Linka

OO Scale Farm Buildings Kit

reviewed by Greg Rice

ED NOTE: In the LINKA Advt. in the last issue, the phone number was in error. It should have been (609) 783-3306. Mr. Robbins informs me that they intend to produce some 100+ buildings in all. Although the items may seem somewhat expensive, the detail on this line is well worth it and these buildings will fit nicely with most miniatures. Recommended!

Linka is now selling a series of kits and molds to produce 00 scale buildings made of plaster castings. The farm buildings kit makes up into a barn, cart shed/granary, stables, and pig sty, all of rectangular stone blocks with slate roofing. The largest structure, the barn, is 9 3/4 in. long and 3 3/4 in. deep. The kit contains 5 rubber molds, precast buttresses, steps, pillars, and trough, with white metal ridge tilingand doors, plastic guttering and downspouts, printed acetate window material, contact cement, sandpaper, and a bag of Hydrocal casting plaster.

The instruction booklet clearly shows how to build each of the structures. The system is based on 1 1/4 inch square panels with interdigitating edges. These come on various subdivisions, and with doors, windows, archways, and gable ends. Once enough of each required type has been cast, the pieces are glued up into walls, and roofs, which are then assembled. I found that the supplied contact cement was unsatisfactory, but that yellow glue worked just fine. The squares fit neatly together, much better than I expected from previous experience with plaster castings. I used spackling compound to fill around wall-to-roof joints that had some gaps, and generally patch up my errors. The plastic guttering can be added using a gap-filling cyanoacrylate.

The resulting buildings paints up very nicely, with crisp relief on the stonework and good detail on window frames and doors. The scale fits 25mm figures reasonably well, and looks just fine on a wargame table.

The major drawback to the system is that a large number of pieces have to be cast to make a building. To make the barn roof, for example, you need 32 of the basic slate tile blocks. The mold has three of these, so it must be cast 11 times. I found that it worked best to use the Hydrocall mixed on the wet side to get good detail without bubbles. Combined with the fragile shape of the block edges, this meantthatthe castings had to be left in the mold for at least 30 minutes, so several evenings will have to be set aside for casting before the first building begins to take shape.

The castings are about an eighth of an inch thick, so large walls, or those with many openings, are quite fragile. I reinforced my buildings with wood strips glued to the inside. This fragility causes some problems with the final paint job, as well: knocks from use will nick comers, exposing that bright white plaster interior. I found that adding a little Rit dye (already dissolved) to the plaster when it is mixed gives the casting enough of atint so that nicks clon'tannounce their presence quite so forcefully. (You may have to experiment a bit to get the color you want: strong alkalis can do weird things to pigments.)

The buildings described in the booklet, however, are only the starting point. The system makes it easy to make buildings of virtually any size and shape. The precast pieces are nice but are not necessary for scratch building, and additional plasteris cheap. When you finish a buildingyou will have extra castings left over, and it is hard to avoid putting them together into just one more structure, casting a few more molds to finish it up, leaving a few extra pieces.

The kit is a bit pricey, perhaps reflecting the precast pieces and the plastic and white metal details. The molds are the real value here; they are of good quality and the system works quite well. Other kits are available in stone and brick, with tile and slate roofs. Some molds are available separately, apparently including some for large expanses of roof. A color catalog can be had for $5.00. The Linka line is distributed in the U.S. by Robbins Fantasy Miniatures, 1407 Trent Court, Lindenwold, NJ 08021, tel. (609) 783-3306.

The Reviewing Stand

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