Ankerstein GK NF 2

Yet another consecutive post on Anchor Blocks?

Well, yes. But still a bit of a change of pace. I promise I bring back some variety soon - in the meantime, there are the blog archives at right.

I've been focusing on newly conceived designs lately, but today's post looks back almost a century to a Richter company design.

Occasional blog posts have shown individual pages from old Richter booklets, but today I am showing n entire booklet worth of plans, omitting only text pages (none in English!).

A recent email mentioned the sparsity of plans currently to be found online, and my thoughts toward a reply turned into this post.

When I started this blog, thre wasn't such a shortage, and I made several references (eg) to a web site that had an huge number of online Anker plans, including dozens of plans for the smaller sets.

This wonderful online resource seems to have unfortunately disappeared.

The plans haven't, though. They are still available from their primary source. Most online Ankerstein fans are surely aware of George Hardy's outstanding ankerstein.org, but if you have missed that web site, go there soon.

These scans were done over several years as a cooperative effort by a number of members of the CVA - "Club of Anker Friends" - and are offered on a CDrom series by George Hardy at stunningly low prices.

If you are looking for more plans and inspiration, you should certainly get a set. Don't worry about which disks to get, just get them all. The disk you find most useful will be worth more than you pay for the whole set, and the disk you find least useful will still likely worth more than the cost of a single disk.

The plan images shared here today represent just one of several hundred booklets of plans that are included in the CVA archive, and on the CDroms.

As best I recall, there have been over 400 different Anker sets made in the century-plus history of the company, and with larger sets inlcuding two booklets, one with perspective illustrations ("Bauvorlagen") and one with layer plans ("Schnittheft"), that means well over 600 booklets, though not all correspond to stones in current production.

The currently produced Große Kaliber - Neue Folge (GK-NF, large caliber - new series) was but one of several series of stones made by the Richter company over its long history.

The GK-NF sets were preceded by Große Kaliber - Alte Folge (GK-AF, old series), and followed by Große Kaliber - Neue Serien (GK-NS, "new series" also, but a different German term). Restored production returned to GK-NF as preferable to later GK-NS, but there is a conversion set.

There are also several alternate or special series of GK sized stones, many with metal bridge or structure parts as well as several series of Kleine Kaliber (KK, small caliber, 20mm versus 25mm) old and new and with metal parts.

Plus a few sets of an odd hybrid 18.75mm/25mm size. Plus the recently resurrected Kleine Gernegroße at 12.5mm. Plus a series for WWI style fortifications, which may or may not have corresponded to a standard Kaliber. Plus plus plus.

But today's illustrations are a simple GK NF 2. That may be a surprise to those who thought the numbered series started at 4 or 6 and wondered why. But there even sets O and OO below 2 and 1 respectively.

There were also odd numbered sets. Richter sort of switched back and forth so older sets and newer sets wouldn't be inadvertently mixed. And during the era that KK sets were produced, it was usually numbered in the alternate sequence.

There seem to have been at least three different versions of the GK NF 2 set, not counting the various GK NF 2½ sets with a slightly different stone mix (includes #288 steeple), and thus different plan books.

One plan Heft had the old double-height cylinders (#179, in the CDrom's packing plan below right), and two with the newer single-height cylinders (#131, in my block draw below left) .

So how many plans are there total?

There are usually sixteen pages of plans per booklet. While there is some duplication of plans between the booklets, but there are also often multiple plans per page for the smaller sets. Let's just say "a few thousand."

So how many of those can you build with a modest Ankerstein collection?

Obviously that depends on how modest. It also depends on how exact you want to be. Obviously two short cylinders can be substituted for a tall one, often half-thick stones for full-thick. Sometimes you may need to substitute colors. Sometimes some of the details can be altered slightly without having to dismantle the basic structure.

In general, you can build most designs up to the next lower number pair in any of the core series. E.g. with a 6, you can build most series through 3 or 4 or 4½ (5 corresponds to 6). You can usually build models of the same level in the same series, but you will need to check carefully for other series. You might come up a little short in some - a 4 or Heinzelmännchen can help. You will need to provide your own bridges for many but not all the plans from the metal bridge sets. The bridges are generally not dimensionally critical, and I have used HO train bridges with GK-NF. Even the plans you can't duplicate can often serve as happy inspiration.

Start by clicking on the thumbnails for printable versions of this post's set 2 pages, lay out stones from your set 4 or 6 out on or next to a printout of the packing plan, so you know you have just what you need, and have some quick and easy fun.

Then order the CDroms and work up to bigger challenges.

Good Block Play.

Heinzelmännchen

Ja, I know this blog is supposed to be about the blocks, not the scenery, but I rather like this image even if the Ankerstein structure is out of focus. The ship was moving briskly along, so I didn't have much time for focus experiments. I prefer this image, with the ship in focus and the structure not, over vice versa. There are more pictures of the structure below, and they are in focus.

It isn't even the structure I started out to build, which was supposed to be ASC-H14. I actually did build it (though from the composite PDF), as shown at right, but had some pieces left over, so I couldn't help but seeing what I could do with them.

This may turn out to be the most important advantage of having the smaller sets, rather than extracting the pieces from the larger sets: One can tweak and modify within a more constrained set of options, rather than being overwhelmed by the larger number and variety of stones in the larger sets. The Heinzelmännchen is the smallest currently available set with the large blocks, and the new includes some that aren't in the 6 or 6A. (They aren't used in the classic plans for this set, but are used in some of the new developments, such as this one.)

The result of my tweaking is at left, as well as in the title photo. Most of the credit should go to William Seppeler, for the original design. A strong supporting credit should also go to The Toyhouse, who came through with the Heinzelmännchen set with the great service I have come to expect.

And just for fun, the image at right shows my work area for this project, on an upper level of Richmond Beach Saltwater Park. I have been enjoying this park for about forty years, mostly down along the beach and the railroad tracks (it was the Great Northern Railway in the beginning, became Burlington Northern, and is now BNSF). It is a kick having a new way to enjoy it "uphill."

Good block play.

Ankerstein set 4

The smallest of the Anker Block standard series is set 4. With the addition of set 4A one has set 6, albeit in two small box instead of one standard box, and with a few extra duplicated stones to fill out the box rectangles.

Which means that all set 4 plans can be built with set 6, with many leftover blocks. That's what I did here, inspired by Mr. Seppeler's latest design. We are trusting him on the block count this time, and it seems safe to do so based on what I recall of the #4 contents.

For the picture, we are back indoors, and I found myself emulating the color characteristics of German color publishing of the 1950s. Much too modern for the original era of this toy, but I like it.

It seems to have been a while since I built with the large Großkaliber (GK) stones, rather than the tiny Kleine Gernegroße of my recent posts. It feels good. It smells good.

Good Block Play.

Addendum - I was a little lazy when I posted this, and used the image at right, which has perspective causing the vertical lines to converge toward the bottom of the image.

This morning I used a wonderful freeware program called ShiftN to "correct" the "distortion" to create the image at top.

The result looks slightly wider (the base was broadened in removing the taper) - I could have adjusted that, but the results seem acceptable, and I am still lazy. I might like yesterday's color balance better than today's as well.

Overall, I think it is an improvement, though the differences are probably too subtle to be noticed in casual viewing.

ShiftN is now in my "open with" context menu for JPG files, so I will be less likely to skip this step in the future.

Church

I am glad for the occasional new design to tweak me into action.

It doesn't quite match as shown, since I seemed to come out short of the required blocks, but either way, the design appeals with its embedded cross.

The image above was made in infrared. A natural color image is at right for those who find the main image too weird.

Digital image sensors are quite sensitive to infrared light, which is invisible to us but can have strange effects on pictures -such as turning red flowers pink. Some cameras deal with that by putting a filter in front of the sensor, but probably due to cost the less expensive the camera, the less likely it is to have that "hot mirror" filter to block infrared.

Personally, I'd rather not have the internal filter, using an external hot mirror filter when required, and using the opposite filter - one that passes infrared and blocks visible light - for intriguing infrared image such as this one.

So I am pleased with my camera's infrared sensitivity. Straight from the camera, with the filter I am using, the images are in strong magenta tones. That might not be the case with a filter that cuts off further into the infrared, but they would also require longer exposure times. I have been assuming that most infrared fans simply convert to black & white, but maybe that is what the more extreme filters deliver?

I enjoy playing with the color balance until I get something I like - almost gray tones, almost sepia, but not quite normal.

Good photo play.

Good block play.