Noch Hausboot (14224) build

 

My kit of choice from the Thun model shop, is the Noch Hausboot (14224), which has the benefit of being tiny - the box is 10m long, and I was able to find a tiny spot in the rucksack for the trip home. We'll gloss over the price...

Anyway, knowing I still have kits from my Australia trip a decade ago awaiting assembly, I decided to get this one out of the way ASAP. 

It's laser cut from some very stout 2mm thick laserboard. Everything is, as you would expect, cleanly cut. The minimum of tabs hold parts into the fret, making removal with a sharp knife, easy. 

Th very thin glazing is cut to size and fitted (Glue'n'glaze) before assembly of the sides and ends with Roket card glue. No allowance is made for the plastic, but it is very, very thin, so the designer assumed you won't need it, and so it seems. 

Under the "hull" are a couple of skids, which don't show in the photos, but raise it up a couple of millimetres. I think this is probably prototypical, as you don't want the deck at water level. 

The only painting required is the lifebelts, everything else is precoloured. Building the model took very little time, and wasn't too fiddly, even in HO. 

I suppose that the "ropes" between the posts would look better made out of thread, or fine chain. It's the sort of modification a more advanced modeller could chose to carry out easily enough. 

A fun little kit, and at 8cm long, small enough for the souvenier section of my model display cabinet.