Iglesia de San Miguel de Escalada - Secanda

[gregoy]

Now that I cleared things about Stephandson In Wien, I feel safe to start tackling Secanda's latest model after a long break of builds:

Iglesia de San Miguel de Escalada

Taken from Secanda's "About" section:

"San Miguel de Escalada is an old, mostly pre-Romanesque, abbey church. It is located on the road to Santiago de Compostela.

Although often listed as a Mozarabic edifice, this beautiful church is not Mozarabic in the strict sense, but bears witness to the strong influence of the Mozarabic style, and thus of Islamic architecture, in the areas reconquered by the Asturian kingdom. The term Mozarabic refers to the Christians (men, their rites and art) under Islamic occupation. This church was built on the site of an ancient Visigothic church, of which some rare re-uses seem to be present in the later building: perhaps portions of friezes and low cancel slabs and more probably some columns (themselves ancient re-uses in the Visigothic building).

The "Mozarabic" part of the building (nave, side aisles, fore-choir and apses) dates back to the 10th century. The elegant southern portico is from the 11th century (it is inhomogeneous, built in two phases). The portico, although later than the nave, adopts its Islamic style. The bell-tower and the vast eastern chapel (Capilla di San Fructuoso) are roughly contemporary with the portico or barely later than it, but adopt a rather heavy, purely Romanesque style that lacks any Islamic influence.

El monasterio de San Miguel de Escalada is registered as Monumento nacional in the Registro General de Bienes de Interés Cultural (Historical Spanish Heritage) since 1886."

The kit has 27 pages and it feature full removable roofs as well full modeled interior walls/windows/columms and that's what itched me to tackle it; I really like when models includes the interior of the building as it makes the model more challenging and interesting to build.

As usual, the instructions are only textual, but having built other Secanda's models before helped me figure out the mechanics of Secanda's instructions and now I can easily start building.

Look forward to share the start of the building process.

Cheers,
Gregory.

[Viator]

Wow! Secanda collected a good bunch of very interesting models, but I missed this new release as well as new versions of some older ones... This one looks very complex with an interior. Hope you will find no bugs within. Have a good time!

[gregoy]

The assembly starts on the Nave's East wall:

First of all, prepare pieces 2A and 1B by cutting the holes and pre-folding them(photo 2)

Pieces 2D and 2x 2F are closed on themselves and glued over the holes(photo 3)

Window piece 2E goes on the top hole and columm pieces 2C on the sides of the middle arch(photo 4)

Finally, glue piece 1B first over the middle arch, then the side arches, and last step is to close the borders, starting on the top and going down until closing the bottom tabs(photo 5)

Next phase is the assembly of the South Doors.

Cheers,
Gregory.

[Siwi]

I will be interested to see how this progresses, as it's rare for architectural models to have a removable roof to view the complete interior, and adding such an interior presents certain design challenges such as limiting the use of formers. On the other hand, the real building has stood up as a structure, so replicating it in miniature must work as well. I found some pictures of the completed model on the author's website, can't believe they are giving these as free downloads.

[gregoy]

The south doors are assembled like this:

Piece 3A is prepared; pieces 3F and 3E makes the nave door (photo 1)

Piece 3G makes the fore-choir door (photo 2).

Assembly continues on next post...

[gregoy]

Previously finished wall 1B/2A with the arches goes on wall 3A on the correct markings.

Then I attach pieces 1A and 3B in this order:

1. Wall 1A goes on the end of 3A;
2. Then Wall piece 3B goes on the other side of 1A;
3. Last, I glue the other side of wall 1B/2A on wall piece 3B, also on a previous marking. (The result is on photo 1)

Last step of this phase is to glue those joined walls to base piece 6A (photo 2)

Photo 3 shows an potential error I found with the size of some glue spots:
The slanted roof base is meant to be glued to the wall 1B/2A on certain glue spots; wich are on the left side of piece 1B. But it seems that their size is wrong. I tried to respect them, but it would create problems in fitting future inner wall pieces.

So, I glued the wall 1B/2A so it touches wall piece 3A instead of respecting the glue spots and them I made a test fit with base piece 6A and they indeed matched up, so I was correct in assuming that the glue spots on 1B were wrong.

Now, for the slanted roof part and the following 2 tabs, I glued them respecting the shape of the mistaken glue spots and the size of piece 25c:(it's an future roof that will be glued on the corner with the slanted glue spot) I measured it's size and I roughly marked it on piece 1B, to be able to properly glue the remaining tabs.

I'm hoping that this won't cause any issues, at least from the looks of it, I shouldn't have fitting problems in the future.

Next assembly is the Nave floor and the inner walls.

Cheers,
Gregory.

[gregoy]

While I managed to finish phase 4, I wanted to let you know about some issues that happened while building. I had to print some spare parts in order to fix some spots where the color was damaged by my manipulation of the model while having glue on my fingers (when this happens, some bits of the printed layer of the paper glues on my fingers, and when I stick them out, the printed paper has white dots/lines, wich makes the model look bad) or places where the tab had glue and it was on a wrong place before I could position it on the correct glue spot (when I unglue the tab from the wrong place, the colored part of the model is often damaged, with glue remains and white lines that also give the model a bad look)

Fortunately, the fixes worked and the model looks good again; photos of phase's 4 building will be in the next post.

[gregoy]

Now, into the building:

First, glue pieces 5B under under nave floor piece 5A (they act as support for future walls and columms) then glue piece 4C under 5A as well(it's a ramp).
Last, glue the nave floor inside the walls, matching the cardinal points.
Result is on photo 1.

The 2nd photo shows another error I found: The arch piece 3E had an extra part wich was previously covering the ramp piece 4C, so I cut this part out and now the piece looks correct to me.

Next, prepare piece 2B(photo 3) and glue window piece 2E on the hole(photo 4)
and then glue the wall onto wall 1A and the nave floor(photo 5)

Last steps here were to glue wall piece 4A to wall 3B and the floor, then glue wall 4B to wall 3A and the floor also. Final step was to glue piece 1C to the glue spots where you have the cardinal points( the RED number placement here was wrong and it made me glue the piece on the wrong orientation, but I quickly noticed it; I removed the piece and re-glued it on the correct orientation)
Result is on photo 6.

This finishes this phase, next ones are the door leaves for the choir and fore-choir and the apses floor.

Cheers,
Gregory

[gregoy]

Before I started the building with the 180gsm paper, I tried building the model with another paper type for the first time: This time I chose a 108gsm Matte Photo (printed the whole kit); from the same brand and obviously I discovered that the paper warps very fast if too much glue is applied on the surface and I felt that this could lead to future problems in the build(although the print is excellent and there's no cracks when folding).

So, I quicly decided to switch to the 180gsm paper I normally use(printed the whole kit again) and started building it.

This paper I normally use (and also used it on many previous models) is a 180gsm Glossy Photo Paper. it's from a cheap brand but the quality is acceptable. While it works for most models with lighter colors; I face edge crackling when folding parts on models with very dark colors, and this ruins the look of the model.

While I have access to better options for purchase here in São Paulo, they tend to be quite expensive considering that I only build paper models as a hobby.

So I have go for the best option among the cheap brands.

When I started building with the 180gsm paper I knew that I would have the crackling on the edges, but I kept going anyways.

But between Wednesday and Thursday, I tough on using cardboard as reinforcements so I could progress with the building using the Matte paper and I would keep going if this worked because I wanted to benefit from having no cracks when folding.

And it worked flawlessly!! I started adding cardboard reinforcements on the wall I built from the 108gsm paper test; luckily I didn't closed the bottom, so I could easily add as many strips I needed.
When I felt that going this route would work, I re-built everything that I did previously using the 180gsm paper, but using cardboard on every place I felt necessary; and the result so far is way better:

The model has no cracks at all on the edges;
The parts where I used cardboard are very sturdy and more reliable than the 180gsm paper( I know that future assemblys will fit easier and accurately;

The result so far is on the photo below; I'll keep building the model, but using the 108gsm paper and loads of cardboard.

Next phase is still the door leaves for the choir and fore-choir and the apses floor(sorry for the long text).

Cheers,
Gregory.

[Philip]

Don't worry about the long text, Gregory. What you say is if interest to many of us. Yummy build, by the way.