This is mostly an Ankerstein construction, but the bridge is not, and that is mostly what this post is intended to be about.
In their Golden Age, many Anchor Block sets were available with metal bridge parts. Many of the online plans feature bridges.I have various old metal bridge parts in various sets. They look old and bent and rusty. They go well with the old weathered and worn stones in those sets. They don't fit in quite so well with the new stones. I prefer to build with new stones.
One can buy lovely new reproduction bridge parts from my favorite Ankerstein source, The ToyHouse. I hope to do so eventually, shortly after winning Lotto.
In the meantime, I wanted to build more bridges. I wanted to do it in a way I could commend to my readers as readily available.One technique is based on plastic models. I may come back to that. I have posted a picture previously.
But the other day I ran across a paper punch in Big Lots that could help me make bridges out of cardstock. If you are handy with a craft knife, you can probably build better bridges than I built. But my punch technique does work, as you can see above, and I will be using it to build more bridges. I need to get some gray cardstock that will photograph better.
Aside from that, I have been building, with Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, Roy Toy, and K'nex, and will be blogging some of what I have built.
Mostly bridges. I like bridges.
Good block play.
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2 comments:
Alan;
I too have only one old bridge set and the bridge pieces are bent and painted black which are chipping all over.
As a card modeler, I have made my own bridges using heavy card stock and also painted them black. The reason I choose black is due to many railroad bridges in our area are black. We have a few gray bridges, but they are truss bridges.
Another source is at the local hobby shop where you can purchase a couple different style plastic railroad bridges in "HO" scale by Atlas. They are not expensive and work quite well.
Perhaps if we live long enough, we both may be able to purchase the new bridge sets from the Chris' Toy House. - - Don
Hi,
My favorite plastic bridge for Ankerstein is the Peco NB-38 that I linked to in the post. You get four bridge sides slotted for the decks - I use free matte board scraps from a local picture framing shop.
Many railroad bridges around here, and other places I have been, are a "black" that is actually a dark gray; many are silver. Road bridges are often light to medium gray, sometimes red or green. Referring just to steel truss bridges, since that is what Ankerstein and I are modeling.
I don't see many bridge piers or abutments in the US that could be modeled with Ankerstein though, much less the elaborate end structures that are so fun to build. Those structures are mostly holding up bridges painted in the common European practice of various medium to light grays. Though there are tempting exceptions.
That comfortably conforms to both the depictions in the Vorlagen" on the CVA site, and the best photography, so that is what I will mostly follow.
Even pure black would photograph better with a more appropriate gray or brown deck surface though, and I may modify my black bridge to that effect.
Best wishes.
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