The Collins syndrome

So did I.

The brick damage is too regular in distribution and in nature. It just doesn't look realistic.

 

I was wondering if some viewers of this thread recognized it. If you do don't say it. I was warned about that on a different forum. It might start a heated forum war and I don't want that. This way I get some good opinions without the emotions getting in the way. It's kind of like the famous 1976 Paris wine tasting. It was a blind contest and out of that came truth

 

Candy, my initial impression when I first looked at your photo was that of a stone wall. I quite often saw this kind of wall in New Hampshire, Vermont, and the Quaker region of eastern Pennsylvania where buildings had walls of rough cut quarried granite, or a thick slate that had been roughly handled. Of course, the finished product in your photo is too repetitive, like a linoleum pattern, which makes it look unrealistic.

 

No, and I would hope that others are honest with me also...Mike

 

I had not thought of the shingle angle until it was brought up. Good point, I have seen similar weathered shingles on a roof. It's a bit more common to have asphalt shingles weather similar to each other....Mike

 

From what I've seen here, I think I was fair in saying that this hydrocal casting was poorly done. It is not worthy of a expensive craftsman kit.

 

The morter lines look too deep. I would paint the bricks then fill in the gaps (tuck point!) with some water putty wipe clean. Then weather. I think a viewer would not notice the brickwork but in close in photographs we tend to notice non real looking flaws. I do agree that a high dollar kit should look spot on in detail and scale! If a plastic $15 DPM kit has good detail a high dollar craftsman kit should be nothing less.

 

After really taking a harder look at your 1st pic, It just looks like the mold maker got carried away with the distress and broken corners and rounded bottoms. Most modelers wouldn't notice or care, so the mfg got away with the representation as we see it. A concerning modeler on the other hand would have an eye to the detail and not appreciate the way it looks. It's just my $.015 worth after taxes :headspin:

 

I think that the biggest problem is that the brickwork over the entire wall surface is too oddly repetitive over short spacings. Certainly, much the same pattern of chipped bricks repeats every few rows, a situation immediately commanding the observer's attention as something strikingly unusual. I would, however, also agree that the observed chipping of the bricks, nearly all quite dramatic and consistently along the lower surface only, is quite unnatural and indeed produces a sort of scalloped appearance to the wall.

NYW&B

 

On the section of wall that is between the two window openings there are 80 bricks. Of the 80, 58 are damaged, or at least represent damage. That's a lot of bricks !!!!!

 

The first thing that caught my eye was the round bottomed bricks. Bricks distribute weight from above so those bricks should be falling out of that wall. They don't look right, but I'd say if you paint it and put it on the layout you won't notice it.

I live in an soft brick house that is about 100 years old. Maybe it's the unfired brick that is mentioned. I have some beat up bricks but non of them look like that.

 

Are you sure this was bought? The modeller may have made/bought rubber molds and cast these him/herself. (AFAIK Hydrocal is the casting compound, not the finished product.)

When I look at a model (or anything else for that matter) I will form an opinion in my head, be it "Wow, that's good" or "OMG, that is rubbish". Doesn't matter who was responsible for it. On the other hand the opinion I make public, if I do at all, will usually be tempered by knowledge of the producer.

 

Summer's nearly here; I think you should get out more

 

I would guess that from a couple of feet away, the distressed brick look may not my not matter all that much. Of course, it would depend upon how the finish coloring was done. My biggest gripe would be the lack of proper lintle bearing.

But then, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have seen many a high "WOW" factor model that have the nail holes exaggerated. They just hit me as being wrong.

 

This was part of a build thread on another forum. This came right out of the box. The wall is large wall, and this is just a blown-up section of it. The entire wall looks the same as this section. BTW, all the walls look the same.

 

Seriously?

Candy Streeter

I'm not sure why you feel this justifies a thread on a different forum than the actual build thread, what do you get out of this? Sure, the picture you show of the raw casting looks pretty rough, but if you look at the end result, is a really an issue? Some may, some may not, right?
It took me about 3 minutes to find the build thread you are referring too, and I rarely visit that forum, so although you wish to keep this TB related (yuk, yuk right?) I think that's naive on your part. So besides instigating a discussion about an "unnamed" (yuk, yuk, right?) craftsman kit builder who has probably done more for the hobby as anyone, what's the point of this thread?

I have an idea! Why don't design, build, and distribute a craftsman kit, then do it once a year for the next 40 years, and let us critique every detail of every kit you have ever released, then I will be curious to hear how you feel about "ethics', and the same challenge goes out to the rest of you.

Good Luck with that.

 

WOW, Ouch, :wideeyes: O'Boy :closedmouth:

 

Oh, great... flaming...hboy:

 

unbelievable..... The white album reprised. My dad was soooooooooo right