I have built many N scale kits but never one from Faller. Now trying a Faller kit. When I opened the Faller box, the first thing I discover is that the sprues and parts appear to have a coating on them that I have not seen before. At first I thought it might be a mold release residue but looking closer it appeared to be a mild wash that had been applied to kill the plastic appearance. Not all the parts had the wash. I suppose the wash is intended to give it a better appearance vs a plain plastic building.
Since I wanted to paint the kit my own colors, I tried to remove the wash with a warm soapy bath and a firm scrub brush. That removed about 80-90% of the coloring but I felt like the parts would be ready for a primer despite the small amount of residue left on the parts.
Does anyone know what that Faller coating is? Do they do it to all their kits?
I have typically avoided the European kits because they were…so European. However, I wanted a small concrete batch plant on my layout and no American version exists. I did see how to cobble one up with parts from Shapeways but the cost was outrageous. As a result, I am using Fallers Betonmischwerk (aka Concrete Mixing Plant) as a starting point to create my own.
I have not encountered any odd “stuff” on Faller kit parts that I recall. My hunch is mold release, since their plastics do seem a bit different than ours.
While warm soapy water is the usual suggestion, the late Art Curren used to manually “DullCote” his kitbash raw material kits by vigorously scrubbing the parts in warm water with Ajax cleanser. His goal was to use the molded colors whenever possible and it is amazing how successful he was even with European kits. Even if you decide to paint your structures I suggest the abrasive household cleanser (Ajax, Barkeeper’s Friend, Bon Ami, Old Dutch Cleaner, whatever) routine.
Tony Koester wrote about “Americanizing” European structure kits in MR for October 2016. Jim Hediger wrote on the same topic years ago in the June 1988 issue. Changing the window muntins is one step to consider; the roofs (and often, roof angles) and trim are another. Sometimes just moving away from the molded on colors is a huge step.
I have not seen the issue but the March 1990 issue of “N Scale” also had an “Americanizing” structure article.
There are cities such as Milwaukee and Cincinnatti where many older brick buidings look rather “German” anyway particularly in the matter of ornate wrought iron trim. And now and then I see a house or small business building where I
Kevin - I don´t want to rain on your parade, but that building looks like an American building which was beefed upo with some supposedly looking European elements. The roof looks rather British to me, so do the sash windows, which you hardly find on continental Europe. The dormers add a french touch to it, while the ground floor shows signs of Italian architecture.
What a mix!
There is no “European” architecture - each country has its distinct style, and even within each country, there are vast differences.
Faller, Vollmer and Kibri kits are mainly based on the architecture you will see in southwestern Germany.
My point was that there are buildings all over the United States, even in teeny-tiny little Elberton, Georgia that draw on European Architectural elements for styling, and then look out of place.
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Frankly, I think that building is a hideous eyesore that is poorly rendered and completely innapropriate for the community.
As I have stated many times before, the final coat of paint counts for more than anything.
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This little dilapdidated structure is a box stock Tyco/Pola cheap plastic item from the Tyco “Trackside Maintenance Structures” box.
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My friend Tomas, who posts on here as “The Winter Wolf”, painted it for me one evening. With even ZERO modifications or added detail to a European prototype structure, the skilled hand of a master painter can work wonders.
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Do not be afraid of Faller, Heljan, Pola, etc. They can work just fine.
First…I am old. Haven’t assembled a model kit since junior HS and have now just completed a Faller 232399 Monestary. It took nearly 40 hours of deliberate, patient work assembling , painting, etc. I’m satisfied with the end product but surprised by the large number of extra and seemingly unrelated parts on the ”sprues“. Can anyone explain this? Are the sprues used to supply multiple kits so that some parts are used in one and not another…or is there some other explanation?
I recently finished the Faller HO Factory kit which is actually a conglomerate of six various building kits. Yes, they use common parts sprues for several variations of the basic kit so there are extra parts.
I’m happy to be able to stock my scratchbuilding bins with these left-over bits. Sometimes the instructions will have the unused parts noted in the diagrams.
This view shows the partially completed structure (s).
My Union Station is yet another Faller kit and it is also made up of several “modular” structures that Faller also sells as smaller buildings. As such there are lots of extra doors and windows, chimneys and detail parts that may be intended for the other variations of this basic structure:
Yes this is common with a fair number of plastic kits. Often you find extra windows or doors for example. Quite apart from Faller, LifeLike before its acquisition by Walthers used to make multiple uses of certain castings in their structure kits accounting for odd (but to the kitbasher, very welcome) “extras” in their kits. For example the LifeLike “Police station” kit and the LifeLike “Business center” kit share many parts including base and rear and one side wall – and irrelevant parts are included with both.
This also happens with some rolling stock kits.
Kitbashers follow this rule: throw away no extra parts from any kit (including the sprues) as they are all raw material for the next project.
