April 11, 2025
Progress has been made on the Model Railways Freight Depot. Painting completed. Everything is cut out but what a struggle. 1/8″ basswood of a dubious quality was used for interior bracing but there is a large, unburned gap between each piece along with a lot more supports to keep pieces from falling out than is necessary. GOOD GRIEF! I guess an early example (1990) of a laser kit and Model Railways is no longer producing structures.
Even though the kit had some plywood parts, 1/16″ basswood was use for the clerestory window framing. It was so thin an end broke off the one set. Same material was used for 3/32″ trim shaped in an L. They were totally destroyed. Why not plywood? The whole kit had those wide supports. GRRRR!
Quality design? Look at the too thick building framing, front vs. back. Notice that one cutout is much lower than the other 3. It is hard to believe that the kit made it out the door without anyone catching this.
All decking was shown in instructions as being installed across the framing, but the laser cut material was all cut lengthwise. I replace the ramp for the loading dock with horizontal boards. The rest is stained dark so you can’t really see the board widths that range from 1″ to 8″. Quite the variety. And why a 1″ wide plank? Oh, well. Hope it turns out as nice as the picture.
