Completed the Lloyds of London model on Saturday. Thought I'd post some photos for the build.
Quality of the printing and die cuts was excellent. About half the sheets are printed on silver paper. Look great, hard to work with when it comes to glue.
The sheet of plastic parts was a problem but I think only because the kit is from 1986 and that makes the plastic old and brittle. Also the clear plastic color was yellowish and not sure if that was the original or due to ageing. Also had a hard time using glue on the actual piece. Bought plastic glue and that did not work. Finally used the all-purpose Craft Glue. The actual elevator cubes were impossible to detach from the sheet without most getting a crack in the plastic so will have to create new ones and print on plastic ink jet sheet. That's for a later date.
I'll be honest. This is not the easiest model to build and came close to walking away a couple of times and saying enough was enough.
But, then there's always the next day.
The instructions also could do with a once over. Some part numbers were wrong or missing and more clarity would have helped. Luckily managed to pull a few glued pieces apart that had been glued wrong without major damage and redo them correctly. Only extra I did to the model was to add chipboard to the roof for strength and to keep the shape. Good thing was that once you managed to make the first tower complex, the other 5 were very similar.
As to glue, silver and glue marks seem to go hand in hand. No matter how hard you try to keep it clean and wipe with moist wipes, glue marks still appear. I call it the "weathered look".
Used the craft glue for the whole model because of the glossy coated stock on the rest of the sheets. Aileene's doesn't work too good on those.
With all that said, the kit does make an impressive model.
Fred