Building the Piko Rosenbach station kit.

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Mother in Law got me a Rosenbach station kit for Christmas. (well, I got it actually and it was handed along - so to say!).
Quite possibly the best MIL present I have ever received!

Anyway, I thought I would do a review of it for those of you who have not done a Piko kit before. This is my first kit and I was surprised how many parts are in the kit.

 

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A quick count came to 141 parts, although a few are not used because they are spare on the sprus. Following the recent thread on glue for these kits I have decided to use the supplied UHU adhesive and reinforce the joints later - this model will live outside.

 

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I started with a look through the instructions - these are mainly diagrams with very few words (for language reasons I suppose). These are actually a little brief so i spent a little while sorting pieces out and checking where they fitted.

The walls come in two pieces, a main wall and a front detail piece with brickwork and window openings. Into these you fit the shutters and frames. Glazing is supplied in the form of soft plastic sheet/ Not sure I will use that!



The front detail piece with shutters glued on. there are no location aids for this - you glue them by eye. And make sure they are the right way up! :-[

 

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This is laminated to the main wall section and you can trap the doors between leaving them able to swing open.

 

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The window frames are glued into the back of each wall section.

 

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You need to be careful with the glue. It easily oozes out too much and the tube neck is too big and tends to dry up a little. Then the glue `strings`. I will go round the frame with super glue later.
A full evenings work and I have all the walls ready for assembly.

 

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Then before packing up for the night I made one of the two chimneys. These look a bit fragile, especially the cover on four small posts.
the parts for the second chimney are on the left.

 

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I'll post more when I get back to it.
Its not at all difficult but it does take a bit of time and like many things - will be all the better for a bit of care.

 

[DCB]

Reading this with interest as I've got this one still to build along with the signal box.

 

[maxi-model]

Have you sanded/scraped all the surfaces to be bonded together prior to gluing? A feature of Piko (& Pola) plastic kits is a fine painted wash to give the parts some depth and a degree of a weathered appearance. If this not done the plastic glue (which works as a solvent) will not work properly and you will have weak bonds that will fail outdoors over a short time. I have built a number of Piko/Pola kits over time and have found this approach infallible. I would only recommend the use of super glues with resin kits, and then with a 2 Pack filler used to strengthen joints. The only kits that do not require this preparation are the Vollmer make - they do not apply a wash over the plastic mouldings. Max.

 

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Thanks for that. Yes I have washed the pieces (on the spru) and will indeed sand all edges now you have enlightened us.

 

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Evening No.2

I spent about another 3 hours on the model tonight.

First I glued the gable ends to the top of the end walls.


and whilst the glue dried I assembled the canopy.

 

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Using a fair amount of glue I started to fit the sides together. Not too much glue - I didn`t want it to ooze out and mark the wall surface.
I then left them for a while for the glue to at least start to set.




Working in sections and waiting for the glue I ended up with this. Compared to the first evenings work, this was very quick.

 

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I used the instruction sheets to check that the corners remained square.
Fitting the roof was pretty easy. Just make sure you have the tiles the right way round. And glue the joint between the two roof halves - I nearly forgot!


Then add the ridge capping tiles.

 

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I added the canopy and started on the trim (barge boards, gutters etc).
I stopped here to allow the glue to set

 

[Steve]

Like it Allen great progress

 

[JRinTawa]

It's a rather nice looking station, worth taking he care to get it right.

 

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Now here is a tip for anyone else making this model. Glue the gutter on before the canopy. The knives are pressing the gutter (and glue) under the eaves.

 

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Finished off gluing the gutter, down pipes and barge boards.

 

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A couple of platform benches are included.



Not much glue left and I was pretty careful with it.