Category: Z Scale Basics
Waterfront Project | Part 10
In our last Waterfront Project installment I mentioned the dock we were building would also be home to our next kit and here it is, the Micro-Trains Line, Canning Plant Kit (MTL Part 799 90 931). Continuing along with trying to keep some of these kits looking utilitarian and down to earth, I went again [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 9
Today’s MTL Waterfront Project kit is the Pier & Building Kit. At 8″ long by 2″ wide, it’s a large piece. The size of the dock will provide a home for our next kit… but we’ll get to that kit in our next article. The building portion of this model is built on a separate [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 8
Here’s our version of the Micro-Trains Line, Pier Warehouse Kit. As with our last build, the Hotel Kit, this one has lots of interesting angles and is also surprisingly easy to assemble. On these kits I find myself more and more playing with slight color variations and subtle weathering ideas. I don’t want to go [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 7
Our next Micro-Trains kit build is the Hotel Kit which has some great features including a second story outdoor deck, a pair of roof dormers and lots of windows, 40 windows in total! There are only 39 windows on our version of this kit but we’ll get to that in a minute. For a building [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 6
In the last Waterfront Project article we built the Micro-Trains Line Fish Market Kit, for the most part we added just a little bit of age and weathering to that kit so let’s ramp it up just a bit this time out with the Boat Repair Shop Kit (MTL Part 799 90 939). I wanted [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 5
We continue along with the Waterfront Project by presenting the buildings we’ll be using on our Florida themed layout. Here we have our build of the Micro-Trains Line Fish Market Kit (MTL Part 799 90 937). I had thought about doing just a bit of kitbashing with these buildings but decided against this for a [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 4
After writing Part 3 of this article series I was feeling pretty good about the Waterfront Project layout, I’d read through the Lance Mindheim book a couple of times and made some casual notes, I thought I had taken the advice in the book to heart… what could go wrong? Old habits. I made a [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 3
I have to admit this Waterfront Project layout has given me more pause than any previous desktop layout or diorama I’ve built. I thought it would be a relatively quick matter of firing up the track planning software and laying out a visually interesting track pattern, then building up the structures and scenery around the [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 2
After what may have been a bit of overthinking things (I do that occasionally) I’ve decided to make the Waterfront Project a shelf layout with switching capabilities and of course with an emphasis on the scenery. I’ve decided on a size of 48” long by 12” deep, a good size for a Z scale shelf [...]
Waterfront Project | Part 1
I’ve got my Waterfront Project kits all lined up from Micro-Trains, lots of really good water-themed structures here… now I need to design the layout around this theme, I need a look. As I wrote in the previous article this is going to be a protolance layout, so I have some wiggle room on prototypical [...]
