Intro to Plamo

Deep into our past, human cultures have always crafted and tinkered. The creativity expressed from us playing with materials we found in nature broadened into formal skills. We enabled art and architecture and with this play and shaped representations of people, ideas, and objects. These sculptures had many uses for religious practices, as abstractions, crafted into imaginative playthings, or in pursuit of aesthetics. Sometimes the creations were enlarged to great wonders and relics, or finessed down to figurines and toys. After uncountable pairs of hands have found joy in the manipulation of shapes, and with the many advancements in material sciences, we now have machinery and computers that can supplant precise fabrication. You can easily find somewhere selling a wide-reaching market of easy-to-assemble products - small renditions of a subject made of a cheap and convenient medium. The plastic model kit.

These vary in many aspects and the different subcultures will have their own metrics to judge and value the efforts made and products sold. At an attempt of a wide-reaching but accurate breakdown of the phrase plastic model kit: it is of some plastic in a chemistry sense shaped as a model of a subject with the expectation that you assemble from a kit of included components. Common plastics include injected polystyrene, casted resin, and spun PVC. The product can model a real vehicle or a fictional character. The kit may be comprised of many pieces connected, sleeves of shaped material, or simply loose chunks.

As this page's name indicates, there is a shortned word for a plastic model. The portmaneau of pla-stic mo-del originates from the Japanese fanbase and has caught on with the English community as the main marketspace shifts to Japanese-made products. A further mutation is found in the very successful Gundam kits, where Gun-dam pla-mo becomes the moniker gunpla. While there was mention of resin and PVC, those are more widely associated with the moniker of a garage kit which is explained here while plamo is generally used for products composed of one or more of the following injected plastics: polystyrene (PS), acrylonitrile butadiene (ABS), polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), or polyoxymethylene (POM). There may be some others, but I've only enounctered the above with any frequency to note. You'll almost assuredly find an instruction manual inside that will call out specific parts by reference to a runner symbol, and then a part symbol for that specific runner. Most model kits will also include detailing accessories in the form of either a transfer decal or a sticker. These are covered in more detail in the terminology and you section. Nearly every kit will have several runners - the thick plastic that surrounds the pieces. The runner shrinks down into gates as it then expands into the detailed shape of the individual parts. If you branch out across different manufacturers or to specialized product sets, you might have some tools, paint, or high-detail replacement parts included with the kit. The assumption should be; however, that you will need to bring your own tools.

The individual preferences and experiences we have also impacts how someone builds their plamo. Instead of giving specific products to recommend, it would be best to either seek out a tool set such as from Tamiya or Mr. Hobby, or find individual items of the types that will be called out in the following steps.

Check your contents.

You want to make sure you didn't end up with a lemon and have a duplicated or missing runner. It also is a good idea to make sure no parts were dislodged during transit, and either lost prior to your purchase or that would need to be taped or baggied so you don't yourself lose it. This is also a good time to see if there's some special feature or requirement for the kit based on the manual. A simple flip-through is usually sufficient, and as you gain experience you'll only need to be referencing runners to make sure nothing is gone.

Plan your approach.

Maybe you're a fan of bullet journaling and want to give yourself a whole step-by-step plan of action with callouts for the products you'll need at the different times so you can arrange your workspace. Maybe you're just that confident that you just need to make a mental decision to start. Perhaps you know you want to take the kit past what the box includes and need to look up references. Your hobby is your time to use however pleases you.

Cutting, Snapping, and Gluing.

• Look over step 1 of your manual. Find the associated runners called out and glide your eyes around until you find the matching number. Double check and grab your nippers! This is a universally-used cutting tool. There is no need to splurge at the outset on this products. Line up your nipper a few millimeters on the gate and away from the part, or on the runner before it deforms into the gate. Try to angle it so that you are aligning the nipper's cutting plane with the longest plane of the gate. You can either come in from the top, the bottom, or remove some of the runner and come from the side. Make your cut on all gate locations and you now have a separated piece.
• Here's the first major divergence. Many people will use the second-cut method. They take their same nipper, or a more delicate and precise one, and cut each gate again. You then will have to do a final removal of material at the gate mating points with part. The second cut itself and the final removal can vary. You may have a round part and need to make multiple cuts. Some people will use a hobby knife to shave away only at the final removal or in lieu of a second cut. There people who prefer precision files or sandpaper for either step. There may even be a third or fourth cut as you progressively use the nippers to trim the gate down. This gate being removed is often referred to as a nub and any deformation at the mating point due to the stress of cutting is referred to as a nub mark.
• You will repeat this process for each part called out in the manual. Once you have all the parts of a step cut and prepared, you can now assemble it. There are two major ways that model kits expect you to assmble them. It will either be snap-fit or glue-together. Snap-fit kits are becoming increasingly common and are as simple as orientating the parts as the manual shows and pressing together. A good practice at this stage is to trim your pegs at a 45 degree angle first, and possibly even shorten them. This is to make disassembly due to errors or for future processes easier. Glue-together kits were the standard and still are for real-world models. You may even opt to glue your snap-fit kits due to wanting to remove the visible seam between parts that mate. You want to test how they line up and maybe adhere them with tape to hold position. While the process is called gluing, the majority of the time the product you want for this is called cement. It is a chemical solvent that will dissolve the plastic. It comes in thicker and slower-acting varities as well as thinner and faster-acting. If you are using the thicker kind, you can apply the cement to the inside of the edges brushing outward to not spill over. If you use the thinner, you can have the part already taped or snapped and open it up to create a small channel. The viscosity will let it flew into the space. In either case, once the glue is present, you press it together. Some rubber bands, clamps, a vise, or your own hands can be used to keep it held down while the cement dissolves and combines the plastic. In some instances, you may find yourself electing to use instant/super glue instead. This material grips onto both halves and cures very hard. With either case of gluing, you will have to let it dry out and then you must remove the excess material or misaligned surface. Sanding, filing, or planing are the most commong ways to achieve these.
• Now you just have to repeat these processes again and again for every step. Always check for call outs! Sometimes a part has to be inserted first to fit properly, or you might have to apply a sticker or paint a sub-assembly before it is glued in. Oritentation of parts matters and while left/right symmetry will usuaslly be distinguishable, the extra care taken to make sure you are assembling correctly won't hurt you. As you gain experience, you will find yourself finding your own preferences of tools or addressing common annoyances or changing which steps you follow in what order. This hobby is free to be explored and enjoyed how you choose to.
• If you make errors, there are ways to resolve it. Almost nothing you do in this hobby is truly irreversible. If cement flows over, or you press your finger into a glue, or cut deeply or at a wrongly angle into a part: you can fix it. The first step is to always stop. Then step back. Decide if you have to move on or can address it now.