Sniffing glue. Confessions of an addict

I jokingly mentioned in a previous entry that this hobby was an addiction and that Johnny at Hobbytech was my local dealer. After spending two weeks assembling my model cathedral I'm not so sure that isn't true. It's important to work in a well ventilated area when assembling structures as the fumes from the adhesives can make one light headed. Fortunately, most of my braincells have snuffed it a long time ago. Being incredibly dense, my head help to keep me grounded. Otherwise I'm sure I would have been crawling on the ceiling all week. I elected to use Testor's gel adhesive instead of the Kibri recommended brand. The Testor's glue cost $2 compared to $23 for the Kibri which is hard to get by the way. I discovered that adhesives are considered dangerous goods and consequently it is difficult to ship from Europe. The only drawback with the Testor's gel is that it is difficult to apply on small surface areas. I may opt for the liquid version for the Vollmer Baden-Baden station as it has a lot of small pieces.

I finished assembling the cathedral to the point where I can paint. I've left off the plastic windows until after I've painted. Unfortunately I missed a small window of opportunity to paint last week. It got up to 11c on Wednesday, which would have been perfect to spray paint outside. The temperature has dropped to -17c this week-end so I may have to wait until spring before I can paint. Oh well I'll begin work on the Baden-Baden station. Given how long it took to put the church together, it's going to take most of February to complete the station. There's a lot more pieces to assemble as it is a much larger structure with far more windows. In the meantime, here are pictures of the church. After working on this model, I've become a fan of Kibri and will probably acquire more of their structures.

Kibri 7025 general impressions

While I anxiously wait for the arrival of my station in the post, I thought I'd do some prep work on the cathedral (Kibri 7025). After my foray with assembling the Kato rural platforms, I knew I would need some tools. These tools include a cutter, an exacto knife and a steel file.

The plastic pieces are still attached to plastic tubes which are the remnants of the openings in the mold where the molten plastic was poured. These plastic extrusions need to be clipped off, hence the cutters. After the extrusions are cut off this leaves burrs on the plastic. I found using an exacto knife is perfect for removing much of the burr. If I do this carefully with the knife, it makes filing unnecessary.

Kibri uses a mortise and tenon to connect different parts together. This is a common joint in wood working and I was pleasantly surprised to see it used here. I'm not sure if this is specific to this structure or common among all the Kibri products. I'm hoping my Vollmer station uses something similar. The use of this technique is especially good in connecting two corner walls together provided the joint is properly aligned. However, not all corners are perfect as you can see in the following photograph. You can definitely see a gap. The mortise and tenon in this plastic mold section wasn't correctly aligned so I'll have to do some filing on the tenon section to make the gap disappear.

For the most part, the detailing is pretty decent. There are some blemishes in the steeples, but it is minor. There is a visible seam in the external wall of the apse section of the cathedral. Aside from these and the small gaps between some of the wall corners, it's not bad at all. Something I do appreciate is that the window and door frames are molded separate from the wall sections. This allows the modeler to paint the frames in a different colour easily. For my situation, this isn't necessary as everything will be painted white except for the roof section. The other thing I like is the base where the structure sits upon. Again, Kibri uses a mortise and tenon to connect the main church pieces to the base foundation. I don't have any experience with other structures other than the Kato rural platform, but I think this Kibri romanesque cathedral is a good structure despite its minor flaws. If I had to grade it, I'd give it a grade point average of 3.3 out of 4.0.

I'm uncertain about whether to paint with a brush or use aerosol. Unfortunately, to use aerosol, I would have to wait for a warm enough day to spray paint outside. Problem is that the forecast is for below -20c for much of this week. I also plan to paint the inside walls black in case I decide to illuminate the interior with LEDs. The plastic is thin and any interior light would make the walls glow. An undesired effect.

Norse mythology

I was in error when I stated that Hel was one of the nine worlds in ancient Norse mythology. It isn't a place, but a woman who ruled the underworld. She lived in a house called Helheim located between two primordial realms called Muspelheim and Niflheim. The former being the realm of fire which was home to the fire demons. The latter known as the abode of mist. Between these two realms of heat and cold is where creation begins. So now I'm considering locating the station between the two. Niflheim situated on the west side of the river and Muspelheim on the other with Hel Hauptbahnhof in the middle serving both realms.

For the realm of Niflheim, I picked up the Kibri Siegtaldom cathedral from Hobbytech. I consider it a lucky find as Johnny was saying the distributor couldn't order it anymore. He wasn't sure, but it may be discontinued. This would be a shame as it appears to be a nice looking model. The individual sections seem to have good detail to them. But I'll know for sure once it is assembled. I've heard some commenting on the poorer quality of Kibri structures compared to Vollmer. Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for my Baden-Baden station to arrive. Before I assemble anything, I need to decide on the colour scheme. The original plan was to have all the structures in white. I'd like to keep with the original plan, but altered slightly with a green patina for the roofs. I always liked the look of oxidized copper roofs.

Random photograph