Sankei - "Paper" Kits

[Hobby Dreamer]

I'm looking for the Nara Station kit but none of the old links work..

 

Does anyone remember this kit? Was is not a Sankei model?

 

 

Thanks

Rick

[Darklighter]

http://item.rakuten.co.jp/sankeishop/mikm301-06/

 

Seems to be sold out. 

[cteno4]

the Nara station does show that Sankei could do a tokyo station kit! maybe even at a reasonable price!

 

jeff

[rocketv]

Hi all,

 

I'm new to the party, but I've had some success with several Sankei kits and have found that Elmer's "Xtreme" brand glue stick works great for ease of use and strength when assembling these structures. The glue is strong, goes where you put it and doesn't soak into the chip board material like CA does. I was using Ailene's Tacky Glue with micro brushes as applicators, but the glue stick does away with the need for an applicator, freeing up money for more kits. (cool)

 

Richard

 

 

 

Edited March 5, 2013 by rocketv

[cteno4]

Richard,

 

Interesting, I'll have to pick one of those up to play with. How does the xtreme glue stick hold up with time? Do you use it for the big lamination joints only or also for the small corner and edge joints as well?

 

Thanks

 

Jeff

Edited March 5, 2013 by cteno4

[tossedman]

Bringing back a thread from a couple of years ago. Just watched an interesting video on building a Sankei house.

 

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

Edited December 17, 2015 by tossedman

[enodenlover]

Thanks for posting this, tossedman. Sankai makes a number of really nice looking structures and I've been tempted many times to order one, especially the bi-level parking garage, but I'm such a klutz that I'm sure I'd mess it up beyond saving. I never was that skillful a model builder and the surgery I had on my hands a few years back certainly didn't help things any. Maybe one of these days I'll order one of their simpler ( and cheaper ) kits and give it a try.

[cteno4]

Nice video, gives a good feel for doing a sankei kit. These totoro ones are a bit more complex than the regular buildings, but basically the same steps.

 

They are not bad to do, just takes a little time and care, but nothing special is needed. Try one of the little kits first go learn on before doing a larger one.

 

I find them very zen to put together!

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[inobu]

That was really enjoyable.

 

Jeff, I'm glad you said, "Try one of the little kits first go learn on before doing a larger one." because I usually get two kits. One to learn from and the second one to actually do but this video gives you a visual trial run.

 

I never cared for paper buildings but after seeing this I think with the right combination paper buildings can make plastic models obsolete. 

 

Inobu

[tossedman]

Here's another Sankei kit build.

 

Todd

Edited December 19, 2015 by tossedman

[cteno4]

Inobu,

 

Yeah I learned a lot from the little police building, like writing the parts in pencil on the back of all the pieces, carefully test fitting each piec as some are just like 1mm larger than others, and experimenting with glues and claps was well worth it before moving onto larger kits.

 

I like the little micro white glue dispenser in the video!

 

The great combo will be when they do the detail buts in 3Dthat don't work well in 2d laser cut parts.

 

Cheers,

 

Jeff

[tossedman]

And here's a corner store.

 

[JR 500系]

            Thanks for posting that video Todd! It clears up a lot of doubts we have regarding paper structures! I'm not skilled at my hands for these too and I guess that should be simple enough to construct!  :)

 

 

 

especially the bi-level parking garage,

 

This one I presume?

 

 

Hey me too! I thought this look pretty good!

 

 

 

A good and smaller alternative for the previous (and now sold out) Aoshima multi-level carpark.

 

 

 

This is also nice, a smaller, carpark lot for private houses. Looks very alike to real life car parks in Japan too.

 

 

 

 

I never cared for paper buildings but after seeing this I think with the right combination paper buildings can make plastic models obsolete. 

 

Inobu

 

 

Inobu san, paper buildings are very nice indeed as fillings for the layout! Some of them look amazing, like the Jio World structures. They also cost much lesser than plastic ones, and also save a ton on shipping for those self-make paper kits! A great way to fill up the layout! Only downside is, they are not 'lighting-ready' (as in cannot place lights in them directly) and will need some extra work to place lights in them...

[inobu]

Jeff,

 

Yes, I just shook my head when I saw him put those glue dots. That's so logical.

 

 

Jr500

 

As I look at these kits there are a few extra steps that can enhance the results drastically. Air brushing shades of color onto some back pieces.

 

Also using 123 blocks and assembling on a glass sheet instead of the cutting mat. The smaller pieces has to be square.

The edges of the roof/tile should have a lead pencil ran along the edges to cover the white paper exposed by the knife cuts. The signage (Coke) should be covered with clear tape to give a glossy look giving the look of a plastic sign.

 

I think the lighting can be completed with magnet wire and smd LEDs.

 

I think I'm going to order a few kits to see.

 

Also I'm seeing that railing is far superior in paper than plastic.

 

 

 

Inobu

Edited December 18, 2015 by inobu

[cteno4]

I really do like the sankei kits. they offer a nice look and a bit of fun building. their finished colors are very nice, but you can change them if wanted or apply some weathering powders to age them easily. they fit in well with plastic buildings as well (but the kato and tomix ones do tend to shine next to them if you have not dullcoated the shiny plastic bits).

 

i do the dot thing but usually use the dental micro applicators to do it. love that little fine pen glue tube he has, stuff seems made just right to apply tiny amounts. these tend to hold more glue and better control of application than toothpicks do for white glue (but toothpicks work fine as well!) i may try some of my small applicator bottles and a 20g applicator needle and thin the glue a tad to see if that works. the glue he had seemed just the right mixture to be tacky but easily apply thru that thin tip on the bottle!

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/7866-micro-applicators/

 

i usually use the white tacky glue (thicker white pva) and make little dots with the micro applicators as the glue grabs fast and you can reposition as needed but tends not to slide around as much as you put pressure on it as more liquid pva glues can do. this is the one fiddly thing with sankei kits is that many of the walls you need to align by eye and if it slides off a half a mm it can make a bad corner fit. i have a thick ruler (any hunk of like 3mm or so heavy metal stock would do with a good clean straight edge) that i use to push any flush edges up against when laminating two pieces to get the pieces totally square to each other.

 

i got some japanese paste for doing doing collages with delicate papers to see if that may be a better glue for the big lamination pieces, but have not tried it yet. i do fear that humidity with time with the little dots may give rise to some buckling, but the chipboard that sankei uses seems to use pretty sturdy binders in it so im hoping these last a long time with humidity changes.

 

here are some corner clamps ive fiddled with. some of the buildings just use the rabit joints on the building edges so you need to hold them square till the glue sets up (others have other interlocking parts that help these corners).

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/6573-i-so-want-this-but-the-price/page-3?hl=%2Bsankei+%2Bclamp&do=findComment&comment=75178

 

these hair clamps are great to hold things gently when needed and they can easily be bent to clamp flat across 2, 3 or 4 layers of chipboard. you can also bend them up if you need some odd clamping angle. uber cheap at your dollar store.

 

http://www.jnsforum.com/community/topic/6483-simple-clips/

 

A set of gray felt markers (the kind used to do manga illustrations!) work great to color the edges. they dont bleed and they can get the edges of any of the white chipboard pieces they use that just have printing on one side. Luckily sankei does not do a lot of that, they try to use colored chipboard so you get the same edge color on most of the model piece. its just the ones that they cant get those colors they end up printing and you get the white edge. I also have one of those sharpie colored marker sets which always comes in handy to color edges of chipboard like this.

 

the lasercut railings are better than plastic for some things that are sposta be wood, but they are still a tad overscale, not as nice as etched metal (but that needs painting which can be tough on small railings and end up being overscale with a thick bead of paint on them!).

 

i have not done a final lighting installation on the sankei, but tests of the walls and joints show that most of the walls are thick enough to keep light bleed out as long as you tone your smd leds way back (which i do anyway). the wall corner rabit joints also help them not have any nasty light cracks as well that you can have in the tomytec buildings (i was experimenting with some crape tape in corners to help get rid of this.) Also sankei will tend to wall off different rooms in the structure which is nice as you then can just light one or two rooms to give a more realistic lighting effect than the whole structure glowing. cutting a small hole can give a little light bleed into another dark room to simulate a door open but the lights off. You do need to plan a head for lighting as many of the larger sankei kits tend to wall off areas as you build and you would need to do a lot of post construction hacking from the underside to install lighting later, but doable.

 

using a little sequin behind a smd led is a good way to get the light pointed down a bit and mount it up high in the room pointing down. this allows the light to be reflected around the room and give a nicer lighting effect than the mini sun of an led floating in the middle of the room. Sankei interior walls can be dark so that may also change the lighting effect. some quick cardstock interior walls of white may give a more normal reflected light/color. dont do Black or foil! both give a very odd effect that is not normal lighting you see in a window! if you have light bleed you can also use white cardstock and paint the back black to help block the light. usually if you have light bleed you are using too bright a source anyway!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[tossedman]

Here's one more.

 

 

Todd

[tossedman]

Reading your post Jeff and yours Inobu led me on a google search to find out what an SMD LED is. Now I know. Thanks for that. Next question is, where would one purchase such things that are appropriate for lighting a house or building such as what are being built here. 

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

[cteno4]

Todd,

 

most electronics supply places sell them but you can get them very cheap on ebay as well. you can get them in sizes from like 2x3mm down to 1x1x2mm. sizes are like 0401, 402, 603, 0605, 0805, 1206, the bigger the number the larger the led

 

0401 are 1x1x2mm, 1206 3x1.5x1mm

 

they take a bit of practice to solder wire to, but if you are patient and practice it can get pretty easy. basically put a piece of masking tape sticky side up taped down to the table to hold the smd led and the two wires ends on the contact and then tiny dab of flux paste on each joint then fast solder with micro tip and fine solder, and of course with a magnifier in place!

 

wire is usually magnet wire (copper wire used in winding motors) that is copper with enamel on the outside that you strip with a flame. you can also use fine 30g wires that can be expensive to source. one that i find works well if not in a tiny place for 0603 and above is wrapping wire. its 30g copper wire that is pretinned and has a fine insulation on it. you can pick it up inexpensively on ebay as well, about the cheapest wire you can get (well magnet wire is probably cheaper but harder to deal with) to hook up things like leds at less than a cent a foot. also you can get it in a dozen colors

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=305+wire&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=305+wire+30&_sacat=0

 

lots of videos on youtube about soldering them up. 

 

you can also buy them on ebay for 25 cents to a dollar each with leads attached.

 

a very high quality source is ledbaron on ebay

 

http://stores.ebay.com/ledbaron

 

there are some others like this one where i got a few on a cheap auction and they seem ok, not quite as well done as ledbaron, but if you can get a cheap auciton!

 

http://stores.ebay.com/evemodelus/Light-Emitting-Diode-LEDs-/_i.html?_fsub=3421727013

 

just wire each one into a small 2k variable resistor (trimmer pot) and you can turn the brightness down to what you want for each light in a structure.

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=2k+pot&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=2k+trimmer+pot&_sacat=0

 

you can glue these just inside your building facing a back wall and drill some small holes in the wall to adjust them from the outside with a jewelers screwdriver. or mount them on the underside and just lift the building up to adjust them on the bottom. I use 5v power source as that gives you with 12v you end up dumping most of the current thru the resistor and 5v supplies are dirt cheap. you can always wire in a 100ohm resistor in series with the pot so that when the pot is wide open you still have the led limited properly to its max current of 20ma. i find turning them way down is the key and use more of them rather than one mini sun in a building where it glows like a nuclear meltdown is underway!

 

you can provide power to buildings and also hold them in place using little rare earth magnets. just glue magnets where the building should go and then pop another set of magnets on top of those and glue and then place the building! holds it in place but you can still pluck it off. you can also solder wire leads to the magnets to be pwoer couplings to boot so no issue of bulky connectors! just have to use low temp solder, keep the soldering iron on low heat (need an adjustable one) and work fast as if you get the magnet too hot it loose its field! again just a little practice and you get fast. same method of the tape works well to hold things while soldering.

 

you just need to get the magnets that have the shiny nickel coating on them as thats whats acting as your conductor and solder attachment.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/100x-Disc-Rare-Earth-Neodymium-Super-Strong-Fridge-Magnets-N35-3x1m-Craft-Model-/361345950222?hash=item5421e5a20e:g:m~AAAOSwu4BVrf9g

 

if you get into this i can get you more on making very easy little pc boards to hold a line of pots and also some cheap, simple and very small connectors to plug things in as well.

 

ive been meaning to write all this up with pictures for a good tutorial for the jrm site, but just have not gotten into it. yell if you have questions and i can get you more info!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[tossedman]

OK, just found 100 SMDs on eBay for $1.52 with free shipping. Can't go wrong with that price so I've ordered some and will attempt putting a few in the Sankei kits that are winging their way here on Christmas eve.

[tossedman]

Thanks Jeff! Just ordered magnets as well. Might have to pick your brain as to the wiring with magnets though.

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

Edited December 19, 2015 by tossedman

[inobu]

Jeff,

 

Do you know what kind of card stock Sankei uses?

 

Inobu

[cteno4]

Inobu,

 

That's the $64,000 question! I've tried to find laser chipboards out there like it but to no avail! A friend who has a large laser cutter and does architectural models uses a lot of the specialty laser chipboards and he had not see it! The laser chipboards use a binder that helps prevent charring by the laser. Some even allow different gradations of darkening to do etching by lowering the laser power.

 

Anyhow I also talked with a few folks that sell various laser cut dollhouse and model train structures and none of their suppliers have seen the stuff sankei uses. I got little samples of what they usually use and none like the sankei. It's very nice, thin, stiff, nice textures and colors!

 

Japan is much more into papers than the us is so it may be a Japan only product.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[cteno4]

I just remembered earlier this evening I had bought an Arleen tacky glue pen a few months back when I saw it at the craft store and forgot all about it! Pulled it out and it can do pretty tiny dots of glue. Not as nice as the pen that chap had, but it's decent.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Aleenes-Tacky-Glue-Dring-2-Pack/dp/B006GN4042/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450508145&sr=8-2&keywords=Glue+pen

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[kvp]

Japanese craft paper is a very japanese product but some craft shops do sell them at really high price. Actually it's more of an ancient form of chipboard than paper but the technology is the same.

[inobu]

In the video you can hear the pieced snap in so it has to be pretty ridged. There has to be something like it here.

 

Thinking about it..... I might be the same material used in the electrical industry years ago.

 

Inobu