Budapest 1945, Miniart Building.

Hi guys,

I'm working on a Diorama where the scene will be somewhere near Budapest in Hungary during the begining month of 1945.



The scene will be based on a ruined building, with a SU-76M (that came with the kit) within the ruined building. A King Tiger of Pz.abt 509 is roaming on the street beside the ruined house. The SU-76M was trying to aim the King Tiger's tracks. Luckily the German infantry took down the SU-76M by ambusing from behind with small arms and grenades. There'll be some dead russians, and German infrantry try to inspect the wreck and to plan the next offensive action.

The SU-76M haven't started yet, but the King Tiger is under construction. (See my "King Tiger" in the In-Progess >Amour topic).

The construction of Miniart's Ruined House is more difficult than I expected, but it's kinda fun as well.... and alot of work required. My young age modeling provided me experiences but those models are crap due to lack of modeling skills. I learn modeling tricks mostly from magazines. But none have shown how to build Miniart's Buildings. Hopefully this topic, we can share our thoughts and see how to make it easier.

The following picture show a typical building part.



It's all about my Motor Tool (I use Black& Decker here, small tool but provided good torque strength.) I use the grinder disk to cut out the big pieces of plastic. It's difficult to use hobby knife coz the plastic is 1mm thick. Difficult to use mini saw coz the parts are flat.


p/s: I don't press the part to the table and cut. I do like this in the photo coz I need one hand to operate my HP camera

So... the extra plastics are removed... I keep these big chunk of plastic for future use (scratch build, reinforcement..etc)





There are some hard-to-reach areas for the grinder disk. So.... have to change to the "Big Flat Stone"..... I call it.



There are still little remaining plastics that need to remove. I don't go too precise on the above steps coz scare damaging the parts. See following picture:




Now I use a smaller version of the "Big Flat Stone" to sand and trim carefully.

For imaging purposes, I use the parts that I have done before to show the fit. After removing the horizontal plastics, there's still a 1mm extra plastic need to remove or else the parts won't fit nicely, see:



Notice the top half has been cleaned, but the bottom part haven't. You can see the extra 1mm plastics between the fit gap. So, I call in the "small flat stone" to grind it down. I use marker to color the part that need to remove so that I don't over do it.

Now the fit is abit better. Next is the job for sand paper and hobby knife. Expected some parts need putty filling.


So... all that for 1 part. Next:

Hahaha, great! you started it finally.

I actually started it about 1 month ady. But progress is slow. I don't do all parts in one shot. I clean 1 part, then keep it and move on with my King Tiger.

Budapest 1945 set is a great kit... even if you build it 'as is'.

It will be better if you can clamp your rotary tool on your desk. Then you can hold the parts you want to work on with both hands. Lesser risk for 'accidents'.

I got some of the building kits too. Haven't started yet.

the miniart website has some useful tips on how to assembly & paint their vac-formed bldgs... click here

Yo Brother Mojimbo... That link is a life saver!!!

It doesn't only teach basic painting, it also teaches Salt Masking, Oil Wash, etc with videos. I recommend modellers should have a view. They put up step by step pictures better than magazines.

That's a great site. Appreciate the efforts of Miniart. Should support them more.

Xamel:

The thing is, I don't have a permenant workspace. The table in the photo is my portable table with foldable legs. That kind of table.... cannot clamp ooo.

The place I took the picture is my balcony behind my room. All my tools, paints, etc are stored in basket orplastic small cabinet so that I can bring the here and there.

Please do share you pictures on your building progress.

broder fly,

interesting build you have. Will it be possible to like show what kinda things that they teach? i mean the printed one from the company. I am not into building diorama yet but would like to do it someday. Also it would help out other people that are into diorama (actually the truth is i am curious about learning new techiniques that can be applied to anything hehe )

p/s: My table is also the foldable table bought in mydin Malaysia and brought as hand carry to japan coz they dont have em here. Very useful to save space hehe

Wahlauweh!!! If I were you I'd probably pick up some woods in DIY shop there and make the table myself. I couldn't remember where I bought my table, but I'm very sure the price tag was RM 29.90.

Click the link posted by Mojimbo.... It's very useful. It teaches weathering in simple manner. It'll be fully applicable to Gundam builders also.

Coming along nicely. Thanks for sharing these progress pics Flylice which I'm very sure will be most appreciated especially by those with Miniart buildings. Looking forward to Part II.

I promise I'll get a better camera for part II. Mojimbo's link provide very useful information.

I'm going to pin this excellent post up as your pics, Jimbo's link and the discussions to come will be a good guide for those working with Vac-form kits.

Thanks for the honor.

I'll try to keep things updated as much as possible.