Thursday, May 28, 2020

Lean times

E. L. Moore's Central Warehouse with a bad lean.
I was doing what I do a lot these days, browse the internet during 30C+ heat, and as is often the case I stumbled across this E. L. Moore inspired kit: Builders In Scale's Lean's No. 2 Warehouse. The page states: It's based on an old MR construction article by E. L. Moore of a simple old fashioned warehouse that's all but falling down. Looking through my photos I think the kit is based on the large leaning building part of E. L. Moore's Central Warehouse model described in his article Turn backward, O Time that appeared in the January '67 issue of Model Railroader. The kit looks quite nice, and once again we see another E. L. Moore design surviving into our times.
Posted by at
Labels:

6 comments:

  1. VBDiMay 29, 2020 at 11:51 PM

    And I'll bet ELM built it for far less money than the kit costs! Remember, ELM's was based on Robert E. Gilbert's article in April '57 MR, "Small Town Warehouse". But where REG's buildings were at a slight angle from each other, ELM build his straight in line and added the "leaning forward" look. So this kit is based more on ELM's than REG's.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. J D LoweMay 30, 2020 at 4:27 AM

      ELM's was likely in the dollar-model category price-wise. I posted about REG and used the Small Town Warehouse as the lead photo: https://30squaresofontario.blogspot.com/2017/04/was-robert-e-gilbert-reg.html

      Delete
  2. VBDiMay 31, 2020 at 1:50 AM

    This kit looks very nice but ELM showed us how to get that look for near nothing. And with today's printers, we might even might make fantastic paper models using his plans.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. J D LoweMay 31, 2020 at 6:27 AM

      Paper versions of his projects is an interesting idea. If prints of walls and roofs were supplemented with items cut from a cameo cutter, a rather good 'kit' might result.

      Delete
  3. Galen GallimoreJune 2, 2020 at 10:18 PM

    It would be an interesting comparison in time vs. money to scratch vs buy and build the kit. Keep in mind the kit comes with signs and detail castings. Yes, signs can be found and printed for cheap, but to scratchbuild the details would take a while. Omitting these extras, how long would it take to build the kit vs. scratch?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. J D LoweJune 3, 2020 at 5:49 AM

      That's an interesting question. The kit cost and shipping here to Ottawa would be $83.74CDN at today's currency conversion rate. For scratchbuiling, using ELM's standard balsa building methods and his other low-cost techniques, the cost for me would likely be around $20CDN tops in new spending if I made use of my stash of supplies and odds and ends. Building the kit would likely take me less time than scratchbuilding. There's also a question of aesthetics. The kit and the scratchbuild could be made to look similar, but they would have a recognizably different look and feel, so one would also need to decide what kind of look one is after and what would fit into their layout.

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)