So you're saying basswood is an "old-school" material? On the contrary, I personally find I can get much more realistic results with wood than I can with plastic; I don't think I have EVER seen a plastic 1:1 scale structure or freight car! I also find wood kits to be easier to build in many cases than many plastic kits, mainly because wood is wood, but plastic ain't always necessarily plastic, especially when trying to determine what type of glue you will need to best assemble the plastic kit. And when a wood part breaks, they are so easy to replace or repair. And the supplied "scratch-building materials" in these kits is NOT a bad thing since they can be custom fit/cut when necessary whereas pre-formed plastic cannot always be made to work. And then there is the issue of warpage of plastic parts; if and when that ever happens with wood, it is far easier to repair in wood than in pre-formed plastic.
One of the most enjoyable kits I ever built was a wood (HO scale) Ore Tipple kit from White Ground Model Works. I will be building one in S for my future layout. MY personal opinion only. John Degnan [email protected] ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Jackson To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2011 11:51 AM Subject: {S-Scale List} Re: Opinions on Lehigh Valley Models structures? They are old-school kits that build up into nice models. By "old-school," I mean that they use materials standard to model railroading (all scales) from the 1940s through even the 1970s. That means basswood, cardstock, soft metal castings, and embossed or printed brick paper. They take longer to build than plastic or laser-cut models. In some instances, they can be upgraded with Grandt Line (or other)details. I do not agree that the kits supply merely scratchbuilding materials because they use a number of proprietary castings for each kit that are othewise unavailable. I would not shy away from them because of their method of construction--just keep in mind that they use different building technqiues than today, so you may have to learn about different types of adhesives, etc. I have built the concrete coaling tower and the two stall engine house (and won modeling awards in the process with both). [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
