I know most of you have heard of them .Did you know that they have more ships than TAMIYA , HASEGAWA , REVELL , And REVELL of GERMANY put together , and many more types than are available in plastic .And they many times , Did it First . WhilemShaven did a 1/250 Container ship ( The CONTI BELGICA ) way before REVELL did the 1/700 Ship and they even made an extra package of containers available ! I have their KRONPRINZ in paper (1/200 ) so good , I am using the paper-model parts as patterns for a scratchbuilt plastic one . The nice part of Paper Modeling , besides the varied subjects is , if you are ailing , say you broke something or whatever and you cannot do the usual , You can get a bottle of ALEENS ( sticky ) Glue , a pair of scissors and tweezers and model away , doing no harm to the bed table or dining room table or kitchen counter !
Now , all that said There are those who are kinda sidelined , namely vehicle and armor guys .I can’t help that , but for you plane guys , How about this , Papermodels of the airwing on a carrier in that scale ? Lotsa widdle biddy airplanes ! They make bigger ones too . I have two , (one I left Behind in the V.A. rec room at Martunez C.A.) and one I have at home . A LUFTHANSA 737 with Aluminun skin where it’s supposed to be and even the turbofan blades that turn in 1/72 scale ! Dare you to tell , till you’re right up close that it’s paper !
The nice part about it too is you Can use P.E. It’sa trick but it looks good too . Most are printed in the right colors to start with and after spraying with craft clear they look every bit as good too .There are cars that can be gussied up with 1/24-1/25 parts and some light skinned military vehicles too ! ( none that I’ve seen in plastic ) on the latter .Then there is this .If you can draw you can create your own and correct simply along the way . I saw some at a show and they blew me away .How about a Brassin Cockpit in a paper plane .WOW ! Or a P-51 in full repair mode ( a damaged wing , With all the little frames and bent and mangled aluminum ( foil of course ) Now that’s hard enough in plastic!
The end result can sway anyone .Want to try something with a plastic kit ? Try it in paper first .That way you don’t possibly ruin a very expensive chunk of your modeling budget ! I think even MIKEY likes it He! He! Tanker - Builder P.P.S. 150 papermodels fit in one desk drawer
Poland rose to a major paper model power some years ago and is still going strong. there are companies like GPM, Fly Model, Kartonowy Arsenał, WAK and the oldest of them all - Mały Modelarz - since 1957! They do many ships in scales from 1:350 to 1:200, Aircraft in 1:33, tanks and wheeled vehicles in 1:25, some tanks in 1:16, and also rail vehicles and buildings. For many models there are vacu formed canopies and laser cut parts available. Recently there’s a model of the Mi-24 chopper in 1:33 avaialable - you should see that!
On a side note, should you have problems with Polish instructions, drop me a note, I’ll help you if only I have the time.
So that would be it, best greetings and have a nice day
I am pretty far along on a WW2 Link Trainer model. I am a pretty experienced modeler, but this is my first complex paper model. Boy, am I a novice! It looks like junk! I am mainly building it to help do scale drawings for a scratch multi-media version. I am sure learning new skills via trial and error!
Some things I like about paper models; Low cost is one, there are many free files online, run through your printer with cardstock. If I screw up a part (or loose one), just reprint that page! As someone else said, sure are a lot of diverse stuff out there!
I would very much like to buy some of the Polish made paper , 1/25 scale armor kits but am uncertain who I can trust with my money for an online order.[^o)]
Speaking of paper ships, here is one paper model entry at the Nov 2013 Butch O;Hare Contest :
That Fuso was an incredible piece of work. The builder commented that it took him, if I remember correctly, something like 3 years and 3000 hours to build that model. Wow!
I remember being beat out by a paper ship model at a big contest. I had entered a scratch built Great Lakes ore carrier that I was really proud of. Did get second place, but a paper WW2 cruiser beat me out and walked away with first place!
Raualduke - of course not. It has a solid cardboard inner structure and lots of parts soldered out of wire [:D]
By the way - use of correct materials is very important to the build. So if you print your models at home, be sure to use paper, that’s heavy enough, otherwise it won’t work. You would want something slightly thinner than an average business part - or something like a magazine cover. Not all printers can handle correct material without wrinkling. Once I printed a paper model on a regular office paper, but then had to use spray glue to fix that paper to a correct strength material
Though I did not ask the builder, I presumed from the start that the ship model was no more 100 percent paper.than any of the plastic models in the contest consisted of only 100 percent plastic.
It has been decades since I have seen a model entered into a contest that was exclusively made of plastic.
Hmmm…now that I think of it, I believe the mid 1980s was the first time I was able to buy a plastic model airplane kit that contained not only plastic but photo etch and cast metal landing gear.[^o)]
Listen , I have many of their models .All you have to do is find the exploded drawing and go from there .The Polish languge is not a barrier ! The paper model theme is simple Boxes , circles and tubes and a few more generic shapes . PAWEL , Here’s something for you .I have most of my paper models of really nice stuff from Kartonowy Arsenal !
Don’t feel bad .When My client sent me the TRUMPETER - ARIZONA to build , Besides all the Plastic there was fifteen frets of P.E. he sent to detail it with ! Two came taped to the box he said .
I got turned on to paper models at Nats this year. Saw a table with some of them built up. The free ones you can print are especially appealing. I just need to do some serious searching and pick one out one of these days.
I had a beautiful 1/200 HMS Tiger that I built in the past from a paper kit. I was really impressed how they designed the paper so when you fold it you have a round gun barrel.
Naw, when rolling parts, when you got good paper, you just take a drill bit, a screwdriver or a piece of wire and roll the part around it. Cylinders and cones are no problem. OK, a gun barrel is a kind of challenge, but doable with good thin paper and some practice. Normally, with the exception of very small rolled parts, you make a separate “lip” you glue inside the part, so that the round part doesn’t show a step or ridge, just a small seam, you usually conceal positioning it so as to look down and be in the shadow.
