What an utter nightmare! After seeing Henks build I've invested in one I was that impressed with his build. It is quite simply a horrific build and I'm not a novice. Took me two hours to cut all the bits out and it is gap central. It should say the on the box "get a pile of milliput and filler in as you'll need it". Nothing fits properly. I used poly cement rather than superglue to allow some movement positioning wall halves. Bad move! Now I'm probably going to have to spend a week filling in all the gaps. Anyone else had this problem? Last time I use vacform buildings. I think I'll stick to ceramic ones

i know what you mean,,same problem here,lots of gaps all over,but i think it will look good after two weeks work with putty:D check out the miniart reviews,,i found a little article there how to put these vac-form stuff together...

Ahhh, cutting out the pieces is only half the job... before glueing them together, you have to sand them down. Quite a bit, but if you use a large piece of sand paper on a hard, flat surface, it is not to bad a job.

step by step review

another one..

These kits really need some preping before the glueing starts, but the results are worth the effort.

Cheers
Henk

I'm having a problem with one of their kits too. Even though I made several supports which go around windows and corners so as to force the parts to kind of align the right way, but still I'm doing filling and sanding like I've never done in my life. Glad to hear someone else has this problem cause I thought it was just me!!

I'd rather pay a little more for them and have them made in injection moulding

Noooo. That is counter productive. The supports actualy force the parts apart.
The wall pieces really need to be sanded back untill the mating surfaces are properly flat, just like injection molded pieces. once they have been sanded back enough, the parts align up great. with the larger, unwieldy walls, such as the French Town House, start by glueing the top of the wall, and slowly work your way down, window by window. A slower setting glue like Revell Contacta is good for this. Once the parts are lined and tacked togehter, you can use liquid glue to run in all the joins to get a good connection. Then, and only then, you sand the window apartures to fit the window frames.

Any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers
Henk

Henk I hate to say this as it means work for you but after your build I think you need to do a bit of a step by step on these Mini Art kits as they're a nightmare to build. The plastics too thin, they don't fit etc. Mine almost went in the bin yesterday i was that annoyed with it and I've never done that with a kit so I chilled off for a couple of hours and carried on with the filler. Your build looked excellent yet the one I've got (and others by the looks of it) is a pig!

Henk... the idea for the supports was something i read in a post by one ofthe members here but i can't remember the post. They actually do help a little and i make them short enough so they don't push the parts apart, but I still have a problem. The biggest problem I'm having is with the corners where the instructions say you have to cut out a certain amount of the plastic in an angle... I just can't cut it where it would fit right. I guess I;m just not that good at these vacu-form things. I'm going to keep struggling with it though.

Part way through it now and its beginning to take shape,after a lot of swearing and tantrums.My biggest critiscism of the kit is the plastic is way too thin.It really is a lady trying to get the surfaces to stick as they're that thin.Its like glueing plasticard end to end! Detail wise its lovely but the construction...

That I do not understand. The plastic is several mm thick. Did you sand the edges before you glued the wall halves together? After you cut the pieces out, you will have chamfered edges, which you need to sand down untill you have the same kind of edges as normal injection moulded parts.

Henk

From my step by step :

You now have two parts which look like 'normal' plastic parts, but they need to be cleaned up first. This is where the large sheets of sandpaper come in. You put the sheet on your work surface, and lay the piece on it, cut edges down. Then we start sanding, in big, circular motions. Using a fairly rough grid ( I use a grid 100 here) we sand down until the flange along the cut is gone. We want to end up with a square edge like a 'normal' part. When about done, use a finer grid (I'm using 220 here) to clean and smooth the edge. Use light, even pressure when sanding, to avoid sanding too much off one side. It helps to rotate the piece in your fingers as well. Keep checking by test fitting the pieces. When the fit is snug and the thickness of the wall satisfactory, the pieces are ready. The parts must be completely straight, which is why we use sheets instead of sanding sticks or the like. If the mating surfaces or not completely straight you won’t be able to glue them straight.

And this is a picture that shows the wall part before and after sanding.

I built the Ukranian house a few years ago, and filled all around. Like yourself Karl, I wan´t overlly impressed. When I got all the work done .... I wanted a break ... and never got back to it again.







I can see how Henk´s tip on sanding down the mating surfaces could help



.... But this was one of their first offerings and not everything lined up, no matter how good the mating súrfaces were



And some of the most prominent details were so thin, if you blew on them, they would fall in ... so I cut them out, and then filled from behind with milliput and sanded smooth again.

Frank,
Glad you posted the horror show 'before' pics and not just your sweet looking 'after' ones.

There I was thinking I was the only one having that problem with these things.
I'd grabbed a few when Squadron had them cheap (not anymore) and still do not think they were worth the money.

The park fence sections are a nightmare to build and the one house I started on, fuggeddaboudit...

Mike

Hi Mike. Sweet looking "after" ones???? This is how it still stands ... I went completely off the project, having to do this much sanding. Thing is, when I do decide to resserect this project, the worst part will be over.

I know they are a lot of work .... but for the price, you do get a lot considering inside detail and fittings. I also have some custom dioramics, and they´d be as much work to give them an interior, and scratch the fittings.

i agree