take a break

This kit is a Mediterranean Rest Station, it is kit #CD 8028 sculpted by Dave Pomeranski. The kit is a full resin kit made from the classic CD cream resin. All the pieces were made using a one piece mold. As you know this leaves one side ‘blank’, I’ll touch on this later. The parts have a new feature to CD, the base (where possible) has a part number scribed in. This can help a bit during assembly. On the topic of assembly and the overall kit, there are no instructions included. The only thing you get is the box art.

This kit will assemble into a roadside or village ‘rest station’ where travelers can take care of necessary business and get cleaned up. Careful inspection of the kit shows that it will have four/five areas. There is a wash basin on the right. There appears to be a shower stall next to the basin. The shower has a wooden floor with a circular drain in it. There appears to be a hole in the back wall for a shower head (which isn’t present in the kit). The next area is a water closet. The next area may be a changing/refresh area and lastly on the left is a closed door area that may be storage, or another water closet. This last area will be a solid ’block’ type building you won’t be able to see in.

The roof is great classic ½ round Mediterranean terra cotta tiles. It is the roof that ’makes’ this kit a Mediterranean one. Quite honestly replace the roof with thatch and this goes to Western Europe or other areas of the world.

Overall there are 22 parts with this kit and that is a lot. There are walls, roves, doors, floors, frames and basins. There are a lot of things to see and work with.

creative impression

This is a great creative kit. It is a unique subject that can add a great deal of interest to a number of diorama possibilities. It is a ‘dropin’ into 1940-45, you can even drop it into a Somalia. I can see this type of building in the Bosnia area with a roof change.

There are AM kits that will go with this - I can think of a couple of German figures that will know exactly what to do here. You can add animals and make this into a livestock holding area also.

The sculpting in and of itself is masterfully done. The bricks are crisp and uniform. The plaster over the bricks shows a very nice texture and consistency. Wood grain detail in the doors is good, the tiled roves are pretty nicely done.

technical impression

(I just realized the Olympic equivalence here - not intentional)
This kit will be hard to build. After you get over the initial creative rush and get to the business of building this kit you will start scratching your head asking “WHAT”.
First of all - with 22 pieces and no instruction you have your work cut out for you. I dry fit the kit together and was mystified at how long it took. Part of the problem will be a learning curve. CD has never (that I have seen) had part numbers on the bottoms. I wasn’t sure if they meant anything, there was no indication that they did. So learn from this review - they mean something and can help you. They roughly go in sequential order, start with part 1, then get part 2 and see how it fits onto or around part 1. It’s not an exact science so test to see what goes where. There isn’t quite enough to go on from the box art either. You are left scratching your head with what to do with the roof. Dave did add some technical sculpting that will help with assembly. He added a few ‘fit grooves’ and ‘fit notches’ to help you get pieces together. Without instructions, it took a bit of fiddling to get it right.

The one piece molds leaves one side of each piece blank. For the most part this was nicely executed. 21 pieces will have their blank side hidden pretty well. That one piece that won’t unfortunately is right out in the open. The left most wall with the small brick column (piece 10) has its blank side facing you as you look at the box art. In my opinion I think this piece was molded backwards or somehow reversed during the mold creation process.

Whatever the case, if you build this kit like the box art shows you will have to contend with a huge blank wall. It’s a brick and mortar wall so it’s not something you can't fix. A scribing tool, a ruler, some spackle and time and you’ve fixed it. I look at this as a negative backward piece because the L shape and narrowing aspect from left to right make this kit a natural fit for the back left of a diorama. If you decide to go with that placement, then piece 10 will mean extra work for you. If you decide to place the kit somewhere else you may avoid the problem by changing the viewers perspective and ‘hiding’ the blank side. Personally, I would like to see this piece with the opposite side detailed. Another suggestion to CD would be to make this a three part piece. Make the brick a one piece mold vertically with a resin block at the base and have two separate ‘cap stone’ pieces molded to glue on top. That would avoid any reverse angles in the molds.

After dry fitting this kit I believe that there will be a fair amount of sanding and test fitting to make everything work smoothly and really fit well. There is a bit of general cleanup associated with all resin kits and some extra to make it work.

wrap up

Bottom line this is an average resin kit. This kit will make you work, I believe the rewards will be very high and you will come out of the project with a piece you can be proud of and that people will like to see. So, when you plan to build this kit make sure you a lot a nice amount of time to building.

This kit can go from a technical score 50 to a technical score 60 with a simple exploded view instruction sheet.

I’d like to thank CD for this kit for review