new apartment buildings from Skynet (Aoshima)

[cteno4]

Some interesting new pre built buildings from Skynet. looks alot like the green max apt bldgs but larger and with some nice little details. pre painted and assembled. hw has them for 20% off list on pre order and shipping seems very low on the item for some reason!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

http://www.hwjapan.com/sh/SKY09082701.aspx

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10097450

[CaptOblivious]

Some interesting new pre built buildings from Skynet. looks alot like the green max apt bldgs but larger and with some nice little details. pre painted and assembled. hw has them for 20% off list on pre order and shipping seems very low on the item for some reason!

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

http://www.hwjapan.com/sh/SKY09082701.aspx

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10097450

 

 

 

 

Saw those listed today…the futons are a really nice touch, I think, but the price is a bit steep; I'd rather scratchbuild at that price point.

[cteno4]

Well, not compared to other prebuilt structures. its two good sized buildings and all built and painted to boot! they are only $18 each (you get 2 for $36). most assembled small buildings from tomix and kato are $12-25 and this is bigger than most of them out there! definitely cheaper than some of katos smaller offerings!

 

to build a greenmax apartment building this size kitbashing with their kits would take at least three kits at $40 total.

 

of course scratch building can be very cheap in materials if your time is free! Personally, i save my scratch building time for the odd things that cant get bought at a reasonable price.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

I concede the point! I was reading it more as $40 for one building, but I think you are right that there are two. Perhaps not such a bad deal after all ;)

 

Well, not compared to other prebuilt structures. its two good sized buildings and all built and painted to boot! they are only $18 each (you get 2 for $36). most assembled small buildings from tomix and kato are $12-25 and this is bigger than most of them out there! definitely cheaper than some of katos smaller offerings!

 

to build a greenmax apartment building this size kitbashing with their kits would take at least three kits at $40 total.

 

of course scratch building can be very cheap in materials if your time is free! Personally, i save my scratch building time for the odd things that cant get bought at a reasonable price.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

 

[cteno4]

I concede the point! I was reading it more as $40 for one building, but I think you are right that there are two. Perhaps not such a bad deal after all ;)

 

sorry didnt mean to bulldog you!

 

Actually i must admit that it was also my first reaction that it was $40 for one and automatically made the comparison in my head to the greenmax set of TWO apartment buildings for $13! then upon closer look i realized it was like 3x the size of the greenmax, there were TWO buildings, then i came the cute little details, and then found it at hw for $36, and then i hit the pre-order button... btw it was only 480yen sal shipping! got too good to pass up even though i do have two unbuilt greenmax apt bldg kits here already, but figure ill use them in a different way. was going to make them taller with the two kits, but probably do a very dense low rise apt complex with them now.

 

I really do like how they added some nice additions to the set. i wish more of the building kits added a few simple addons like this that you could sprinkle onto/around bldgs and use the spares on others. you can make your own easily enough, just nice to see them thinking the extra step, usually means things are thought through a bit more.

 

it will be interesting to see if these come apart by floor lines easily to make taller or shorter units as well. would be nice if they are modular like the tomix highrise! i could see one of these going up like 2x high.

 

i wonder if this is the beginning of new structures coming from Skynet/Aoshima in n scale? my little bongo is somewhere in the mail. would be nice to have another company making structures! makes sense that HW is selling it at $36, they are run by Aoshima! they have a cute little electric loco coming also:

 

http://www.hwjapan.com/sh/SKY2009082701.aspx

 

cheers

 

jeff

[CaptOblivious]

I concede the point! I was reading it more as $40 for one building, but I think you are right that there are two. Perhaps not such a bad deal after all ;)

 

sorry didnt mean to bulldog you!

 

No bulldogging on your part—I was just making a simple concession that my initial opinion was mistaken :D  No worries!

[cteno4]

Doug Coster mentioned over on jrforum that Aoshima has been showing a triangular apartment building for a couple of years now and was surprised that their first release was this unit! lets hope that means they are thinking of doing more!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

HW just emailed me that these are NOT prebuilt, BUT prepainted assembly kits.  I already knew this.  I first saw these listed on Hobby Search which is marked "Painted Assembly Kit"  I presume this kit will be like a Tomytec structure, but bigger.

 

Hobby Search also has good photos.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10097449

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10097449

[cteno4]

Yes got the notice also, hope this means that they can be easily built up taller easily!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

My kit just arrived.  It's in a huge box 15" x 11" x 5" deep.  It's a huge job.  Every single apartment balcony has to be added individually.    I won't be adding this to the layout for quite some time, not until at least after Christmas. It is pre-colored, but most parts are a light gray color. Lots and lots of work and even more work if you want to re-paint anything.  I thought this would be much like a Tomytec kit, but bigger.  Instead it turns out to be a much more involved project.

[bill937ca]

My kit just arrived.  It's in a huge box 15" x 11" x 5" deep.  It's a huge job.  Every single apartment balcony has to be added individually.    I won't be adding this to the layout for quite some time, not until at least after Christmas. It is pre-colored, but most parts are a light gray color. Lots and lots of work and even more work if you want to re-paint anything.  I thought this would be much like a Tomytec kit, but bigger.  Instead it turns out to be a much more involved project.

 

HS has some very good photos to show you what I'm talking about.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10097449n7/40/7

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/image/10097449n10/40/10

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10097449

[Lawrence]

My kit just arrived.  It's in a huge box 15" x 11" x 5" deep.  It's a huge job.  Every single apartment balcony has to be added individually.    I won't be adding this to the layout for quite some time, not until at least after Christmas. It is pre-colored, but most parts are a light gray color. Lots and lots of work and even more work if you want to re-paint anything.  I thought this would be much like a Tomytec kit, but bigger.  Instead it turns out to be a much more involved project.

 

Think of the fun you will have though, are you going to kit bash it at all, you could get 4 lo profile blocks out of that lot

[cteno4]

I made the mistake of getting too excited by these and pre-ordered two sets. well when i pre-ordered the weight of the packages was not know, but i figured it would be about the usual size weight of other kato/tomix/green max buildings, but then when i got the order notice from hw, it was like $60 shipping sal! turns out it was over 2kg for two sets of two so then you bump up to international parcel post which is about the same cost as EMS (in fact in a certain range of weights ems is cheaper!). I had not know this before and i could have sworn i saw an sal table on japan mail's site that had it pretty much half of ems. always knew the best deal for sal was small packets for the small items (i think less than 500g), but had never seen it revert to this other scale at 2kg. maybe this is new or the first order i have done over 2kg sal, but i dont think so!

 

anyhow make sure that if your order is over 2kg either split it into two orders if you want cheap sal shipping or go all the way for ems and get tracking, speed, and insurance for about the same cost!

 

hw was nice enough to redo the order as two orders as sal (saved like $40!) and they are beefing up the sal shipping faq to make sure folks know about this!

 

hw has a nice table here with rate comparisons:

 

http://www.hwjapan.com/ems_sal.aspx

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

And if there wasn't lots of detail already, now there is a up grade parts set coming out in January.

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10103739

[Martijn Meerts]

Nice, I like small detail bits and pieces =)

[cteno4]

hmm wonder how many pieces in the set? at $37 you could buy a lot of bikes and detail parts. clothes are a nice detail. could print those, but might be tough to get them liked up on a double sided printing or sandwiching!

 

interesting to see these got picked up for details so fast! in japan there are a lot of small operations doing specialty details like this, we just never see them outside japan much at all!

 

i am really hoping that aoshima does a bunch more n scale buildings like this!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Hezekiah Strawbody]

The limit for SAL Small Packet is 2kg, so if your parcel goes over 2kg, it will go into the 'normal' SAL rate table, which as you have already found, can be close to the EMS rate. Some companies will do the obvious thing and separate your shipment into smaller Small Packet parcels, so that the 2 parcels will be about half the cost of one by SAL. Others obviously don't know this or don't care !

 

I made the mistake of getting too excited by these and pre-ordered two sets. well when i pre-ordered the weight of the packages was not know, but i figured it would be about the usual size weight of other kato/tomix/green max buildings, but then when i got the order notice from hw, it was like $60 shipping sal! turns out it was over 2kg for two sets of two so then you bump up to international parcel post which is about the same cost as EMS (in fact in a certain range of weights ems is cheaper!). I had not know this before and i could have sworn i saw an sal table on japan mail's site that had it pretty much half of ems. always knew the best deal for sal was small packets for the small items (i think less than 500g), but had never seen it revert to this other scale at 2kg. maybe this is new or the first order i have done over 2kg sal, but i dont think so!

 

anyhow make sure that if your order is over 2kg either split it into two orders if you want cheap sal shipping or go all the way for ems and get tracking, speed, and insurance for about the same cost!

 

hw was nice enough to redo the order as two orders as sal (saved like $40!) and they are beefing up the sal shipping faq to make sure folks know about this!

 

hw has a nice table here with rate comparisons:

 

http://www.hwjapan.com/ems_sal.aspx

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

The limit for SAL Small Packet is 2kg, so if your parcel goes over 2kg, it will go into the 'normal' SAL rate table, which as you have already found, can be close to the EMS rate. Some companies will do the obvious thing and separate your shipment into smaller Small Packet parcels, so that the 2 parcels will be about half the cost of one by SAL. Others obviously don't know this or don't care !

 

not too long back i do remember putting in some weight values that i think went up to like 3-5kg into the japan post postage calculator and they came back with SAL rates that were not as high as the international parcel post rates, i think the worst they got was like 70% of ems (which for something that heavy is a good chunk of change!).

 

Curious as to which shops have you found will split orders to keep it under the 2kg limit? I have not seen this as an automatic with any of the shops i have dealt with. usually just the choice of shipping type (and some are only ems!)

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Just noticed that Permil (M's Craft) is also selling the bikes and laundry sets separate at nice prices. wonder if they are etched metal or laser cut chipboard? would think the bikes would need to etched brass to bend the trike front wheels on straight.

 

cool they also have unicycles! never seen unicycles or tricycles in n scale before!

 

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10103742

http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10103740

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

The stuff looks like etched metal from the (rather crappy) pictures.

[Hezekiah Strawbody]

Something else I have come across is that some dealers will send a parcel over 2kg using SAL "Printed Matter", which goes up in the same increments as "Small Packet" but doesnt stop at 2kg, so it comes in way under the "Standard" SAL rate. Another rule that can be bent is some dealers will and some won't undervalue the parcels contents for customs purposes.

 

The limit for SAL Small Packet is 2kg, so if your parcel goes over 2kg, it will go into the 'normal' SAL rate table, which as you have already found, can be close to the EMS rate. Some companies will do the obvious thing and separate your shipment into smaller Small Packet parcels, so that the 2 parcels will be about half the cost of one by SAL. Others obviously don't know this or don't care !

 

not too long back i do remember putting in some weight values that i think went up to like 3-5kg into the japan post postage calculator and they came back with SAL rates that were not as high as the international parcel post rates, i think the worst they got was like 70% of ems (which for something that heavy is a good chunk of change!).

 

Curious as to which shops have you found will split orders to keep it under the 2kg limit? I have not seen this as an automatic with any of the shops i have dealt with. usually just the choice of shipping type (and some are only ems!)

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Something else I have come across is that some dealers will send a parcel over 2kg using SAL "Printed Matter", which goes up in the same increments as "Small Packet" but doesnt stop at 2kg, so it comes in way under the "Standard" SAL rate. Another rule that can be bent is some dealers will and some won't undervalue the parcels contents for customs purposes.

 

Never found any dealers i have use bending either the printed matter or the valuation rules. all on the up and up.

 

Hobbyworld has never done this and they are the major source of my SAL shipping. Always very straight forward and helpful with issues like this. i was impressed they beefed up their shipping FAQ on the matter once i bumped into this.

 

cheers

 

jeff