Dornaplas shop in low relief terrace.

[relaxinghobby]

At a second hand club sales rummage sale I found this old Dornaplas kit. 4mm scale or OO. This one is for a village shop. The parts can be assembled as a whole house with a front and back or two low relief half buildings.

 

Kit makers think they know how to assemble their own kits and their instructions saying how can sometimes be ignored if you have other ideas. But I see something better and more old fashioned for a village street low relief background from this kit.

 

As the injection moldings parts come the detail is good, brick detail is sharp and window frames have depth but at about 30 thou or 0.75 mm thick walls I think the windows need to be set back into the walls more, so I've built up the back of the window recesses and door surrounds with scrap to make them deeper.

 

 

 

The rooves seem too high and pointed to me so I've lowered the ridge by cutting them down by about 10 mm and cutting the top edge of the gable walls to a less steep angle.

 

 

 

You get separate window and door details. Chimneys and gutters. I've cut a new window and gate way in the rear side wall to make a cottage with a tunnel entrance and cut the shop side down into a narrower shop front with only one window. The kits are quite flimsy when assembled so I've built up reinforcing walls and floors in white card and stiffened edges with glued on sprue off cuts.

 

Low relief chimney stacks are optical illusions so build the chimney stacks forward slightly. Two halves of chimney in grey seem to thin to me so I plan to add some fattening layers of plastic sheet into the sandwich.

[ISW]

On 18/05/2023 at 17:02, relaxinghobby said:

At a second hand club sales rummage sale I found this old Dornaplas kit. 4mm scale or OO. This one is for a village shop. [SNIP]

But I see something better and more old fashioned for a village street low relief background from this kit.

Agreed. There are some good 'opportunities' to be had/found in the proverbial box of old kits/bits you see at most swapmeets and/or train fairs.

 

I have to admit that when I started my layout, 5-years ago, I couldn't understand the fascination people seemed to have with those box of useless bits. How wrong I was. Those boxes are now my firm favourite and I've garnered quite a few kits and accessories from them!

 

Ian