Sankei Miniatuart kit: Diorama MP03-38 Shrine

[JanW]

15 hours ago, Quinn said:

 

Is there a hope you'll show the finished Pagoda?

 

You've persuaded me to buy the Shrine set. It'll go in plaza's shopping cart later today. 

.

 

 

Quin,

Sorry to have you waiting. Here some pics of the complete Pagode. It was a rather fiddly 16 hour job which cannot be done without a nice pointy tweezer.  In all I am happy with the result. The first photo shows the Pagode on its target location om my layout. You see a winding road along the Onsen leading up to the Pagode site. I am still wondering if I should add a gate building and walls around the site. Also wonder if it should be lighted with a pair of spotlights from below. 
Jan

[Martijn Meerts]

12 hours ago, gavino200 said:

 

I'm about to start my first Sankei kit. What would you consider to be the correct tools? What glue do you recommend?

 

Tamiya has some glue specifically for paper kits which is supposed to work really well. I do have a tube of it myself, but haven't used it yet. It's a sort of white glue, but dries a little bit slower, so you have a little more time to move bits and pieces in place. Especially for the larger pieces like walls and such it's nice. Regular white glue works as well, but dries fast unless you thin it a bit with water, but if you think it too much, it'll affect the cardstock.

 

Other than that, the clips that Jeff linked earlier are worth having to keep pieces in place while drying.

 

[JanW]

 

In the mean time, the scenery around the shrine has been further developed. Here some pics to get the idea. 
The last photo shows the MP03-106 kit (a sort for small factory), located next a rice field. Pls do not pay attention to the black thing visible above its roof. That the vacuum cleaner tube in the distance!

 

[JanW]

12 hours ago, gavino200 said:

 

I'm about to start my first Sankei kit. What would you consider to be the correct tools? What glue do you recommend?

I use a white glue I picked up in Japan and sold specifically for the job. It dries fully transparent. It looks like a slightly diluted version of the standard white glue used for wood.

After all the work done so far I am slowly running out. Maybe some of you know where to get it on-line? What is the brandname (to allow googling)? 

Jan

 

[Yavianice]

1 hour ago, JanW said:

 

In the mean time, the scenery around the shrine has been further developed. Here some pics to get the idea.

 

Nicely done! I see you also finished the water?

 

1 hour ago, JanW said:

 

The last photo shows the MP03-106 kit (a sort for small factory), located next a rice field. Pls do not pay attention to the black thing visible above its roof. That the vacuum cleaner tube in the distance!

 

Kind of looks like the factory has a handle. Takeaway factory? ;-)

[JR 500系]

Wow! I've built some Sankei kits before, and I must say, your skills are definitely above mine! Those are nicely built! Very nice indeed!

[Martijn Meerts]

3 hours ago, JanW said:

I use a white glue I picked up in Japan and sold specifically for the job. It dries fully transparent. It looks like a slightly diluted version of the standard white glue used for wood.

After all the work done so far I am slowly running out. Maybe some of you know where to get it on-line? What is the brandname (to allow googling)? 

Jan

 

 

No clue what that brand is, but this Tamiya version is the same stuff. Probably more expensive, but should be easier to find :)

 

http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/87078bond/index.htm

 

[Quinn]

4 hours ago, JanW said:

 

Quin,

Sorry to have you waiting. Here some pics of the complete Pagode. It was a rather fiddly 16 hour job which cannot be done without a nice pointy tweezer.  In all I am happy with the result. The first photo shows the Pagode on its target location om my layout. You see a winding road along the Onsen leading up to the Pagode site. I am still wondering if I should add a gate building and walls around the site. Also wonder if it should be lighted with a pair of spotlights from below. 
Jan

 

Wonderful model and craftsmanship. Just 16 hours? I've found that the assembly times quoted by plaza (which is 16 hours with this model) need to be about doubled, so...brilliant. 

 

..

[JanW]

3 hours ago, Yavianice said:

 

Nicely done! I see you also finished the water?

 

 

Kind of looks like the factory has a handle. Takeaway factory? ;-)

 

Indeed I did the water 'my way'. Just applied several layers of clear acrylic varnish. That's all. I think I'll leave it at that.

 

The 'handle' above the factory is a huge ducting system to extract the toxic fumes from the reactor vessel. Probably making crystal in there ;-)  

[JanW]

44 minutes ago, Quinn said:

 

Wonderful model and craftsmanship. Just 16 hours? I've found that the assembly times quoted by plaza (which is 16 hours with this model) need to be about doubled, so...brilliant. 

 

..

Well, it were indeed 16 hours of frantic cutting and glueing leading to cramp in my hands! The thing is that the construction is rather repetitive. Each of the 5 layers is quite similar. Once I mastered the 'wooden' roof construction details (the most complex part of it all) for the lowest roof, the others are very much the same albeit a bit smaller going up. Like I learned in college, repetitive tasks are done faster each repetition. By the time I was done I found out that I forgot the roof tiles. These are printed on a separate paper. The Japanese instructions make a note about glueing the roof tile sheets to the roof, but I had obviously missed that! Luckily I could easily cut them out and glue them on the roof without leaving seams at the ridges. 

[Martijn Meerts]

I have Sankei's Spirited Away bath house kit.. Hobby Search said in a blog post that it took 2 of their people about 100 hours to build that thing.. I haven't dared starting on it yet :D

 

[JanW]

18 hours ago, gavino200 said:

 

I'm about to start my first Sankei kit. What would you consider to be the correct tools? What glue do you recommend?

With help of friend in Japan I found where you can buy the glue I use: https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B00HFO61VG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_o9y-AbVB8Z1VE

You get the indispensible tweezers with it!

[bill937ca]

3 hours ago, Martijn Meerts said:

 

No clue what that brand is, but this Tamiya version is the same stuff. Probably more expensive, but should be easier to find :)

 

http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/87078bond/index.htm

 

 

Tamiya Craft Bond is sold by Hobby Search   https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10043289

 

I use it all the time.

[cteno4]

jan,

 

excellent work on the pagoda! KUDOs! now seeing yours i want one!

 

i got a tube of the tamiya (from hs thanks to bill finding it a while back!) and it looks, smells and acts like the usual thicker pva glue you can get in most countries. here i the us its usually arleen's tacky glue and its just thick pva glue. you can get it in a dispenser pen as well. nice thing with the thicker is less water so less prone to any warping with the water getting into the chipboard (although the sankei chipboard appears to be pretty impregnated with resin and less prone to glue warping than plain old cardstock in cardstock modeling) and it holds better when placed and drys faster. arleens even has a faster drying version.

 

much cheaper at your local craft store...

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Aleenes-28069-Tacky-Dring-2-Pack/dp/B006GN4042/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526328619&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=arleen+tacky+glue+pen

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Aleenes-Turbo-Tacky-Glue-2-Pak/dp/B007V063OY/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1526328619&sr=8-3-fkmr0&keywords=arleen+tacky+glue+pen

 

ive also got some yes paste to try on doing larger walls. artists love it as it does not cause any warping when doing paper collages and figured it might work well to really cement wall layers totally together rather than a few dots and may help with long term stability against warping. i heard about it thru some card stock modelers who do a lot of laminating. been meaning to run some tests on cardstock first.

 

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B000S10SNU/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1 

 

i love these little flat hair clips to hold sankei parts together. they give just enough pressure to hold things but not move them. also handy for making simple corner clamps for walls. you can also bend them up easily as necessary. usually found at your local dollar store, ebay or such cheap

 

https://smile.amazon.com/Powerfulline-Silver-Single-Alligator-Barrette/dp/B077G22PKQ/ref=sr_1_36_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1526329001&sr=8-36&keywords=hair+clips+flat

 

cheers

 

jeff

[gavino200]

Thanks for the information guys. I'm going to pick up some of each of the three glues mentioned above. You can never have too many glues. 

 

Have any of you ever tried this stuff - E6000  https://www.amazon.com/E6000-5510310-Craft-Adhesive-Mini/dp/B00CB3BZBW/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1526329529&sr=8-6&keywords=glue+6000

 

I started out using white glue on this Sankei building. I obviously added too much glue because, the glued piece warped immediately. I got it to dry flat by pressing it. But I thought that the warping must have been because it was a water based glue. So I switched to this E6000 stuff, which I've had for a while but never used. 

 

It was pretty good. Enough bond to hold surfaces together straight away if they're right. But also slow drying enough, so you can slide the card pieces around for quite a while to get them just right. It seemed good. Anyone know of a reason why it's not ideal? Less strong than taky glue/ Tamiya glue? 

[cteno4]

Gavin,

 

were you using regular white glue? I’ve not warped a piece of sankei yet, expect it may have been too much glue, especially if runnier kind. I’ve mostly used the Arleen’s tacky glues but also used old organic solvent based wood glue (used for balsa models) which is very similar to the E6000 and they have worked fine.

 

while the pen applicator is nice you can just as easily use toothpicks or makeup applicators to make little dots quickly from a small blob of glue.

 

try the Arleen’s tacky, you don’t need much, small dots usually are plenty to hold most parts together well. Have you looked at the videos todd posted in the other sankei thread? Shows how little is needed to put most bits together. I was just looking at the paste as something to maybe give a bit more of a long term stiffening layer to the walls w.o warping that would happen if pva was used over the whole wall. But really may not be needed at all with the sankei chipboard.

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

[gavino200]

16 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Gavin,

 

were you using regular white glue? I’ve not warped a piece of sankei yet, expect it may have been too much glue, especially if runnier kind. I’ve mostly used the Arleen’s tacky glues but also used old organic solvent based wood glue (used for balsa models) which is very similar to the E6000 and they have worked fine.

 

while the pen applicator is nice you can just as easily use toothpicks or makeup applicators to make little dots quickly from a small blob of glue.

 

try the Arleen’s tacky, you don’t need much, small dots usually are plenty to hold most parts together well. Have you looked at the videos todd posted in the other sankei thread? Shows how little is needed to put most bits together. I was just looking at the paste as something to maybe give a bit more of a long term stiffening layer to the walls w.o warping that would happen if pva was used over the whole wall. But really may not be needed at all with the sankei chipboard.

 

Cheers,

 

jeff

 

Regular "Elmer's" glue. I didn't put gobs on but I spread it around evenly. It was my first piece to glue. I noticed about ten minutes later that I missed the "instruction" about a .2mm step off. I thought the the building was effed up, but I was able to separate the pieces with a sharp knife. No damage, but I quickly learned how much I had to obsess over those little drawings (and use google translate if in any doubt at all). 

 

I saw your post about the Arleen pen. I ordered a couple. But I'm thinking of sticking with the 6000. I like that it gives you quite a while to adjust the pieces to perfection.

Edited May 15, 2018 by gavino200

[cteno4]

Yeah that’s the trick with sankei, lots of prefitting to make sure you have it the right way as instructions are minimal. Also use a mechanical pencil to make orienting marks as many pieces you can easily accidentally rotate 90 degrees being almost square but not quite as well as get tab holes in the wrong place flipping them over... there is also an odd thing of sllmthe pieces basically being 2d but you are building something in 3d, brain needs to be flipping back and forth a lot more than regular plastic models that are mucho more 3d parts.

 

Elmers does have a fair bit of water in it so spreading it on will probably lead to warping. Most of parts are fine with a few small dots.

 

arleens does not dry super fast about the same as the e6000.

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

The good thing is, you really learn what to be careful of with Sankei kits after you built and messed up 1 or 2 of them 😄

 

[cteno4]

Yep really good to pick a more inexpensive one to do first! I should look thru all i have and see which ones look like they have the most gotchas for a cheaper price as suggested ones for folks to cut their teeth on!

 

i used the little police substation and it was simple and cheap, but it had wall sections that were like 1mm different so really easy to get the wrong one in the wrong place! but im sure there are others that have some of the tab bits and fiddly parts that are good practice as well!

 

they are not rocket science, but they aint a tomytec assembly either!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Quinn]

13 hours ago, cteno4 said:

 

.................

they are not rocket science, but they aint a tomytec assembly either!

 

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

That's a fact! 

 

Assembly time is prolonged by making extra checks about that light-leak problem, ensuring the wall seams as sealed, and on. 

 

Cheers,

Quinn

[cteno4]

At least the usual Rabbet joint construction of sankei buildings are a bit better than the flat joints of many tomytec (that usually also have small warps in the walls that don’t make them sit perfectly flat all the time at corners).

 

bits of small styrene L stock or folded cardstock can be used to seal corners easily. Turning down leds a lot and using 2or 3 in a building in different areas also helps as well to keep light leaks down as many happen when they are up at full 20ma (ie mini sun level). Also using an smd led and pointing it down with a small shade around it so you get a lot of reflected light bouncing around cuts off down on the large direct light leaks. Also a couple of wall baffles to make different parts of the structure have different lighting, or none.

 

a lot of space ship modelers use thick toullie paint (its thick acrylic paint for doing 3d painted tee shirts) to cover seams internally. I’ve experiemnted with it and it seems to work well to help double up interior joints instead of L stock, but have not used it extensively. Again I’ve found that turning the leds way down and shielding then some is usually most of the solution. Also gives a more realistic lighting event as we rarely light a house with a single bare 10,000watt lightbulb.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

6 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

 

a lot of space ship modelers use thick toullie paint (its thick acrylic paint for doing 3d painted tee shirts) to cover seams internally. I’ve experiemnted with it and it seems to work well to help double up interior joints instead of L stock, but have not used it extensively.

 

I've tried the T-shirt paint. It's Ok, but not great. What works better is two coats, black then white. The black makes the wall/corner opaque. The white overcoat provides reflection.

[cteno4]

Gavin,

 

i remeber you tired it. Did you turn the led way down? When I tried the white on a tomytec it sealed the small usual corner cracks fine at low led level.

 

i want to try to do a lot of lighting stuff later this year and really do some nice descriptions and series of test showing different things.

 

jeff

[gavino200]

48 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Gavin,

 

i remeber you tired it. Did you turn the led way down? When I tried the white on a tomytec it sealed the small usual corner cracks fine at low led level.

 

i want to try to do a lot of lighting stuff later this year and really do some nice descriptions and series of test showing different things.

 

jeff

 

No, I tried it on a Kato building. They're quite a bit more transparent than Tomytec.