Krakow Cathedral - GPM - 1/200

[ricleite]

As you know, I very much like architecture subjects and GPM is one of the most active publishers, although not necessarily on architecture subjects. My first experience with a GPM architecture kit (Baranow Sandomierski, in 2004) was not very good and many years passed before I bought new kits from this stable. Frombork cathedral (I have shown it here) was much more pleasing.

The Krakow Cathedral is in another class. It is a very ambitious kit of a very pretty and large building. Without the detail set (laser cut structure and window frames, as well as acetate windows), there are 800 parts printed on 25 pages larger than A4. Quite clearly, the number of parts will be higher. For example, the use of acetate windows makes it necessary to cut window frames on several parts. GPM’s criteria to use gluing tabs or not continues to be a black subject to me. To fit my assembly taste, I’ll have to add many tabs, card templates and the like. So, this build is sure to take some time. It is already well underway. So, don’t be surprised if construction pictures arrive at an alarming rate…

[Isaac]

Another great landmark I had the privilege to visit






Looks like a fun kit though. Will keep you busy.


Good luck


Isaac

[sander1942]

Should be an interesting build. I look forward to seeing more.

[Tim Crowe]

This should be good

You can never have too many cathedral builds

Tim

[Tomdaviesclay]

I am looking forward to seeing your progress on Krakow Cathedral. I am glad you were able to get the supports, stained glass windows and tracery. I have spent some time today looking at the kit which I will also make in the near future. There are some very interesting parts which should take some time as there are similar parts on the Wroclaw Cathedral which I hope to finish in the next several weeks. Thomas

[Royaloakmin]

A big piece of cake, should help to have the detail sets?

[ricleite]

Welcome aboard, friends

@ Isaac - Nice pictures! Is that you on the second one? Thanks for posting!

@ Mike – I hope it will

@ Tim - … unless you run out of space! I’m not yet there for architecture models just because a good part of free time is devoted to aircraft

@ Thomas – right! Some details are very challenging with GPM’s thick paper. The detail set could be a lot more extensive and helpful in this respect. I remarked in your build of Wroclaw that there are many more parts of card structure than in Krakow. Well, we are always free to add them, if needed…

@ Fred – It is far from sure that the detail set makes the modeler’s life easier. It surely adds very valuable detail on the windows, but at the expense of extra work. I’ll get there...

I thought that assembling the 10 smaller buttresses would be an easy way to get started with GPM’s methods. Well, it was a good way but not an easy way! The parts have no gluing tabs and I used spare card from the laser cut structure to make some rectangles and avoid butt gluing on relatively large parts.
The tiny (0,5mm card) strips you can see on pictures C009 and C011 provide a decent gluing base for the yellow details. Regarding the pinnacles, they are not included in the kit! GPM provides a template and color indication and it is up to the modeler to make them. Grrr ! Frankly, I didn’t understand GPM’s idea. This is exactly the kind of detail that could be provided in the laser cut set, among others. Well, not to worry.

[Isaac]

Yes, that is me back in 2009

Isaac

[ricleite]

The kit provides some parts for the structure of the left tower’s top. Gluing tabs are mostly absent and I had to improvise. Some extra card and paper parts and a few rolled paper bits did the trick. This work will be invisible on the finished model and justifies a couple of pictures.
The yellow balls are rolled paper strips. It is surely not the most accurate solution but I like to keep my paper models as “paper” as possible.

[Vermin_King]

Very nice. I've not had success with those type roofs, but having an internal structure looks like it does the trick.

My mom does a lot of Vacation Bible School volunteering. When I have something that needs to be gold, I rummage in her crafts box. She has a nice metallic gold paint that would look good on the yellow balls. I think the plastic bottle is 30 years old. I'm surprised it hasn't dried up