Tokyo Diorama Factory - "Paper" Kits

[disturbman]

Tokyo Diorama Factory (TDF) produces "paper" kits similar to Sankei, pre-lasercut chipboard, and has a growing catalogue of contemporary structures. Their catalogue has expanded nicely since I started visiting their websites a few months ago.

https://tokyodioramafactory.stores.jp/

 

Main difficulty is that so far retailers do not stock their products and you need to order via RailGallery Rokko or ModelTrainPlus using their personal shopper services. It might be possible to order via ZenMarket as well but I have not tried.

 

Staff note: the .jp site above only sells in Japan, but manufacturer also sells their products at tokyodioramafactory.com to the USA, Canada, Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore, and Australia, but at a 50-100% price increase over the Japanese list price! Read the rest of this topic to find more reasonable exporters of their products.

[disturbman]

I built my first kit today. Material wise, the quality seems on par to Sankei's. This is durable and quality chipboard. My impression is that the printing is simpler, but I started with a contemporary house and these are usually featureless. The comparison with Sankei's kits which focuses on older buildings, wood and brick, is then hard to make with certainty.

Content of the kit:

 

 

I noted at least two main difference, if Sankei makes you laminate the walls (glass-interior wall-exterior wall-window frame) before fitting to the base and building the structure of the building, TDF makes you laminate the exterior wall after putting the inner structure of the kit together.

 

Lining up the details, the exterior wall are made of two pieces, was easier than anticipated. I used the tip of the exacto knife to place the thin bottom piece and used its handle to press it against the inner wall. A burnisher tool could have been useful. I was happy to have magnetic corners to hold the press the exterior walls against the interior ones.

 

I did a coupler of errors while building the kit, notably inverted two walls which means some of the pre-made holes on the base didn't match the door configuration. I could have swap the walls again but couldn't get bothered risking to destroy the walls, as I was not sure how well the glue had set. I also, I believe, fitted the frames the wrong way, as one side is perfectly white and the other has a slight brown discoloration/hue where the laser cut the board.



What I appreciated with this kit, is that the smaller details (like the roofed structure above the entrance door) are very easy to fit. Much easier than Sankei's. The holes are bigger and the details easier to handle.

For comparison, next to two different Sankei kits:

 

For reference, for those afraid these kits would not hold in the long term, I built the house in the middle in 2009/2010. These kits are very stable in Berlin's weather.

[cteno4]

Thanks very much for the review! Looks to be a good addition to building selection.

 

so is their laserboard colored all the way thru or did you touch up the edges with a marker? How does their laserboard feel for stiffness and hardness compared to sankei’s?

 

my sankeis have lasted about the same amount of time here, we get pretty big swings in humidity (the higher ones are muted due to the ac’s dehumidifier some). Only thing I’ve ever added anything to was one larger roof section I thought might sag given enough time as it wasn’t really supported on the middle at all. Most of their kits have internal walls supporting the roofs at a number of places.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[JR 500系]

Thank you for the excellent review! Great skills there by the way on the completed house!

 

I love their buildings, but really, i dont have the estate space for them... wished someone invented floating buildings on the layout  😛

[disturbman]

6 hours ago, cteno4 said:

so is their laserboard colored all the way thru or did you touch up the edges with a marker? How does their laserboard feel for stiffness and hardness compared to sankei’s?

The board feels similar to Sankei in stiffness and hardness. My only question about durability is the bond between interior and exterior wall. With Sankei kits I would just let the walls dry sandwiched and press down between two pieces of blotting paper and wood, here, I didn't let the glue fully glue before moving on as I couldn't really let everything on the table for another day. I'll take more time with the next.

I have trouble deciding on the color, if it's indeed only colored on the outside or if the slight difference in color is due to the laser. The difference is subtle, notably on the green, more like a hue of the exterior color of the board rather than completely different color. There are no differences between the exterior surface and the edge on the browns and reds. I didn't do any touch-ups, I wanted to see how the kit felt finished. The edges are noticeably but not to the point of being distracting. It mostly accentuates the corners of the house.

I'll report more on this when I do the second kit. I might try touching up the corners as the house is supposedly white.
 

1 hour ago, JR 500系 said:

Great skills there by the way on the completed house! I love their buildings, but really, i dont have the estate space for them... wished someone invented floating buildings on the layout

Thanks, it's far from perfect. I rushed a bit on this one. Well, I think you would have a easy way to add floating buildings on your layout. Just place them on the glass panel above it.

[Wolf]

14 hours ago, disturbman said:

I was happy to have magnetic corners

I never saw one of these o.O Where did you get them?

Otherwise, great job. Seems this Forum will not cease to tempt me to build "something" finally XD

[disturbman]

eBay, search for "model magnetic clamps" or "Magnet Klemmen". There are a few different models. I chose the smallest available, 2.7cm. these are 3D-printed and seems to do the trick.

[cteno4]

There was a company in Greece or turkey selling them on ebay at reasonable prices.

 

there was a small company selling some really great tiny ones (like 1” on a side) but they have been oos for a year now most all places. Micromark also has a set of smaller ones.

 

a lot of the time with the sankei and especially papercraft I find the magnetic corner clamps a bit hard to work with at times as they suck in hard and as they do can slide things some. Just requires fiddling with final fit once clamps are in place and they don’t like to be fiddled with once locked in.

 

for sankei I like using alligator hair clips that you can bend to parallels that are 2 or 3 layers of sankei laserboard thick. Just enough pressure to hold stuff together well and in place but not enough pressure to move/slide stuff. Easy to fiddle with.

 

https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/6483-simple-clips/

 

I also made corner clamps out of them by epoxying them to a small block of wood.

 

https://jnsforum.com/community/topic/6573-i-so-want-this-but-the-price/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-75178

 

jeff

[disturbman]

19 hours ago, cteno4 said:

a lot of the time with the sankei and especially papercraft I find the magnetic corner clamps a bit hard to work with at times as they suck in hard and as they do can slide things some.

Didn't had any trouble with these. The magnets are neodymium but are also small. I was able to move them around without destroying or moving anything. The biggest annoyance was the lack of clearance inside the kit.

 

To protect the details, it would be possible to lay a piece of carboard/paper between the magnets and the surface of the kit. Very similar to how I usually press the layers together on Sankei kits.

[Cat]

Currently on a ZenMarket shopping spree, stocking up on items in the warehouse to consolidate shipping; was browsing the N scale structures on YAJ and spotted these Tokyo Diorama Factory kits.  Looks like they might be offered by the company itself, seems like everything is listed and the opening bid is the retail price.
 
But it's easy to do direct purchases through ZenMarket too.  Just enter the URL for the item and the quantity you want to buy.  I added a note with each order that it was '1 of 3 items I wanted to purchase' to help make sure ZM bought them all together.
 
Roxanne & I checked out the line, and these kits caught our eyes: a fun detached house, a cram school, and a small customer parking lot.  ZM charged their usual item fee of 300¥ for each different item.  As a single combined order though, it's just the TDF flat rate for shipping within Japan = 250¥ for the lot.

[Darklighter]

Tokyo Diorama Factory has started shipping internationally (USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan): https://tokyodioramafactory.com/

[cteno4]

Wow I just went back to their site and they have quite a selection now of interesting buildings. They look to be a good compliment to sankei and other buildings. Price was a big more than others, but I broke down and dropped some money on a wide selection of things to try out.

 

jeff

[kami_illy]

Uhhh, nice selection. So much cool stuff. Unfortunately no shipping to Europe... Maybe I'll be able to get some next summer (when my plan to be in JPN for vacation works out). 

[cteno4]

J-scale.com to the rescue! They are distributing Tokyo Diorama Factory in Europe! 
 

https://www.j-scale.com/tdf

 

 

jeff

[MeTheSwede]

They are available on Hobbysearch too.

[cteno4]

Yes I forgot that when it was what made me go look at them again as a hobby search recently sent out a newsletter on them.

 

DOH! I just looked at hobby search’s prices and they are almost half of Tokyo diorama factory web site price. What?! I figured it would be list price maybe, but stupid me did not check. I’m going to drop them a note to find out why this is.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Something is way off on their .com site with prices in usd almost 2x higher in many items than their .jp site which has the lists prices hobby search uses. I’ve sent them a note but I would not buy from the .com site until I hear back on what is going on.

 

i don’t know what got into me as I always (well not always) do a check around on prices just to make sure things are right. The prices seemed abnormally high and it should have rung all the alarms, but stupid me no this time.

 

jeff

[GeorgeHInch]

3 hours ago, cteno4 said:

prices in usd almost 2x higher in many items than their .jp site

Oh I noticed this too. This is what stopped me from ordering anything from them. Let me know if you hear back from them.

[cteno4]

I just heard back and they say the prices on the international .com site are raised to cover their “risk” of exporting the items. What risk they dont accept returns. I could see a small amount but the more expensive items were twice price of their Japanese list price. They said they would make a refund of the item price minus shipping cost to me if I shipped it back to them unopened. Yeah right at this point it probably would not show up. It was not your usual polite Japanese business response, more like tough luck.

 

It’s tainted me from ever buying from them on principle now. It’s a very deceptive system for risk that is just not there for them, it’s predatory.

 

if you do want to buy from them use HS not the tokyodioramafactory.com site.

 

I still can’t see why I placed the order without looking around first, guess it was too late at night and feeling rich,  that’s my fault. But this is just a horrible business practice to try and prey on folks outside Japan for those that may not know about other sources for purchase! Costs them no more other than little bit of export papers as well as simple English web site (based on their .jp site).

 

jeff

[kami_illy]

13 hours ago, MeTheSwede said:

They are available on Hobbysearch too.

True. I forgot to check there.... how could I ?? 😅 

 

4 hours ago, cteno4 said:

...

 

I still can’t see why I placed the order without looking around first, guess it was too late at night and feeling rich,  that’s my fault.

...

 

jeff

Haha, I know that feeling. Is like being in a bidding rush on eBay or buyee... I bought some "not really necessary" stuff or at too high prices as well. As long as you learn from this experience (at least a little) 😉

[cteno4]

Yeah dumb, dumb, dumb! But goes to show you can do this for a few decades and still screw up. I’m not so mad about it as my experience (I should have know better), but for newbies that may not yet know where to buy stuff and get ripped off like this by the manufacturer no less. Hobbysearch and j-scale export their items with out enormous markups for export “risk”. But caveat emptor, except newbies may not know better.

 

jeff

[Wolf]

As for TDF, yes, their Export prices are sadly higher than their JP ones. We also had to sign that we dont Undercut them, so hearing that HS sells them that low is actually a blessing and a letdown to me as well, as they seem not to care about that at all.

 

I will talk to TDF of they will release us of the obligation of fixes pricings, but no promises.

 

Stephan 

[cteno4]

Bummer, I didn’t realize they were keeping you at their export list price, not their Japanese list price. This really stinks if they are sticking you at their inflated export price as well so they can try to keep their .com site going. Really is a crappy business practice of theirs. While their export may require a small amount of work to add some to an export price it does not warrant them forcing a 80-95% increases. But even small shops in Japan handle exporting without adding a big surcharge. I expect maybe they feel it won’t sell big outside Japan so if they do sell some they can get a premium. Bummed you have to deal with this.
 

I think the hs discount is like 5%, the usual for items that have a margin (I’ve been told sankei is like this with low margins for stores to discount from). I expect tdr just think hs is selling in Japan and not exporting. Looks like they are just going onto Amazon.co.jp as well but all listed at preorder at really silly prices, so don’t know if they will be available for export or at a different price.

 

At their high export prices I don’t see them getting a lot of business along with the higher international shipping rates, so they are just killing their own business outside Japan.
 

Jeff

[Wolf]

Tbf, i believe they just didnt realise HS is a massive Export Powerhouse.

 

I keep you updated.

[Martijn Meerts]

It's a bit strange that they charge so much more outside Japan, but judging by the pictures, the detailing on the kits is probably worth even the increased price. Especially when compared to (Euro brand) plastic kits.

 

But yeah, seeing the price difference does make me a lot more hesitant to buy stuff from them, even though they have quite a few things I'm interested in.