jecorbett,
Please don't get snarky. I was trying to help. Be a little more courteous when people try to help you with an issue. Isn't that sort of why you posted your issue in the first place? Chill!
I was suggesting you contact them about it in case they made a mistake and included the wrong parts from possibly an O scale kit or something. Also, there is always the possibility they could help in some other way like a refund, replacement with a different part, etc. They are good folks to deal with and try to work with their customers.
I never assumed they would redesign anything just for you. I doubt if you are THAT important.
Roger Huber
jecorbettDo you think they are going to retool just to keep me happy?
Maybe not for one person, but since you called attention to it and now it is in the media and has attracted public interest. Small cottage industry companies try to take care of their customers more than mass market companies.
j.........
oldline1 Why not give Branchline a call or email and ask them WTF? They seem to work well with folks so give them a chance to help. Roger Huber
Why not give Branchline a call or email and ask them WTF? They seem to work well with folks so give them a chance to help.
Do you think they are going to retool just to keep me happy? And even if they would, how long do you think that would take? If this was a defective part, I'm sure they would replace it but it's not. It was just badly designed.
mlehman 32" x 22" actually isn't that far off. It's the 78" tall + the 16" island that is considerably taller than what I remember of the oldest pumps around in the 60s. Is it possible to cut them down credibly? Lower the island by half? That's a possibility, but consider that an island typically was embedded in the paved area in front of the station. If 8" was below grade, that would leave just 8" of curbing, island, whatever visible. I agree the casting of the pumps needs correction, but sometimes you need to make lemonade when you get lemons?
32" x 22" actually isn't that far off. It's the 78" tall + the 16" island that is considerably taller than what I remember of the oldest pumps around in the 60s. Is it possible to cut them down credibly?
Lower the island by half? That's a possibility, but consider that an island typically was embedded in the paved area in front of the station. If 8" was below grade, that would leave just 8" of curbing, island, whatever visible.
I agree the casting of the pumps needs correction, but sometimes you need to make lemonade when you get lemons?
There's no way to save the pumps. They are already in the circular file. I'll probably get a set of J&L pumps although I might look into the Tichy pumps with the globe that Ed suggested. Hopefully I can find a set of Esso pumps which is what the sign for this kit comes with. As for the island, I think the only way to cut it to size would be with the belt or disc sander but even that isn't going to be easy to do and keep the thickness even. I think I'll just raise the surrounding pavement using laminated layers of styrene. I have it in .020", 040", and 060" thicknesses. I'll use a hobby knife to trace a hole for the island in a .020" sheet and then laminate that with .060 underneath leaving space under the hole I cut so the island can be dropped all the way to the plywood. That will give me .080" pavement around the 3/16 of an inch island which should get me into the close enough range. Originally this was going to be a front edge structure which to me allows for much less fudging but I had already changed the plan to move this more toward the middle where it won't be quite as conspicious.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Yeah, those are BIG alright!
I used the Tichy visible gas pumps and the Bar Mills Shady Grove gas station, older than the era you're modeling however, I have seen visible gas pumps still being used in the 1970s in West Virginia.
The nice little Tichy pumps can have the globes lit with a little grain of flea lamp.
https://www.tichytraingroup.com/Shop/tabid/91/c/ho_details/p/8223/Default.aspx
I can understand your dismay especially when you assume you are buying a "scale" craftsman kit, not Plasticville!
Regards, Ed
Be happy for JL Innovative and their great selection of gas station details.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
First let me say I am not a rivet counter. I don't fret if something is slightly oversized or undersized for its scale. I'm a big believer in the good enough approach to modeling which includes the close enough approach. But when something is so out of scale that it jumps out a you that hardly qualifies as good enough.
I am currently assembly the Laser Art Gas Station which is made by Branchline Trains. For the most part I have been very happy with this line. They are easy to assemble and the walls and roofs fit tightly together with a tab and slot system. However there is a serious flaw with the size of the gas pumps and the island they will stand on. They are way too big. These seem to be cast resin parts. Two sets of pumps were included, one for a 1930s era and the other for the 1950s which is what I model. The 1950 pumps are about 1.5 times larger than the J&L Pumps which I installed on another gas station I built. My first thought is they must have accidently included the pumps from an O scale version of the kit but the pillars on the island fit the slots for the canopy so it would appear these are the correct parts. I rarely do this with anything but I measured these pumps and discovered they are approximately 78 scale inches tall, 32 inches wide, and 22 inches deep. Even modern day pumps aren't that big and 1950s era pumps weren't even close to that. On top of that, the base of the island stands about 16 scale inches high. That means the top of the pump when sitting on the island is going to be almost 8 scale feet above the surrounding pavement. When did you see something like that.
Getting the scale of the parts of a kit is something that only has to be done correctly once so there is no excuse for something being this much out of scale. I can live with something that isn't exact but it should at least be in the ballpark. These aren't even close.