Matho Models released a set of etched-brass front doors for typical modern houses. The sheet contains seven doors, plus some hardware for locks, knockers, etc. These would all be at home on houses from the 20th century to today.
review
The use of brass means the doors are a tad thin and bendy - Matho advises to glue them to a sheet-plastic backing. Since there is only one of each type, you cannot have a door detailed on both sides with only one set. Some of the doors have windows, so adding a backing will take a bit of careful cutting or the creative use of plastic strips to frame the openings. No "glass" is provided, but there are clear plastic sheets out there.
Texture looks good, and will respond to a little gentle weathering or just a simple pin-wash to make it "pop". More advanced artists will no doubt use shading/highlight paints to bring out the 3D detail of the recessed panels, much as we would expect in a 2D oil-painting.
Door heights range from 60mm to 62mm. That's 2100 to 2170mm (6ft 10in to 7ft 1in) in 1:1 scale. And widths range from 25.5mm for the narrow ones, to 29mm for the "medium" doors, to 31mm for the biggest door - that's 892.5, 1015, and 1085 in 1:1 (35in, 3ft 4in, and 3ft 6in). A quick trawl of DIY store websites shows the average front door in the UK is about 2000mm high by about 850mm wide, while in the US they tend to be about 2032 x 914mm. In general the doors in this set seem about 4 inches (100mm) too big in both height and width, although of course real doors could be non-standard sizes. But overall my impression is these brass doors scale out much better in 1:32 than they do as 1:35.
conclusion
These are very nice modern doors, but are a tad large compared to doors I've seen. But perhaps that might not matter too much depending on what's placed near them? They look good and certainly resemble commercially available doors here in Europe, so should be perfect for any "homefront" or cold war "defence of Germany" dioramas.
SUMMARY
Highs: Look like real doors I've seen!Lows: Needs plastic backing. A tad overscale.Verdict: A good option for house-front dioramas set in modern times!
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About Tom Cromwell (barkingdigger) FROM: ENGLAND - EAST ANGLIA, UNITED KINGDOM
A Yank living overseas on a long-term basis, I've been building tanks since the early '70s. I relish the challenges of older kits (remember when Tamiya was "new"?...) because I love to scratch-build.
While these do look really nice the fact that they're brass -and therefore thin- is a detraction. I'd greatly prefer if they made the doors, etc, out of strip wood with PE details like knobs, hinges, window caning, etc. It would be a bit more fumbly but they could imprint detail i the wood on both sides. In the meantime the MiniArt sets that I've got will do just fine.
Making the doors thicker is easy enough. What I am suggesting is to make the depth of the detail relief more visible. If they would make them two layers of metal thick with the panel cutouts burned all the way through the first layer is what I am talking about.
These are actually pretty cool .
Only problem I see is to portray an open door you'll need two sets one for each side of the door as each door in the kit is different .
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