Sankei - "Paper" Kits

[cteno4]

Tony,

 

great work! These tiny bits are the hardest of the sankei to build. You jumped into the deep end here. Larger structures are easier as parts are not so tiny and the tabs and rabit joints are easier to fit. Tiny structures lie this little shrine can’t get some of the helpful assembly designs in that small and a small mistake on alignment is big in relationship to the size of the overall piece so way more noticeable if you goof on a joint.

 

kudos!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

A simple little kit. Sankei MP04-59 "Lottery Booth"

 

 

 

I painted the roofs, added some additional signs, a "glass" window, and some interior bits including the attendant and a light.

 

 

[bc6]

Oh wow thats pretty cool maihama thanks for sharing it. 

[bc6]

This is a Sankei that Ive almost completed next too an Outland Models building Ive completed. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by bc6

[cteno4]

How did you like assembling the sankei kit?

 

jeff

[bc6]

It was an interesting assembly and my first Sankei kit. I got it because no other company offered a similar building or it was out of stock. I thought the plans were amazing blueprint quality just about. I wish I was a bit more prepared to assemble the kit with the correct tools like a really sharp xacto blade, micro glue dispenser and tweezers . I may venture to do another kit if there is something that catches my eye, Overall I think it was worth the effort that I put into building this kit and will be a prized addition to my layout.

[cteno4]

Good to hear you enjoyed it. first one is the hardest to get into their process and design and then they get easier. Kind of like making oancakes, first one is usually a bit of messing with and may come out a little wonky but the rest of the batch is easy.
 

Yes they do require really sharp xacto knife tips as the sankei laserboard has a lot of hard resins in it and very hard, dense fibers that makes it hard to cut thru the little tabs. But the laserboard does not singe with cutting and is pretty robust to moisture. Might try the xacto Z series blades that have a zirconium nitride coating on the edge. They do seem to stay on the ultra sharp side longer than standard blades do. Stropping the blade edge now and then on a very fine nail file sponge also can help keep the tip cutting well on the harder stuff.

 

yes smaller glue applicator helps over using some sort of applicator to transfer little glue blobs and lines. I find the Arleen’s tacky glue is just right for sankei and paper crafting as it’s thick and does not run or overly soak papers with extra moisture and it sets pretty quickly to a good hold before full curing. You can get it in nice little pen applicators that work well for little dots and lines of glue. You can refill these from cheaper big bottle later.

 

tons of nice fine tweezers cheap on ebay if you root around. Go for stainless not the black painted ones. You can pick up pretty fine tips for under $3 and an array of tip types. Probably one of the most handiest tool to have a variety of.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[N-Osoi]

Just made my first Sankei kit, the MP04-21 public toilet 😀.

 

So small! Definitely needed two sets of tweezers, reverse tweezers, and a magnifying lamp.

 

Have only pained the walls with a dirty white colour as I preferred the white colour on the item picture to the pine-y colour of the paper/card.

 

Looking forward to making more!

 

[Pashina12]

Having had a sudden urge to do something concrete, I decided to build the little bus stop waiting shed (MP04-25 バス停A). I'm looking at that little circle of paper that's supposed to go on the signpost and wondering how in the world I'm supposed to cut that out neatly... I do have a hole punch but it's like twice the diameter of the sign... super tempted to just ignore that and use one of the bus stop signs from the GM set of street signs (35-3)...

[cteno4]

I’ve a couple of different little leather punch sets I’ve use to both cut holes in things as well as punch out small circles like this. You need to punch paper on something more stiff, I’ve used the dense photoboard and even the waste of sankei laserboard to cleanly punch out small circles.

 

jeff

[Pashina12]

Wow for C$7 that's quite the deal even if it is of "expected quality". I'll be ordering one I think, once the posties are back to work.

[cteno4]

Yeah not the best quality but fine for punching some paper, cardboard and felt. I’ve also got some small hole punches like 1.5-3mm. 
 

jeff

[bc6]

This is my latest Sankei kit, I saw a building like it on YouTube with the Yokohama logo and decided to add one of my own. It was either that or a train shop lol.

[cteno4]

Decided against Hamaya or Ohdan?

 

jeff

[bc6]

it,was actually going to be called the train shop lol 😆 

Edited February 1 by bc6

[GeorgeHInch]

I've been getting far more comfortable assembling the paper kits. I think I was very timid about applying paint and weathering them with anything liquid-based but the more I've done I've kind of realized they are less fragile/sensitive as I was worried they would be.

 

(Though I will admit painting the lines was a pain since there is still a bit of pronounced fiber from the paper to get get a straight line.)

Edited April 24 by GeorgeHInch

[bc6]

Wow, Thats a nice looking garage you did a good job on it.

[Kingmeow]

That's amazing for a paper kit!  And the camera magnifies every little detail/flaw.  I have a bunch of Sankei items in my shopping cart as I slowly plan my Japan themed T-Trak double to be used at next year's world record attempt at Chattanooga, TN, USA.

[cteno4]

Sankei kits are a great option as they have some different building designs and look than the other tomytec, greenmax and Kato buildings. The parking structure is not typical of the structures in final look, most of their buildings have a lot of small details and their construction design leads to good looking structures even when not painted. Sankei is unique in these lasercut kits in they have a laserboard that has a lot of resin in it so that it takes moisture well from painting and humidity. It keeps the stock pretty rigid and flat and has nice looking colors. That being said i still just add a few pieces of stryrene strip material on the under sides of roof pieces and any really big flat stretch just as a time precaution from sagging as even styrene roof sections can sag with enough time.

 

Biggest thing is that it hardly singes at all so in the final model you do not see burned edges of cuts that require painting and the color goes all the way thru the board so cut edges are colored not gray chipboard with only a colored face. Most of the other laster cut kits use a more regular chipboard/cardstock that singes a lot on cuts and the colored pieces are only surface colored so you need to deal with gray singed edges to either hide or paint.

 

Sankei kits are like pancakes, the first one you do will come out a little wonky. Everyone seems to do a few little flubs on the first one. But it’s mainly just getting your brain around their unique assembly design with layers and walls, create half lap joints for wall corners, and the tab system. Each step before gluing you just need to think thru positioning and orientation of the piece to make sure things are right. It’s just pausing to take your time on each glue step. In the end they go pretty quickly and you get good at them after one or two. I really enjoy putting them together and the tricks they do to layer walls to add relief around doors and windows, strengthen walls, and create good overlapping half lap joints at corners are always interesting. The layering and half lap joints make them pretty light proof if you are using leds turned way down to prototypical lighting levels. If you do want to light seal them more the construction technique makes them very easy to just add a layer of hot dog wrapper [this is just thin white paper and very thin foil for excellent light blocking and white interior walls] on the inside before assembly.

 

jeff

[Kingmeow]

On 4/25/2025 at 1:26 PM, cteno4 said:

Biggest thing is that it hardly singes at all so in the final model you do not see burned edges of cuts that require painting and the color goes all the way thru the board so cut edges are colored not gray chipboard with only a colored face. Most of the other laster cut kits use a more regular chipboard/cardstock that singes a lot on cuts and the colored pieces are only surface colored so you need to deal with gray singed edges to either hide or paint.

 

Jeff, is it possible that it's precision die cut instead of laser cut?  I only have a small test kit that I haven't opened yet.  It's a bunch of vending machines.  I figured I'll start small to test.  I'll be ordering a bunch more soon.

 

I see zero signs of singing.  I haven't cut out the parts yet so can't see the edges but all laser cut kits that I've seen have singe marks on the top and bottom surfaces at the cut, let alone the edges.

[cteno4]

Im pretty sure it’s lasercut as there are very small signs of singing here and there. Many of the parts are too small for die cuts i think as well. Even though there is a lot of resin in the chipboard there is also a lot of fiber so would expect really small bits would show some crushing. The cuts edges on the top also are very flat and if dye cut you would probably feel a bit of depression on the edges. The cuts also seem way to narrow to do with a die cutter for that stiffness of material. They also laser etch in part numbers on the boards.

 

one thing that i think makes the edge singeing not as visible for sankei is they have the fully colored material so the edge is not a white or light gray that stands out as very different from the face then draws attention to any singeing. Their material is also thin so again edge is not as visible and also they layer pieces so any edge singeing is further obfuscated.

 

When laser cutting first took off like 20 years ago for professional architectural modeling there were a ton of really cool materials available that did not do much singeing at all as well as did interesting things like you could burn off the outer colored layer to review a white/light gray core so you could eats brick or stonework with mortar. I have a friend who did this as a side business for a number of years with lasercutting and his stuff was singe free using the speciality heavy resin laserboards available at the time. But these did not stick around as soon as most of that modeling within to the big 3D powder printers. Sadly there seems to be few really good materials left that work well with laser cutting. Also it’s tuning the laser to cut just right for each material. I think folks have just gotten use to most things left doing a lot of singing. Those other japanese companies that do laser cuts use regular chipboards and they do pretty well at not burning that stuff much but you get some singeing. 

 

Jeff

[JohnnyG]

Hello from The Great white North CANADA. Now I am retired looking to get back into N SCALE TRAINS. Always been interested in Japan rail which is primarily passenger. Wher I live in Regina Saskatchewan we have only freight consisting of large AC diesel electric and 100+ freight car train running on CPKNS line.

Going to build new layout using Kato and Tomeytec rollingn stock and track. . I am interested in where i can see and buy these card  paper kit buildings. 

I will likley obtain most equipment from Banzai Models. direst from Japan.

Let me know link to paper structures and other buildings, web site where i can check them out.

[Ekiben]

@JohnnyG  Sankei kits are readily available at all the main Japanese N scale retailers (ie: AmiAmi, Plaza Japan, Hobby Search, etc…) HS has a good variety and reasonable shipping to Canada. You can get a better idea by looking here: 

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/search?typ1_c=104&cat=rail&state=&sold=0&sortid=7&searchkey=Sankei

Edited May 1 by Ekiben

[JohnnyG]

Thank for the links. This will definetly help me design my Japan Rail layout.