Devil's in the detail

This afternoon and early evening was spent building the Metcalfe steam engine shed and eventually got it finished! Final result? It looks fantastic! Nikola wasn't convinced by the Metcalfe steam engine shed on first impressions at a model railway fare - thought it looked really flat and unrealistic. It may well have grown on us during the building phase or the actual product may be a more recent version of the kit, Metcalfe are known to have made a quality upgrade over the past 20+ years.

However we did add some modifications of our own to the kit. We took to acrylic, we painted the inside and tops of the chimneys, this gave them a blackened/coaled effect, exactly as a steam engine shed would have been!

This kit was easy to build, but was time consuming, with two people it took around 8 hours, so I imagine 10-12 hours would be needed if you were building this kit on your own. First off what we don't like:

• It is card, so requires a lot of effort to avoid it looking flat, unavoidable on close inspection.
• Metcalfe do have good instructions, but some more clarity on pretty important aspects would have been good - simple and brief is more in many cases.
• The stress of making a total and utter mess of it all.

But what about what we do like:

• For the money, the finish is fantastic, it also goes really well with the Hornby waiting room and booking hall;
• The finish does indeed look 3D, really excellent;
• The way the card fits together is super impressive, the people at Metcalfe are genius;
• Comes with a few optional extras, and as is typical for Metcalfe they have included extra card incase you make mistakes and ruin the overall finish.

Overall overjoyed, this WON'T be our last Metcalfe card kit. 9/10!

Nails could also do with a lick of paint!


Devil's in the detail.