Sankei - "Paper" Kits

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

Amagi is very similar in design of tabs, slots etc. to Sankei.

One interesting thing, they have very few ligatures connecting the shapes to the sheets, so less to cut.

So, if you can do Sankei, you can do Amagi. 

Their instruction sheets are usually fancier than Sankei's

Except for the smaller kits, Amagi seem to model actual stations, although some of these are on closed lines and are out of use.

I'm not sure whether the Sankei stations have full size prototypes.

Which Amagi kit will you be getting?

Your comments on M0kei Kobo Permil and Advance were of interest.

I suspected that they didn't use the heavy full coloured card of Sankei and Amagi.

Another mob is Kiyomachiya  Paper Kits, hard to work out what they use.

I'd send shots in if I can work out how to do so!

Any suggestions?

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

One thing about Amagi Modelling kits, I'm not sure if they all are 1:150 scale.

I've built kit series 08, which is a nice looking single story building with a second story attached.

When finished and put alongside another single story station, it looks small, under scale.

Of course, the comparison building could have been overscale!

Not easy to check the scale, one possibility is the height of the edge of the platform awning against other kits, but in full size this dimension could differ from railway to railway.

Perhaps a better check is door heights.

I'm sure that Japan would have a standard height for doors  on buildings such as stations and the like.

Here, our standard door height for domestic  buildings, and for general buildings is 6ft 8 inches, just over 2 metres, 

Possibly the Japanese standard could be 2 metres, to allow for the smaller stature of Japanese people.

Structures slightly overscale, say 1:144, generally don't seem to look wrong, whereas underscale buildings seem  to stand out.

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

[gavino200]

21 hours ago, ben_issacs said:

 

I'd send shots in if I can work out how to do so!

Any suggestions?

 

 

 

This is how you do it.

Take a picture with your phone or a digital camera.

 

if phone then go to pictures.

select the photo.

press the 'send to" icon (it's different depending on what phone you have0

select email

select your own email address

send

go to email

download photo to your desktop (or a file)

 

If digital camera then connect the camera to your computer using the USB cable

download the images 

 

The go to  this website and open an account It's free

https://imgur.com/

Select "upload image"

drag the picture from your destop or file to the imgur page

or use "browse" and select the image

go to the image in imgur

select the url

post the url in your post here

hit save

 

Presto. You have now posted a picture

It's seems complicated, but it's simple once you've done it a few times.

 

If you have trouble, tell me what with, and I'll walk you through it.

 

Welcome to the information age 🙂

[cteno4]

You are also welcome to upload any of your image files to your gallery here or into a specific post.

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

Folks, 

Thanks for that info, I'll give it a try a bit later on.

Got to take the shots first!

Regards, 

Bill,

Melbourne.

 

[cteno4]

Ben,

 

i got the act-011,it’s three small station buildings. I have a number of stations so thought these would be good to check out the amagi kits.

 

They are nice, very similar design as the sankei for construction techniques. The chipboard is not quite as nice as sankei’s though. It’s not as hard and stiff, less resin in it most likely. It also singes some wirh the laser in the light colored stocks. At least a lot better than the permil that is cardstock level of chipboard and only surfaced colored and it singes a lot.

 

sankei does a great job on the materials, I’ve looked around and not found anything comparable. Also the material andntheir laser speed and power seem to never singe!

 

jeff

Edited December 2, 2018 by cteno4

[maihama eki]

I have kits from Sankei, Mokei Kobo Permil, and Amagi. 

 

Sankei's seem to be the highest quality and highest detail.  They also offer most of their items on an on-going basis instead of doing short/limited runs.  Like Jeff, I am impressed with their laser cutting capability and materials.  They manage to cut the materials such that the edges of the cuts do not have any discoloration/burning - even white pieces are white on the edges.  I am consistently impressed with their clever design.  They offer a lot of small detail bits as well - vending machines, furniture, bicycles, scooters, small shrines, mailboxes - all very nicely done.  My one complaint would be that their roof materials are often just printed 2D and not 3D.  I replaced the roofing with 3D styrene on one of mine and it looks much better, but it adds to the time investment.  Photos of that one are here:

 

The Amagi kits have 3D roof material designs - at least in some cases like these:

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10495161

I have not built any Amagi kits yet.

 

I am building a Mokei kit now and will post pictures when I complete it.  I am overly obsessed with lighting and interior details and don't have nearly enough time to work on model trains though, so it may be a while before I finish it.  It also has some 3D detail on the roof.  It is this one:

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10308814

 

 

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

The three little Amagi buildings, series  11, are station waiting rooms, one also with a separate little toilet (washroom, bathroom, s-house, convenience, W.C., dunney, you name it!)

They could be used as bus or tram stop shelters.

As I don't light my buildings, the problems of singeing don't worry me.

Regards, 

Bill.

Melbourne.

[cteno4]

Yep I am thinking of using them as a small rural stop with just waiting room.

 

singeing us mostly on the back sides and worse on the permil. Edge singeing can make for some odd joints. I just love that sankei does it without any singeing!

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

How did you go with the three little Amagi kits?

Any comments to compare them with Sankei?

At the moment I'm working on Amagi No. 019.

This is a model of the common brown timber and white plaster stations found widely throughout Japan.

Interestingly, this kit has detailed interior partitions, I think Amagi might be doing this for their newer kits

The roof will be removable so one can put figures inside if one so wishes. 

One minus at the moment, I've only got the internal walls up, and with one of them, one of its tabs was way off for the corresponding slot in the base,

Solution, just cut the tag off flush, it's usually not too hard to line the wall up without the tag. 

Regards, 

Bill.

Melbourne.

 

[cteno4]

Bill,

 

no unfortunately too many other projects lately to work on for the club in the limited train time. 

 

I did look over the amiga assembly and all looks pretty much like sankei. The little waiting rooms I got are lots of detail but minimal structure and small sized. Material is better than permil, but still not quite as nice as the sankei laserboard. I had started a permil building a while back but while putting the larger walls (to be fair it’s a bit bigger model than most sankei) together I realized they were no where near as stiff as sankei walls and I would probably want to put in some bracing on the walls like I have with cardstock models to make them last and resist warping, so I set it aside for now. The permi materials are mostly cardstock quality and thus not uber stiff and have much resin in them. The edges definitely do swell a tad when glue hits them which indicates they suck up some moisture. I’ve not tried any glue on the amiga yet, but it looks like denser material more resin. I definitely love the laserboard sankei uses with no singeing, very rigid, and pretty moisture resistant. Moisture is the worst aspect of card stock modeling, I still try to dull coat as much as I can on sankei kits to keep future humidity swings from affecting them. But this takes planning to seal walls on both sides and edges before final glazing and assembly. Tough to do in the winter here as can’t spray in the garage at 35 degrees f and can’t spray in the house. Even the little paint hood power exhausted out the dryer vent leaves too much laquer smell in the house to use sadly.

 

I do like that permil does some odder structures and a little larger. I’m sure sankei would be a bit pricy to do larger structure with their premium material and clean lasercutting (which I bet costs more in production). I wish sankei would not be quite as minimal on their instructions, some details are just left for you to ponder on and Toc the other night was asking where a couple of the printed details went on the structure as the instructions did not indicate where they went and of course only one small image of the finished structure that did not show all the sides...

 

nice the amigi station has lots of interior details, that something sankei has not done a lot of in the ones I’ve made, but most don’t have a lot of views to the interiors. Maybe sankei does on stations, but I don’t have any sankei stations buildings. Stations are nice as they usually have an open design for people flow and windows for natural light. Sankei internal walls seem more designed to give a rigid structure than architecture, but most are in places convenient to make lighting blocked off to a few rooms and not the whole structure aglow. 

 

sure the tab misalignment was not flipping a part? My first couple of sankei kits I ran into similar thing and always discovered I has flipped something over and was just a minimal difference but then did not assemble just right. Luckily little mods like yours made my assembly work but I realized I goofed on their design! Learned me to do a lot of prefitting and planning on assembly, especially wall laminations, and write lightly with a pencil on the back of all parts to remeber part number and orientation. 

 

Lighting is something I want to do on a lot of the kits eventually and it is a challenge on the more complex structures to build them so you can get access thru roofs or cut openings thru the floors. My initial tests with smd leds trurned way down and with sequin shades did not leak light on the 2 and 3 layer sankei walls and gave nice room lighting effect, so I don’t think I’ll need to do a huge amount of light sealing for more subdued lighting. Also the rabit joints on wall corners help a lot on light sealing compared to tomytec butt joints that have to be sealed.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

Jeff, 

Thanks for your comments. 

I've looked at Permil, it's obvious that they don't use through coloured board, so, as you wrote, the edges show up. 

So, not for me.

As I mentioned, I'm making up an Amagi station, going along o.k. last evening, then found that I'd lost a window frame!

Bummer!

No explanation where its gone, not on the floor, possible stuck on something.

Will have to cut strips from the card sheet and build up a frame from these.

Fortunately, these windows are on the awning (platform) side of the building, so aren't too obvious!

Another building kit mob is one whose name escapes me, I'll look it up later, their kits, only a few, use a thick, about 3mm or 1/8 inch resin impregnated board, laser cut, so no problems with light leakage.

Very hard to cut through the ligatures to separate the various parts.

Slot and tab construction.

There were two buildings in the kit, an house with a shop front and an open fronted workshop.

The very interesting feature of these kits is that the cladding on the heavy boards is a very thin timber veneer, printed to look like boards etc.

Very realistic looking, but a sod of a material  to work with, very fragile!

Window frames and mullions are made of this veneer, one must take great care when installing them, easily broken.

The house has an outdoor clothes drying platform at roof level, all to be folded up from this veneer!

Impossible!

It all broke up, so I replaced it with a Sankei platform that fitted in fairly well.

The wood veneer cladding  give a very realistic effect, but so difficult to work with!

Perhaps someone with more patience and dexterity  than I could make a better job of one of these kits.

Now, back to making replacement window frames! 

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

 

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

In re the kit mentioned in my previous post, the series name is: 'Nostalgia and Phantom Series', the manufacturer is Pro Hobby.

Found in Hobby Search in 'Structures' then 'General Building'.

The construction of my Amagi station continues, I've made up replacement window frames from thin strips, not 100%, but better than nothing!

Regards,

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

[cteno4]

Bill,

 

yea i picked that kit up on the hs sale a few months back. unfortunately the base building is made from 3mm ply so the walls will end up close to 2' thick! the lasercut veneer wood is nice for the external paneling, but sadly its very delicate and a few were busted up a little in the package when i received it. i pulled out the broken bits and should be able to put it back together but one tiny triangle went poof, but i can replace with extra wood. the rack does look to be a challenge to make!

 

one other laser cut copany is wako

 

http://kamizukuri.jp

 

I got this one on the last hlj sale for half price. pretty much amagi in quality and types of material and cutting. they do a decent job of 3D texturing the roof tiles with the laser.

 

https://hlj.com/1-150-scale-train-station-2-wko85203

 

https://hlj.com/search/go?isort=globalpop&lbc=hobbylink&method=and&p=Q&ts=custom&uid=835720914&w=*&af=selectscale%3a1150scale selectmanufacturer%3awako

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

On the Pro Hobby Japanese house and its clothes drying platform, I wonder how one gains access to this platform?

Perhaps up through a trapdoor in the platform floor, can't see any other way to get onto it!

Awkward carrying a basket of wet clothes!

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

 

[cteno4]

Usually its thru a window or a small door to a tiny deck. I would guess a small door on that short wall behind it there. 

 

The sankei rack looks like it will be a good replacement.

 

jeff

[ben_issacs]

Jeff,

Yes, it looks like access to the platform is through the wall behind, but there's no indication of a door in the veneer cladding.

The replacement Sankei railings are higher than the original, and they force the roof eaves up slightly.

Perhaps to run them above the roof and not under?

Regards, 

Bill, 

Melbourne.

 

[cteno4]

From bill in another thread but good to also have here

 

Here is a Sankei back street factory kit and an illustrated assembly process.

 

https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10096722

 

http://n-rail.blogspot.com/2016/11/sankei-kit-building-advances-in-hobby.html

[maihama eki]

Some small summer projects...

 

Sankei MP04-64 "Vending Machine B" set.  The Sankei vending machines are maybe the best I've found.  They are ready-made for adding an LED light.

 

I start by assembling the boxes with the openings in the front cut-out, leaving the bottoms free.  Then I paint the insides with a dark acrylic paint to seal them up from light leaks.

 

 

After wrapping the box with the printed outside, I use a nano size LED and glue it into the base.  I install the LED so that the light points toward the back or the inside of the box to diffuse the light and avoid getting a hot spot in the middle of lighted area.

 

 

The final machine lit up, with a Kabuto Models (Kabutoni) 3D print recycle bin.

 

 

Time for an ice cold Oca-Cola.  🙂 

[cteno4]

Très japan!

 

jeff

[maihama eki]

Second small summer project.

 

Sankei Public Restroom C, MP04-58.

 

I detailed this little kit with some 3D printed sinks, toilet, urinals, and pigeons, printed men/women signs, a little stray grass, the gravel roof, and I lighted it.  Some of this detail will probably never be seen when it is finally installed ... but I know it's there.

 

 

 

[cteno4]

Lol I have the 3D printed pigeons (they are a wonderful detail), I just never thought to look for 3D printed urinals and toilets!

 

kudos on the detailing, well done! The cool led is the perfect bad fluorescent lighting you see in places like this. Need to put one of them on an intermittent flicker!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[RogerMc]

Building my first Sankei right now. The instructions ~do~ require a good study at each step. I made some mistakes with the glass but they won't show.

 

For the amount of effort they require, they are a good value. Keeping me well distracted from stuff.

 

Glad I started with a relatively simple model [drugstore].

[cteno4]

Perfect, start simple as its easy to make a mistake on the first one. They are addictive and zen like when you get into them. Write to part numbers on the back of the pieces in pencil, it will help while assembling. Watch out for some wall parts that can be almost exactly the same of almost square but not quite.

 

jeff

[RogerMc]

39 minutes ago, cteno4 said:

Write to part numbers on the back of the pieces in pencil, it will help while assembling.

 

Thanks, I'd noticed your suggestion from earlier in the thread so did it. It was helpful. Ultimately had to rely on my electric eraser to remove because I chose a poor location for the part number. Can't get a break, ha.

 

Drugstore will be the first thing in the city ...