Review - This ol' Fachwerkhaus from Verlinden (ruined) in 1/35th scale

Need a vignette of a street corner in Germany during WWII? Destroyed rubble and wooden frame house? Enough pavement to house a few figures and blown up and destroyed looking to boot? Well Verlinden might have just the thing for you this month – we review their new “Ruined Fachwerkhaus” dio in today’s news..

#2782 Ruined Fachwerhaus

Verlinden Productions

1:35 Scale

6 parts of cream resin

$32.95US from Verlinden directly

The houses which are synonymous with Germany and Austria (in the same way that Tudor houses are a part of some of the English countryside) is the German Fachwerkhaus (Alemannisches Fachwerkhaus).

There are several types of Fachwerk houses all around Germany, called Fachwerkhäuser – these are slight variations on a theme of paneled sections of timber - usually with white walls. These were set on a layer or two of stone, or sometimes brick, perhaps up to several feet high. They very much symbolized houses made hundreds of years ago and although they were all over Europe they are so identifiable with the German south.

Verlinden have added to some of their earlier diorama series of diorama pieces and we are glad of this. When we saw this box we really were looking forward to seeing it in the flesh.

There are six parts of cream resin – made from a pour mould they are only detailed on one side so they are really for the “show side” only. There are bubbles in this resin but they are well hidden behind the fascia of this kit and you are not going to see them in this format. There are no faults or bubbles at all on the outside of the house.

One thing I think is a little hard to do is remove the layer of resin on the rear side of the parts. I simply carve them as close as possible to the back as I can and leave it at that.

The parts of the kit:

Footpath sections

Curved footpath and top destroyed wall section

High part of the wall in one section

Lower left section of the haus

The wooden frame of the building is well represented in this sculpted resin kit as are the brick layers on the base of the house. There are wooden panels inside the larger timber frames that are just as well textured and detailed.

The walls of the house after i had removed some of the thin extra resin

There are three parts of cobblestone pavement which is rough and uneven. These are joined together with an arched section in the middle. Because of the uneven levels and the extra resin on the underside there is a 1MM or so difference so glue these together face down. This serves as your template for the front building footing.

 The cobblestones which frame the walls of this diorama

The large tall section (with a lovely little large round hole in the wall) joins up with the lower section and once these are together secure the top left section to the bottom frame.

Secure these pavings upside down to get a level footpath

The whole building sits on top of the footpath which squares the building up so go along with this as  you put the building together. This simply sits there and you can pack the superglue in to secure everything behind it. Any gaps can be filled in with superglue - as in the brick footings here - and simply painted over.

And Viola you have a new house - well a new completely destroyed German style Fachwerkhäuse anyway!

This is a simple, light and well detailed ( and destroyed) diorama piece which, after you put it on as large of a base as you need to use will look the part in your German WWII diorama

Adam Norenberg

You can get this kit right now from Verlinden directly – thanks to them for this kit to build and review