding the problem could be avoided, but I wanted to build the kit in the most simple fashion.
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Frames and wheel sets united. A nice detail is that the bracket for a round wooden beam for braking is included in the kit. A detail not present in many model skips. |
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Almost assenbled skip put together as a test with the cottage surroundings in the background. If assembled very carefully the kit will not look bad unpainted. |
I had no trouble removing most of the parts from the frets. Only on one fret (the one with the skip body parts) it seemed like the cutting could have been done better. Nothing that hampered the build, but slightly annoying in an otherwise perfectly produced kit. The few and quite small attachment points on the parts are easily sanded away. On some parts I sanded the edges a little to avoid a square look. I did that e.g. to the edges of the skip's frame and the coupling chains. This is an area where a full laser cut kit will always come out a bit inferior to a kit that mix materials to achieve more prototype shapes.
The rivets on the skip are represented with very shallow cuts marking out the rivet. In this large scale a real raised rivet would be much better, but it's one of the features laser cutting can't produce. Adding rivets can't be too difficult in 1/10 scale and if I aimed for a more detailed look of my two 1/10 skips I would probably take that approach. On the other hand the Feldbahnfactory kit is super simple to put together. In my view it has a good level of detail for its simplicity of assembly.
End view of the painted skip on the short track panel included with the kit. I have numbered the skip with roman numerals, on this end with a white pencil, a method I have also used in 1/19 scale. |
The wood grain isn't particularly noticably on most parts. In this close-up you can see traces of layering on the skip body rests and some wood grain marks on the safety handle. |
How the wooden parts would look once painted had me worried intially. Sometimes wood behave crazy when painted and no amount of sanding will make it look like anything but crazy wood. The wood used in this kit works well with standard rattle can spray can paint. I used a mix of my usual black primer from Games Workshop and the Beltoni texture rust paint, that I have used previously on my 1/19 scale bogie timber bolsters. The texture in the rust paint help create as slightly uneven surface on the skip, an effect I further enhanced with sprinkled on genuine rust dust from a prototype skip. Using ground up real rust is part of my 'Famous for nothing weathering method'. Further spot painting was done with an air brush and different dark greys. Initial weathering consists of an overall wash with heavily diluted rust coloured oil paint. I will be adding more weathering when I finish the braked skip. Weathering them together will help make them look like coming from the same industry.
Coupling chains during painting. Heavy work with files produced quite nice rounded chain links. |
As a conclusion I feel that most of my reservations with the kit was put to shame. Where I suspected the kit to let me down (wood texture, round parts, layering etc.) it was either insignificant or easily avoidable with a little work. If you are looking for some impressively large skip models to display the Feldbahnfactory models are easily assempled and will look good on your shelf, mantlepiece or as a nerdy office display. My braked skip kit is on the Easter holiday modelling programme as it is a large kit that lends itself to outdoor modelling in the cottage.