Built-Rite 1930s Paper Castle

Castle's are fascinating and I've liked them ever since I was a kid, and as a kid enjoyed movies set in the Middle Ages. Who can forget movies like The Vikings,  El Cid, any of the Robin Hood movies, Ivanhoe, or even comedies like The Court Jester, or Walt Disney's cartoon The Sword In The Stone where the primary action was in and around castles? But if you were to believe Hollywood, one would think that every castle in existence was a grand manor where the king held court, jousting tournaments were a regular weekend pastime, and knights in shining armor went forth to do battle. Not really.

Castles began around the 10th century as strongly fortified residences. The earliest examples were the earth and wood 'motte-and-bailey' type. The motte was a raised earthen mound with a stone or wooden keep at the top. The bailey is an enclosed courtyard surrounded by a ditch and palisade or wall. These evolved into highly fortified stone structures with walls sometimes as thick as 30ft (9m) and castles were built from Europe to the Middle East. Even the Far East saw it's share of castle building. Many were surrounded by wide defensive ditches called moats which were only sometimes filled with water - a common staple of Hollywood movies -  if they were near a stream. Towers were placed near the entrance and at other strategic locations to provide a means of lookout and defense. By the 16th century they began to lose their luster as residences and were supplanted by grand manor houses and grandiose palaces. Also, the thick walls, which were originally meant as protection against catapult shot, were no match against gunpowder and artillery. The castle as a fortified structure was eventually replaced by the fort using different design and engineering techniques.

Another thing to keep in mind is that not every castle was the residence of a nobleman. Many were built to hold a small garrison of men whose job was to watch perhaps a valley, an important road, a waterway, etc. Some, like the Pfalz im Rhein Bei Kaub featured here on Toys and Stuff, were built to collect tolls. The Pfalz castle was actually built on an island in the middle of the Rhein (or 'Rhine' here Stateside). Many are now in ruins. The castle shown below is Burg Hartenfels, Westerwald, Germany. Originally built ca1289 to protect the High Street, the main trade route between Frankfurt and Cologne, it was destroyed in the 15th century, rebuilt in 1594 and destroyed again. It was never rebuilt.

Here's an interesting tidbit. This is essentially the view of the castle (although from a bit farther away in a nearby town) Bettina used to have from the kitchen window of her old house!

Courtesy Wikipedia

A remnant of the wall. The enclosure was relatively small at ca60 x 40 meters.

Courtesy Wikipedia

The tower is 23 meters high but was probably 28 meters at one point. It is called by locals The Schmanddippe, or Butter Churn, probably because of its appearance upon the landscape.

Courtesy Wikipedia

Which brings us - finally - to today's toy: the Built-Rite Castle from the 1930s. Another classic toy from the Warren Paper Products Company of LaFayette, Indiana, the castle is made of heavy cardboard lithographed with stonework and wooden doors and shutters and utilizes Built-Rites easy-to-assemble tab-&-slot assembly. Unfortunately I'm missing the box top and all of the soldiers/knights which most certainly would have been included in the set. However, the castle itself is fairly complete, to include the box bottom which doubles as the castle's base but a couple of shutters are missing. From here on in we'll let the photos do the talking. I had been scouring the Web trying to find any photos of this vintage gem because I wanted to see what kind of figures came with it but folks, I do believe what you see here today is an Internet exclusive because my search came up bupkis! Enjoy Everyone! Fritz (Ed) and Bettina Berg

Including base the castle measures 12" (30.5cm) W x 9 1/2" (24.1cm) D x 9 3/8" (23.8cm) H

The base was too large to scan so it had to photographed and cropped.

It measures 12" (30.5cm) W x 9 1/2" (24.1cm) D x 3/4" (1.9cm) H

The sides and ends

Front Wall

11 5/8" (29.5cm) W x 8 5/8" (21.9cm) H

 Side Wall 1

8 5/8" (21.9cm) W x 8 5/8" (21.9cm) H (WITHOUT tabs) 

 Side Wall 2

8 5/8" (21.9cm) W  x 7 5/8" (19.4)cm H (WITHOUT tabs)

 Back Wall

11 5/8" (29.5cm) W x 7 5/8" (19.4)cm H

The big doors are 3 1/4" (8.3cm) H x 2 3/4" (7cm)W

Tall Tower Wall x2

3 7/8" (9.8cm)W  x 4 7/8" (12.4cm) H (WITHOUT tabs)

 Short Tower Wall x2

3 7/8" (9.8cm)W x 4" (10.2cm) H (WITHOUT tabs)

Floor

11" (27.9cm) W x 8 5/8" (21.9cm) D (WITHOUT tabs)

Posed on the new display base

Here's the photo set-up (photo by Bettina Berg)

I built a 'dirt' ramp up to the door by carving a little block of Styrofoam, coating it with wood putty, and painting it. It's not fine art but will do until I come up with something else.

I posed a couple of Britains Deetail Knights which actually go quite well with the castle.

There's not yet enough knight figures in the collection to flesh the scene out with a lot of action.

Building A Memory - Schreiber-Bogen's "Pfalz im Rhein bei Kaub" - Conclusion

Update 23 Nov 2011

I made a video of the diorama which can be seen on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaReFFDEZJ4

Please note: because I had put the video to the music from James Last, it is blocked in Germany.

Es tut mir leid Freunde!

Today, I'm glad to say the Schreiber-Bogen "Pfalz bei Kaub" project is finished! Let's do a short re-cap. Building the castle was a challenge as it was the most complicated paper model I had attempted to-date and took approximately 18 hours to complete. Up until this project I had only built fairly simple four-walls-and-a-roof paper models. There were some frustrating moments in the construction. Many small components were a challenge for old fingers and eyes and the model itself has a couple of design flaws. The walkway from the tower to the wall does not line up with the registration marks on the wall. Even though the tower sits exactly where it's supposed to on the courtyard floor, the registration marks on the castle walls are too far forward. However, unless you're right on top of the castle and it's been deliberately pointed out, you'll never see it.  One thing you can see is the mis-aligned course of bricks at the 'prow' of the ship-like castle.

Schreiber-Bogen's own photo shows the mis-aligned brick courses.

Now look at my model.. This is built exactly as the model is designed.

This is how the castle front is supposed to look. All brick courses parallel to each other.

There's nothing that I could have done to correct this and so I built the model as it was designed. It's still an attractive and unique structure. But the castle is so small and looks so puny sitting all by itself on a shelf, that I thought it needed something more. The Pfalz bei Kaub is also unique in that it sits in the middle of a river versus on a hilltop like most castles, and this cried out for a display diorama. The hoped for diorama was meant to be a simple affair using as many on-hand materials as possible. I found a scrap piece of MDF shelving that was already in a size suitable for the base therefore no cutting or sawing. I used Styrofoam and scenery materials for the rock base, all of which I already have. Then it struck me that the base needed some kind of frame. I bought a pre-finished, plastic-like moulding, cut it and glued it to the base. This was my undoing! Not being very good at wood working I really screwed up the miter cuts ending up with gaps at the corners which then had to be filled with epoxy. Yet another purchase.

Which brings us to the end of the project. One last purchase to make - a can of spray paint. I bought a can of  'Rustoleum Specialty Plastic' spray paint in gloss black. I bought this because the can said it needed no primer. But first I had to protect the scenery base:

Painter's masking tape was placed inside the framework and newspaper attached to the exposed tape, then folded over and taped to itself.

All painting was done outside. The frame was given three coats of paint allowing approximately 15 minutes between coats. It's hard to tell looking at this photo but the diorama is sitting on a box and is actually raised above the plastic. This was a great paint to work with and was dry enough to handle within 30 minutes.

A little touch-up painting was done inside the framework, the trees were stuck into the Styrofoam, and the castle simply placed on the base - not glued down.  Overall I'm satisfied with the way the diorama turned out. I like the gloss black paint on the frame much more than the wood-grain effect of the original moulding and it gives a real nice contrast to the blue of the 'water' on the diorama. Showing the castle sitting on exposed rock in the middle of the river has a dramatic effect and the overall size of the diorama is just fine for placing on shelf. Hope you've liked our 'Building A  Memory - Schreiber-Bogen's "Pfalz im Rhein bei Kaub" ' series. Now let's look at the finished diorama. Enjoy!

The finished project!

The framework looks bowed but that is actually camera lens distortion. In order for me to get the side to look straight I would have had to back up from the work so far  that many of these shots would have been impossible to make. I use a Canon PowerShot A590 for my photos and while it does a fine job it does have considerable distortion. Perhaps one of these decades I'll be able to afford a better camera. Until then....