Falkenstein's Castle"
Article and photographs by Lorenzo Marchetto and Michele Bottalico.
Notice: This article was published on the magazines Tutto Modellismo n. 74/2000 (©Hobby & Work) and Mondo Ferroviario Plastici n. 2/2002 (© Editoriale Del Garda).
Before you begin, remember that you can zoom all the photographs displaying the techniques explained in the article simply by clicking on them.
Modelling sometimes leads to developing particularly complex ideas, such as reproducing an existing Austrian manor, called "Falkenstein Castle". Why did we choose this building? For its strange, winding shape... it looks like a wave, something that adjusts to the land and becomes part of the ground, and secondly because of its history: it hosted Emperor Redbeard during the Crusades, and lastly because it is one of the oldest castles (13th century) still in a good state today (it is private property).
 I had to decide what material to use in building it and, being a very big structure (in scale 1/43, length110 width 60 height 74 centimeters) it had to be made of a light but very resistant material: I chose to use "carton plum" (cardboard with a polysterene filling), in turn covered by wall-like and rooftile-like printed polyurethane panels (supplied by Noch). I must say the resulting outcome is striking, as you can tell if you look at the pictures.
 Another difficulty arose because of the wood: the castle has countless staircases, balconies and windows - all wooden. This is where my friend Michele Bottalico assisted me by making all the staircases, balconies and windows and wedged in each piece of wood… the work fit for a monk and requiring extreme precision if you just think that he had finished all the pieces before I even started building the castle walls, and at the end all the parts fell in place without me having to go wild!
 The most difficult part turned out to be building the tower and the main building, the prior for its height and the intricate wooden roof (in the end we used 2 millimeter sheets of balsa wood and built the wall and the roof using the Noch panels), while for the main building Michele had to lathe a piece of wood to build the stone and wood turret stretching out of the building. Other difficult aspects of this building are the very complicated roofs, the terrace, the whole rail and the windows.
 It all rests on a polyurethane layer shaped in a way to lodge all the pieces. As you can see from the pictures, the castle looks like a wave that rises and falls. At the back there are four 3 cm holes, corresponding to the two blocks of buildings; through these holes you can fit the lightbulbs that light up the castle from the inside.
 Painting the castle did not turn out to be very difficult, probably because all the parts were painted before we assembled them; this trick allows you to reach all the faraway places without any hassle… but of course nothing should be taken for granted. You must study how you are going to split up the blocks and when you build them you must do it precisely so you won't have to finish them off later, adding or removing any material and consequently adding finishing touches in places out-of-reach.
 For the vegetation I used fiber grass, lichens and various powders supplied by Woodland Scenics.
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