Illustrations by the author
The building, as it's name, um, more than merely suggests, is a dockside crane tower in Danzig (formerly northern Germany, now known as Gdansk and situated in Poland). It is very, very similar to a building constructed of brick and timber in the fifteenth century on the same site. Sadly, but in common with many European monuments, this building exploded, burned and collapsed in a heap of rubble during the widespread outbreak of exploding, burning and rubble-heap-collapsing that occurred across Britain, Europe and Asia in the nineteen-forties. One of the many sad outcomes of the war was the great furthering of the cause of hideous functionalist architecture, and it would have been unsurprising if the town had allowed a postmodern concrete block to be erected on the bombsite. Admirably forsaking this path, Danzigers instead rebuilt the crane tower during the late 1950s. (Hey! This makes the third article I've written or edited dealing with something blown up and rebuilt in (sort of) Germany! What's going on here?)
Schreiber's kit of the tower looks as neat and attractive, as one would expect
for any kit from their stable. The artwork is detailed, clean and precise and
very similar to L'Instant Durable in overall style. The kit comes on several
well-printed sheets with an excellent set of diagrams.
I picked up my copy of this kit some years ago and I may as well confess right away; this is another of my long-term projects which has suffered during various house moves (like the L'Instant Durable papal palace kit reviewed a month or two ago). Some parts are missing, others were built before I had much paper-modelling experience. Accordingly, I'll be more lenient on parts-fit and warping issues than maybe I would normally be, because most problems will be my own fault!
One thing that stands out right away is that the paper is rather thin, in fact you will definitely need to reinforce a good deal of this kit by laminating the sheets to heavier stock. This goes especially for all the base parts (kudos to Schreiber for the excellent base however), and the parts which reinforce the undersides of the main roofs. Possibly the instructions do cover this matter, but the parts I have are fragmentary and a bit skimpy (and in German) so I can't tell.
Well, into the build:
Pic 2 shows most of the windows, though there are several more. Almost all windows are dimensional parts rather than printed on. Not quite as tiny as those that Mike "Fingers" Stamper is suffering with at present, but quite fiddly enough for me!
Pic 4 shows the bulwarks of the base, which is done in the style of the actual wharf on which the building sits. Nice touch!
Pic 6 shows the upper surface of the base and the section comprising the first three stories of the building, from the front or "dock" side. The base absolutely requires reinforcement on all main surfaces. Even the walls could do with some in places!
Pic 7 shows the main section of the building from the rear. You can see I have
made a major mistake - I assembled the walls without attaching the windows first.
Mike Stamper has alluded to avoiding this in his Pardubice Castle buildup articles -
this picture should confirm why it is to be avoided! Yes, it really does look that bad
in real life, and could be tricky to fix.
Pic 8 is a much happier picture. This is one of the main rooves. With its heavy reinforcement
in place on the underside, it's a much sturdier structure.
Pic 9 shows the main front of the tower - the actual crane itself. I did not reinforce the parts, but would do if building it again. If you are actually meant to build this as-is with the card supplied, then I really feel the structure of this part could be improved. It's made up of a group of long flat pieces of thin card in parallel - like a series of almost-boxes lying alongside each other - and is very weak and susceptible to warping.
Pictures 10 and 11 show the rear and front, respectively, of the main upper tower section. The crane attaches to the front of this. In picture 11, you can see there is nice artwork of ladders "receding" from the viewer - this should look very effective when viewed through the gap in the front of the crane section.
Pictures 12 and 13 show the section temporarily in place on the main section of the building. The model in all will be about 36cm high when finished.
Most of the cutting and a good deal of the assembling was done several years ago and recollections are a little hazy, but chiefly involved the thin card and lack of direction to reinforce it (though this could be faulty memory at work). Some parts were definitely a bit of a struggle! The next article will focus on remedial measures to repair and improve the structure achieved so far, and hopefully salvage a good result from the damage I previously inflicted. Join me next month to see how I get on - at worst, you'll at least be able to point and laugh!
Photo credits:
