Photos by the Author
We are now on the final stretch to completing a marathon of a model.
You may remember from the previous episode that there was a large white hole in the middle of the castle district. This is filled with the St Vita's cathedral. I guess that the best bit is that there are no more chimneys!
As you will see from the following review, the main components are the flying buttresses. These present various problems, which I have mentioned on many occasions in the two previous articles. The parts have to be folded in half so that both sides are the same, so the problem of rough edges and differing print shades becomes quite obvious. The other problem is the thickness of the card. I have mentioned before that the card is "heavy" and seems to blunt my blades in no time. This is compounded now that we have a double thickness of card.
So, enough of the problems, read on to find out if I completed the model or have retired to a quiet room in the country!
The first part is the chancel wall. It has to be folded to create the buttresses
between the windows. The roof fits on top to create the correct shape. At this
point the top of the walls has yet to be folded back on itself to create the
inner side of the rampart.
The roof is on and the main part of the building is glued in place. Don't worry about the tilt, this is still St Vita's and not Pisa. The tilt is just the lower tabs that will be glued to another former for the floor. Note the quality (or lack thereof) of the folded edges of the buttresses.
Here we have a buttress almost ready to be put in place. As you can see, there are quite a few white edges, which will never do! The window part of the piece is glued to the wall and the lower part is attached to the chancel wall.
This is a second type of buttress. These will be attached to the wall on the side of the cathedral and sit on the roof over the side isle. The base area gives the position for the roofs that are to follow.
The next lot of buttresses are in place. The wall looks a little out of vertical but this will be remedied when the floor panel is glued in place.
This shows one of the many small roofs that are placed between the buttresses. As you will notice there are quite a few tabs! I didn't bother to score along the tab lines, I just cut them off. At the risk of too many repetitions, the card is so thick that the pieces butt join with no problems at all.
The back end of the cathedral in all its glory. Look closely, because once it is in place in the castle area, much of it will be invisible!
This gives a good idea of how close together the pieces are printed. There is about one and a half pieces shown. These buttresses fit on the walls of the Nave.
If you haven't seen the separation line, it's to the left of the right hand window.
It may be difficult to see in this picture, but the Nave wall is a very different shade of "brown" from the buttress. The colours vary from a reddish brown to an orange brown. But I guess that you have to expect this from a kit that's over 30 years old.
Another example of an overkill (The English version is the "belt and braces") approach to tabs. As you can see from the #11 blade this isn't a big part. Needless to say, the three small tabs are now in my waste bin.
Yet another difficult to see picture. I am trying to show that the card is very thick once it's been doubled over. The piece that fits on the roof and tower is supposed to line up with the edge of the tower. I had to shave the short wall so that the piece fitted flush with the outer edge of the tower.
Here we have the start of the main clock tower. The kit supplied one template for the top, so I had to make another to make sure the bottom was the same shape.
The eagle eyed will note there is a discrepancy with the numbers. Have no fear! K52 on the tower refers to the template number. K55 refers to the part that goes on top of part K51 which is the tower.... Simple really!
There you are, I told you there was another part to the tower! The three other pieces are glued to the back of the top tower.
This was the part I was most worried about. There are small pieces that have quite a subtle curve and I was not sure that they would look acceptable, given the thickness of the card. As always with this kit I removed all the tabs. I then gently bent the pieces round a thin tube to give the right curve.
This is the middle sized dome and as you can see I did keep the top tab, mainly to have a platform for the next dome.
The completed dome. You may just be able to see the white lines! However a few coats of paint and they almost disappear.
I was quite pleased with the completed spire. As you can see it has a nice symmetrical finish.
Pictures of the completed cathedral
All that remains is to attach the cathedral to the area reserved for it in the castle district.
The final few pictures show the completed model.
Now that it is complete, I have mixed feelings, grateful that its finished because of the various shortcomings of the kit.
Pleased that it has turned out so well.
Relief that despite all the problems the overall model looks good and the rough folds don't stand out as much as I feared.
Reminiscent may strike you as an odd feeling but my wife and a few friends of ours spent quite some time wandering around this part of Prague.
The detail of the model is so good that I can trace our steps and even see the souvenir shop where I bought the kit of the Estates Theatre and a handful of postcards that had cut out models of some of the main buildings of this beautiful city.
Although I wouldn't recommend this kit to anyone who has little experience, I would recommend Prague to anyone who likes old cities with lovely architecture.
If you like the city as much as I do you may be tempted to try this model for your self.
Remember, the kit from PMI comes with English instructions so you will have no excuses.
