Tomytec Factory

Music for today's posting:


I finally got my factory in the post from HOBBY JAPAN. I'm still impressed with Hobby Japan and their services. It took a while to get the factory together for shipping - evidently back-ordered from the company. So, I never got a request for payment. I wrote them to make sure all was well and got the back-order information. When it was ready, it all went super smooth as usual and the item arrived rather quickly. I love them.

That aside, I love the kit itself. It's impressive!


The way Tomytec does it is that they have the items available for purchase separately, or you can purchase them all in this giant box version with multiple parts sent together. It ended up including all the items I was interested in, so I went that route.

Tomytec's offerings are grand. They have nice detail, the instructions are easy to follow and the product goes together well and never seems to fail me. As "The Professor" says, "The product does exactly what it says it does on the tin!" The box photography is exactly what you are going to see when you open the box.Very helpful.

The plastic kit option is still a huge difference from the paper kits I've been building of late. I realized this fact when I was pressing some parts into place with FAR more force than I'd ever be able to apply to a paper kit. Of course, I've also never been faced with feeling like I NEED to apply that much force to a paper kit, either, so....

This kit requires glue. Many of the Tomytec offerings don't. They function more like a "snap-tight" model. I was fine with this. I have the tools needed. :)

There is a CRAZY AMOUNT OF PIPE included with this kit! hehehehehe  All the pipe based items come with additional pipe, then they also included a whole other box willed with pipe and pipe supports. It's very cool, but a little overwhelming at first. "I have to build out all this pipe stuff?!" Nooooo....it's there to provide options for your scene, which is perfect. You can connect the various items with pipe as needed. A huge help, actually. You just need to plan it out before slapping things together and bolting them down into place.

The most difficult part of this kit are these struts. They are simple X looking items that are set onto these poles to get a round fence looking part that you slip into the hole located on the base of the bottom half of the container sphere. It's all fine and good for the most part, but I had moments where some of the little X parts were popping free of the poles while I was trying to set them into place. They you need to do it all again to get them into the base of the container as well. Not horrid, but it was a challenge at times for sure.


So now, more planning. I need to sort out where I want the factory to live, what parts are going to go where and how the whole of it will work with the track for loading and the operations side of things. I had a few ideas for placement, but I need to think through certain things before setting things in stone.

• How does the placement affect the overall view?
• How does the placement affect the view of the small bit of operations I have? 
• Does the placement make sense? Meaning, it's not too close to the tracks, hills or drop offs. 

It's a fun little puzzle, really. Someone one show 100 of the MODEL RAIL RADIO PODCAST mentioned something that I happened to hear again before a scheduled train work day. He stated that you want to drop things into place, then play around with it for a long while before committing it to the space so that you can see it in action for a while before locking it down.

FANTASTIC advice and something that fits well with my new way of taking on this section. SLOW IT DOWN. It's not a race to get it done. That was a slip I made in my other two sections. While I still love them, I do wish I had slowed the overall process down when I was thinking the whole of it through. I was just far too excited to actually have the space to make it happen! hehehe


So now, I play around with placement - moving items around on company calls, at lunch time or after work before heading back up to the house proper.  :)

Now I have the bug to add MORE items to the factory space. Tomytec has many more kits to add, that's a fact. I'm going to get the tank trucks - that's a must, but I'm also looking at some other large structures to slip into the spot as well. Make it look like there are things going on in this location. They also offer these cool spotlights that I want to add in as well. It's going to add a lot to the overall look of this location.

Now...what is REALLY going on in the location, that's the next question. :)

I plan to create some scenes that might suggest that some dirty dealings and secret operations are happening at this plant. Some toxic looking sludge? A small arrangement of black SUVs and men in black suits keeping some workers back.

Yeah....this will be a fun little spot! :)

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