Images

I've posted a lot of images in this blog, and at some point, Google started putting those images in a folder in their Picasa Web Albums service. I didn't realize that for a while, because I wasn't otherwise using Picasa Web Albums. Once I figured it out, it didn't seem very important, since the images are just a chronological heap.

But I've posted over 60 pages of designs for block sets here recently, and if someone wants to print them out, it's can be a bit of a hassle.

So, instead click on the picture below or this link, and there you will be. Click on the first image you want to download, click on the "download photo" link at left, click on the right arrow above the image, continue.

Block Play

I wish I could at least have the images sorted in reverse chronological order, so the newest images would be at the top instead of the oldest.

And I wish that you could get from an image to the blog post for that image. The best it offers is there is a link to get to the blog from the album page -- nothing more specific.

Enh.

The title picture for this post is another Anchor Stone Constructions design, which I would call a belvedere but is known in ASC as a tower, design g26. Well, a belvedere is a kind of tower, so that's not wrong.

This is a Kleine Gernegross construction, which means that the square cross sections of stones is a snit under a half inch, as is the diameter and height of the cylindrical pieces. The whole thing is a bit fussy for such small stones, and the result is rather wobbly -- the more so because the horizontals extending out to the balcony aren't touching the pieces resting on the column. Probably due to an irregularity in the surface I was building on -- the design is correct.

If I build it again, and I probably will, it will be with full size stones, not the tiny ones.

Yet even so, good block play.

Bing there

In the heyday of stone construction sets, the Ankerstein sets from originator and market leader Richter had several imitators.

Some were British and American (including A.C.Gilbert, of Erector Set and American Flyer fame), which mostly got into the market when German imports were stopped during the first and second World Wars -- some even acquired Richter subsidiaries which had been declared enemy property, confiscated, and sold to domestic companies.

But some imitators were right there in Germany with Richter, including the famous Nuremburg toy Company Gebrüder Bing -- probably best known in America for their wonderful tinplate trains.

Bing made two series of stone construction sets. The expensive and innovative Series A had special angular stones for making curved arches, unduplicated in the Ankerstein line.

The more budget-oriented Series B more or less duplicated the smaller sets from Ankerstein, with only a small variety of stones.

The title image is of a small structure built with old Bing stones, and reminded me how much more fun it is to build with modern production stones.

Most old stones, from whatever source, show their age. They can be chipped, cracked, or simply falling to pieces. I've had second hand Ankerstein crumble in my fingers like a stale cookie.

When building with stones with hairline cracks, one must always be careful lest the stone break completely in two. It has happened to me.

I have mended some broken stones, but have not found a tried & true technique - what works on some stones fails on others.

With my Bing set, the stones are inconsistently sized, some are worn around the edges so the middle seems to bulge, most are chipped and cracked.

Building with it is an advanced exercise in wobble control and stone reorientation. Sometimes when you place a stone on a structure portion, the stones beneath it rotate.

All in all, a more frustrating exercise than I am usually seeking in block play.

So although I have Bing Set B-4, I have never satisfactorily built a B-4 structure with it -- though I am very, very fond of the green roof stones.

To be fair, I couldn't swear that my set is pure Bing - someone may have mixed in some stones from Anker or yet another manufacturer. In play with multiple sets, that could easily happen and could account for some of this set's irregularities.

Fortunately though, a Bing B-4 has exactly the same mix of stones as an Ankerstein GK NF Set 4. As a change of pace, today's scans are mine, rather than from the CVA. (If there is interest, I could also post the scans for the designs built with sets above or below B4 that were in my booklet.)

The photos below of the larger structure are built from a Bing design, but with Anker Set 4 stones, which is what I recommend for builders.

It was good Block Play.

Ankerstein 4 - NS

The Anchor Große Kaliber - Neue Folge (GK-NF, large caliber - new series) sets that we have been looking at were preceded or paralleled by several series of stones, and followed by Große Kaliber - Neue Serien (NS, "new series" also, but a different German term; the GK tends not to be used since Richter had dropped the KK or Kleine Kaliber 20mm stone series).

A new post-Cold-War company restored production with a return to GK-NF, partially because NS had never achieved the popularity of the older sets, but primarily because the GK-NF series went to set 34 (and some special sets went beyond) while NS ended at Set 18.

NS differed from GK-NF only in having the large arches made with block-sized notches in the upper corners.

The GK NF 4 and NS 4 packing plans looks just the same until you look closely and realize that the #98R arch has been replaced by a #98aR and two #19R stones. That also applies to GK NF 6 and NS 6, and so on, though larger arches in some higher numbered sets have more complex notching.

By itself, the notches make the arches more versatile: Anything that can be built with a standard arch can be built with a notched arch by simply filling the notches with the proper stones. But the notches also allow larger stones to overlap into the notches, or the notches to be left open for a different appearance.

Beyond that versatility, however, what really catches the eye is that many of the NS designs represent a more modern design esthetic - 1920s versus 1890s, Weimar versus Kaiserzeit, more factories and secular structures versus churches and monuments.

I like campaniles and belvederes well enough, and even churches and monuments, but sometimes a little Art Deco and industrial gothic is welcome.

And as you can see from the design pages reproduced here, the artwork made a significant shift from the earlier styles. Whichever one prefers, I think there is pleasure in having an alternative available for a change of pace.

A conversion set is available which includes all the notched arches needed to convert up through set 18, as well as a generous selection of extra roof stones in several styles - those being in frequent demand by advanced builders.

That conversion set is not inexpensive, though, and individual notched arches can be hard to find. Excluding, or at least delaying, availability of a "proper" NS set for most of us.

However most of the NS series plans can be built with the corresponding GK-NF set -- the arches have a lesser role in the more modern design styles -- and most or all of the remainder with just a few extra stones, with greater or lesser degrees of adjustment.

I have built most, perhaps all, of the designs on today's pages over the last several years, and some -- particularly the factory on page 15 -- several times. But I haven't paid much attention to what stones I was using, or kept count.

Todays photos show the three I thought most likely to have problems, and if you look closely, adjustments had to be made. But some of the ones least likely to need adjustment, because they do not use the large arch, may well make use of the two extra #19R stones.


I am assigning myself the enjoyable ongoing task of building the more challenging appearing of the designs in this NS Set 4 booklet, included here from from the CDroms, and will report back.


After that, we can take a look at the NS 6 booklet, and see how it builds.

Whatever those exercise discovers, there is plenty here for good block play.

Ankerstein 4 some more

I am beginning to think that the Number 4 Anchor set is an ideal size.

Many Anchor builders have a view that you've got to go waaaay up there in the big sets with hundreds and hundreds of stones for interesting building, but they are interested in building large, detailed, realistic representations of actual buildings.

That's fine, but I prefer building more schematic, iconic allusions to styles of structures - perhaps best considered a step up from tangrams (why haven't I done a blog post on tangrams yet?).

Tangrams have seven pieces, basic Wedgits fifteen, Ankerstein Heinzelmännchen 42, Set 4 has 55, Set 6 has 105.

And yes, set 6 is an ideal size also - it is on the cusp where schematic, iconic representation begins to turn into realistic representation.

Today's title image at top appeared as a challenge in Anchor Stone Constructions.

The side images are more designs that can be built with Set 4 - three show subset designs, the fourth mostly duplicates designs in what I already posted, but has one new, and none are in the booklet that comes with the set.

I think that mounted and framed, these could make a nice set to hang on a wall. Click on the images for a higher resolution version for printing - and let me know if you want the full resolution from the CDroms.

The final image is from the ASC challenge again, but slightly modified.

It is hard to leave well enough alone.

Good block play.