The Little World

As opposed to in spite of them.

Modellers can be assemblers or fabricators; putting together a kit or building a model from basic materials. Either way they are making the wood, plastic, metal, or other stuff do what they want…more or less. Some kits, and some plans resist even the most skilled workers.

Do what you might, you cannot make one thing become another – you can only disguise a basic part and hope people forgive you. You may have a damned hard time joining dissimilar materials – even modern adhesives have their limitations.

And occasionally you encounter something that has been designed or formulated so as to be impossible to weld, cement, glue, or join. A well-known German brand of large model railway equipment was moulded from a form of plastic that could not be cemented – every part had to be slotted or screwed together. It was a tribute to the factory designers that the results were so very realistic and the screws and bolts were hidden.

The reason this plastic was used appears to have been to give the big trains maximum playability. Odd, seeing that the premium price they commanded would have kept them from the hands of children.

Well, young children, anyway.