Model Kit | Gantry Crane by Faller

I'm quite a fan of Faller model kits, especially their railroad work structures.

This Gantry Crane by Faller was really easy to assemble. All the parts fit together seamlessly, and I had the whole thing put together in less than half an hour.

I love it when a model kit comes together this easily!

Gantry Crane by Faller

The only fiddly bit to put together was the hand-crank gear mechanism at the top of the Gantry Crane. I used black thread to simulate steel cable and wound it round a few times on the wheel before attaching the hook you can see dangling at the end.

I used a drop of PVA glue on the thread to stiffen it so that the plastic hook would look like it had some weight as it hung off the end.

Closeup of the hand-crank detail at the top of the Gantry Crane. I used black thread to simulate steel cable.

The picture on the box suggested that the structure should be painted a brown, wooden color. I wanted it to stand out a bit more on my layout so I went with Model Color's white acrylic paint instead.

I used a thin coat of white paint to allow the underlying grey of the plastic kit to show through, which automatically gave it that aged and weathered look. Piece of cake!

A view from the top of the Gantry Crane. Note the simple weathering technique I used for the wooden structure.

In this mini-diorama, the Gantry Crane is supposed to look like it is loading lumber from the nearby lumber yard onto the Fleischmann wagon.

The figures pictured here are from Woodland Scenics Dock Workers set.

The Gantry Crane operator is from Woodland Scenics Dock Workers set in HO scale.

I really like the detail of the the two workers carrying the wooden crate. Makes me want to get out the fine black felt-tip pen to give these two some distinct facial features!

The odd one out from the Dock Workers set is the worker with his hand on his chin. And since he was the only one who appeared to not be doing anything, I decided make him the Gantry Crane operator.

There are few more figures from the Dock Workers set not pictured here because I haven't gotten around to placing them on the layout yet!

Woodland Scenics Dock Workers unloading crate from the orange Vollmer truck. Note lumber yard to the right of the picture.

The bright orange truck in HO scale is by Vollmer. Looking at it in closeup, I think it would benefit greatly from a detailing and weathering treatment. 

I'll do a tutorial on weathering the Vollmer truck very soon.

More model kit buildings on The Sunny Model Railroad:

Western Homestead Shanty by Life-Like models

Country Chapel by Faller

Sanding Tower Model Kit by Faller

Atlas Picket Fence and Gate Kit

Constance Signal Tower Model Kit by Faller

House Under Construction Model Kit by Faller

Model Kit | House Under Construction by Faller

I finally got around to painting the wooden frame of the House Under Construction kit by Faller. As I mentioned in an earlier post (circa 2009!), I was planning to get around to painting the shiny, yellow plastic frame of the house a matte, woody color.

Faller's House Under Construction before I painted the wooden frame. Figures are from Woodland Scenics Masonry Workers set.

In the second pic below, you can clearly see the plastic, almost translucent look of what are supposed to be wooden frames.  Will not do..

A couple of years ago, I had already given the walls of the house a brush of matte white paint which I then wiped off with a paper towel. This removed much of the white paint on the brick, leaving a thin, rough layer to simulate bare concrete brick. The white paint also settled into the seams between the bricks, which looked like cement holding the bricks together.

I was pretty happy with the effect, so I left the concrete walls alone. For now, at least.

Closeup of the plastic wooden frames of the house.

I chose Model Color Buff which gives anything plastic the look of freshly cut lumber. And the great thing about Model Color acrylic paints is that cleaning up doesn't require thinners. Paintbrushes rinse out easily under running tap water. Just so long as the paint hasn't had a chance to dry out!

And as you can see from the pics below, I missed a couple of spots. Dang.

Wooden frames of the house painted with Model Color's Buff.

This Faller kit also includes several pieces of tiled roof sections, allowing the model to be built according to various stages of completion. You can even go with a completed, fully-roofed house if you wanted to, but that would hide all that gorgeous detail of the lumber frame underneath.

For my model, I went with the half-tiled roof -- I wanted it to look like the workmen were at least making some progress in building the house. They have, after all, been at it since 2009!

The brick-red tiled roof. I chose the half-tiled roof section from the kit.

You can read about the workmen figures I used in this scene here:

Woodland Scenics | Masonry Workers Model Figures


More model kit buildings on The Sunny Model Railroad:

Western Homestead Shanty by Life-Like models

Country Chapel by Faller

Sanding Tower Model Kit by Faller

Atlas Picket Fence and Gate Kit

Constance Signal Tower Model Kit by Faller

House Under Construction Model Kit by Faller

Gantry Crane Model Kit by Faller


Station Platform by Atlas

Model Kit | Model Railroad Sanding Tower by Faller

A quantity of sand was carried by trains to prevent their wheels from slipping on the track, providing the necessary friction when the track was wet or oily. The sanding tower loaded sand into a dome situated above the boiler of steam locomotives, where heat from the boiler kept the sand dry. The sanding valve was operated by the train engineer and air pressure dropped dry sand onto the rails just in front of the wheels.

Sanding Tower by Faller

This Sanding Tower model kit by Faller was pretty complicated to put together but thankfully, the instruction sheet was fairly clear as to where all the various bits were supposed to go.

Railway man looks off into the distance from atop the Sanding Tower, contemplating his existence on the Sunny Model Railroad

I used Tamiya Extra-Thin Cement for this kit which helped cut down on the potential mess factor. The great thing about Tamiya Extra-Thin Cement is that it is applied with a brush, giving you ultimate control over how much cement you need use. For a model such as Faller's Sanding Tower which is made up mostly of a complex mesh of very thin plastic struts, the lesser the amount of cement used, the better. You also don't get the unsightly blobs at the joints such as when cement from a tube is used.

A railway man leaps from the second strut of Sanding Tower instead of using the ladder. Note rust weathering on the tower. Also note globs of Scenic Accents Glue used to attach the figure to the Tower. These close-up pics sure do bring out details I would otherwise miss.

True to the prototype, I painted the Sanding Tower kit with Model Color's Basalt Grey. Weathering was done with a light dry-brushing of rust red to simulate, well.. rust.

Scenic Accents Glue was used to attach the figures to the Sanding Tower. The great thing about Scenic Accents Glue is that it doesn't dry out and remains tacky, allowing easy re-positioning of figures on a layout.

Another view of the top of the Sanding Tower. Again Scenic Accents Glue used to affix the figure is clearly seen around his shoes.

As you can see in the pics, I used perhaps a little too much Scenic Accents Glue, something that only shows up in these close-up pics. Cleaning up the excess glue will be easy though -- just pluck them off with tweezers. I'll need to get out my magnifying glass for this purpose though. These eyes ain't what they used to be.

A view of the Sanding Tower from the ground at evening time. I was also testing the Fleischmann bulb in the Constance Signal Tower in this picture.

I still have to get around to levelling the Sanding Tower with the baseboard and attaching it permanently, blending in the base of the tower so that it is nearly flush with the groundcover.

More model kit buildings on The Sunny Model Railroad:

Western Homestead Shanty by Life-Like models

Country Chapel by Faller

Atlas Picket Fence and Gate Kit

Constance Signal Tower Model Kit by Faller

Model Kit | Constance Signal Tower by Faller

It's been awhile (three years!) since the Sunny Model Railroad site was updated, and I can't think of a better topic to write about than this Constance Signal Tower model kit by Faller Gmbh.

This highly detailed kit is faithfully modelled after the original Constance Signal Tower that was built in 1886. The original Constance -- or Konstanz, in German -- is preserved in its original colors, in a railway museum in Blumberg, Germany.



Constance Signal Tower by Faller

Following the protoype, I painted the walls the original signal yellow and the roof a dark red. I did some simple weathering of the yellow walls and red roof with some black and brown crayon, and a quick brush with very dilute india ink. I've always liked weathering with india ink as it also brings out the detail of model kits -- details you probably would never notice if the kit was painted a basic single color.

I took some liberty with the window frames, metal supports and ladder and painted them metallic silver instead of the dull blue-gray of the original. I felt that silver paint would make the model stand out better on the layout.



A Fleischmann goods train passes under the Constance signal tower. Moose not included with the kit! 

This kit comes with transparent plastic sheets which are glued behind the window frames to create the impression of glass windows. I also installed a Fleischmann light bulb inside the tower which will be lit with its own on-off switch once I'm done sorting out the electrical wiring for all the buildings under the baseboard of my layout. Whenever that will be.

The figures in these pics are from Woodland Scenics Train Personnel set in HO scale.



A railway man signals to his colleague to get the moose away from the tracks!



Someone had better get 'round to trimming the grass near those tracks.

Like most Faller kits, the instructions that came with model were not very clear and some of the important parts did not fit together like they should have. This kit is not for beginners! More experienced model builders will enjoy the challenge though, and once the Constance Signal Tower is up with trains running under it, it adds a nice bit of historical detail to any layout.



Another view of the moose and her calf.

More model kit buildings on The Sunny Model Railroad:

Western Homestead Shanty by Life-Like models

Country Chapel by Faller

Sanding Tower Model Kit by Faller

Atlas Picket Fence and Gate Kit

Designing a Model Railroad Layout for Maximum Action In A Minimal Space

Here's an article that I published online recently:

Gleefully unwrapping that large package on Christmas morning and discovering a toy train set within must surely be a cherished childhood memory for many a model train enthusiast. Setting it up on the floor, with Dad's help of course, the next couple of hours were spent watching the locomotive and its parade of coaches and wagons circle that oval of track endlessly, its purpose and destination limited only by our imaginations.

Fast forward 30 years and we decide that it would be a fun hobby to get into. But this time we would take it seriously.



Upper track level of The Sunny Model Railroad

We have our eye on that highly-detailed miniature steam locomotive with the multiple carriages. We scour the net for information looking for the best track to buy and read up on baseboard construction while aspiring to create scenery that can rival, in miniature, anything that man or Mother Nature could create.

Most importantly we've gotten approval from our other half to setup our dream layout in a part of the house that will henceforth become own little railroad sanctuary. The next step is a visit, or several, to our favorite hobby shop. We leave contented, wallets lightened and a little deeper in credit card debt.

For those of us fortunate enough to have a large loft, garage or spare room in which to pursue our grand design, we have hundreds of track layouts to choose from, with a myriad variations of each. Oh, the possibilities!

But if, like me, you live in a small 2-bedroom apartment and you do not have the luxury of a 12-foot straight run with 6-foot turns, that tiny 6'x3' oval is not going to hold ones interest for very long.

Enter the two-tiered double loop. This is exactly what I created on my 6'3" x 3'6" layout in HO scale.



Fleischman trains on the upper and lower deck of the model railway. Both tracks are independent of each other

Consisting of two independent loops powered by separate transformers, the lower loop is an irregular oval with a short siding. The second elevated layer is a modified dog bone, switchable to a straight pass, also with a short siding. A single layered double loop would not have fit on a layout this size but this limitation turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I now have a more complex and interesting layout especially with the double levels.

I created two separate tunnels for the lower oval, one through the mountain and another at the opposite end so that the steam passenger train is visible maybe only two-thirds of the time as it winds its way around the track. To add realism I can stop the train in one of the tunnels and delay its exit to create the illusion that the train is traveling a far greater distance.

On the upper layer, a goods train passes through its own tunnel in the mountainside and then past a signal-control tower with the possibility of some simple switching on the siding.
Possibly the best part of this system is that the trains are controlled independently -- all without the aid of Digital Command Control!

Because of the split-level, the center of the layout forms a meadow valley and this is where I'm constantly trying out new ideas and themes hoping to get really creative with my landscaping. As it stands, a farmer watches over his flock of sheep as they graze on marigolds. Some distance away, workmen are at work building a small cottage. Further away still, the dazzling white quartz sand of a man-made beach fronting a lake lined with tall water-grasses awaits its holiday-makers. All in all, a model railroad is a continual work in progress that one secretly hopes will never be done.

Having squeezed a fair amount of train action out of my limited space in HO scale I can't help but think that if I had a chance to do it all over again, N scale would be my choice. Oh, the possibilities!

Model Kit | Faller Country Chapel with Scenic Accents

This is the Country Chapel model kit by Faller.

The kit comes pre-colored but I decided to give it a go over anyway with similar colored paints. I guess I can't get over the plasticy sheen of an unpainted kit. Interestingly enough, Model Color's Field Blue matched the original colored plastic of the roof of the chapel exactly! The white walls were painted with MC's Ivory White.

Country Chapel model kit by Faller

The bronzed plastic of the bell tower looked pretty good so I left it alone.

For a couple of weeks, that is, before I decided to give it a once over with Humbrol 171 Antique Bronze. Ah, much better..
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Bell steeple painted with Humbrol Antique Bronze

I did some simple weathering to this structure which involved using black and brown crayons on the white walls. Black crayon is also great for crisping up some of the details -- I use it on corners and for structural accents. The exposed brick effect was accomplished by dry-brushing matt dark red paint.

I created the vine effect on the side walls by drawing thin lines of PVA glue with a toothpick and then sprinkling light-green Woodland Scenics Fine Turf over the area. The glue lines catch the turf while the excess falls away, creating the 'vine' effect.

Vine on the chapel walls created with PVA glue and Woodland Scenics Fine Turf

I spent a good part of my pre-adolescence building model planes, tanks and ships by the likes of Airfix, Revell and Tamiya. I found the quality, fit and detail pretty good overall.

Airfix and Revell were in my opinion the best as far as fit -- the parts all went seamlessley together 99% of the time. Tamiya led the pack (back then in the late 70s) as far as detail but the parts at times did not fit together perfectly and a certain amount of modification with an X-acto blade and glue was required.

Having come into model railroading and finding myself once again working with model kits, I can say for a fact that the scenic models that I've worked with so far do not even come close as far as detail or quality of fit to the brands I mentioned earlier. A lot of times, parts to be have to be glued together 'freehand' -- no alignment guides are molded on the plastic to align the pieces together.

On the bell tower on this model for example, it would have been the industry standard to provide guide 'nibs and holes' to align the steeple on top of the wooden framework. Instead one has to slap on a liberal amount of glue and align the steeple to the frame by eye, making fine adjustments before the glue has a chance to completely dry.


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The Country Chapel as it appears on the layout. Don't ask how the congregation is supposed to get up that hill.. 

Instructions are also often unclear, or completely lacking, and one has to reference the picture on the box for clues. Oh well, these manufacturers must give us model railwaymen too much credit as far as our kit-building skills. If only Tamiya were to enter the model railroad market..

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Distant view of the Country Chapel

Post afterthought:
Having said all that, I do find that the LifeLike Trains and Atlas plastic kits that I've recently worked on to be of good quality, with precision fit and detail an experienced kit modeller would come to expect.

More model kit buildings on The Sunny Model Railroad:

Western Homestead Shanty by Life-Like models

Country Chapel by Faller

Sanding Tower Model Kit by Faller

Atlas Picket Fence and Gate Kit

Constance Signal Tower Model Kit by Faller