Today we review the newest offering from Lunde Studios.  For those of you unfamiliar with Lunde, they have been around for a few years in their current form, starting with built-up structures then moving into kits in N and HO scales.

The Kit

Schwitters Dept Store
Price: $45.00
Manufacturer:
Lunde Studios
37 County Road 1390
Eureka Srings, AR 72632
www.lundestudios.com

note: details such as the awnings and sign on the side were added by me and are not included in the kit.

This is the second kit we have reviewed at N Scale Limited, the first being the Stump Tower which is part of their Galt Trio series.  The Galt Trio’s were plagued with delay after delay and for many that pre-ordered them had to wait up to a year to receive their kits.  Fortunately they were able to overcome these issues and were able to deliver this latest kit after a little more than two months.  This kit helps fill a void in the N scsle market and that is larger mid-block structures.  There are many smaller ones, but slim to none over three floors.  Everything larger out there is a corner building and in reality are much less common then mid-block structures.

The kit arrived well packaged and was free from any shipping damage.  Upon first inspection of the parts, I was quickly shocked by the size of the building!  It almost feels too big to be N scale and this seems to be proven when you size it up to their Galt Trio kits.  After some debate on this issue, I did a little research on department stores of the era that this would have been built.  To my initial surprise, virtually all department stores dwarfed the floor to celling height of surrounding structures.  Then it all made sense to me and I was impressed that they would catch this.

Another thing I quickly noticed on the kit that disappointed me was the fact that all of the windows were molded in with the wall sections.  I felt that this was a step backwards from the Galt Trio kits which came with separately cast windows.  The third thing I noticed was the large amount of flashing in the windows.  I was hoping that this would have been rectified from the previous offerings.  This might be an unfortunate side effect of the fact that the parts are hand cast.  On the side walls I was happy to see a brick texture molded into the walls, other companies seem to be leaving this crucial detail off because of their manufacturing processes.

Other then the walls, in the box was the cast roof, acetate for the windows and many other parts for bracing and details.  The main entrance to the building was cast as a separate part, and they include two of these because of the fragility of it, I didn’t seen to have any issues with this part.

Construction

If you have ever built a basic Design Preservations Models kit in the past, you will notice that this goes together in the exact same way, just larger.  The first thing needing to be done before construction is the prepping of the parts.  Lunde has included sufficient instructions and has given multiple tips on how to simplify construction by prepping your parts.  One of the first steps is to clear away all of the flash, this is where I encountered all of my hiccups with assembling my kit.  The first issue I ran into was that two of the window frame rails had air bubbles in them.  One I caught before I cleaned out the flash and the other I broke out while clearing more.  I decided to replace both rails and I substituted them with some .030x .040″ strip styrene cut to length, they were a perfect match.  Other then those, air bubbles were tiny or nonexistant on the surfaces.

The next issue I ran into was with the flash on my left wall section.  The flashing in a few of the windows was very thick, up to .030″.  I was able to cut out one section of it out okay, but then I decided to fill them in with brick sheet.  I actually like this effect more than the windows now.  After I was past these few issues, construction went fairly smooth and easy.

Because of the fact that this is a resin kit, you cant use many kinds of glues you might be used to.  They recommend using ACC (super glue), I used a CA (cyanoacrylate) gap filling glue for assembly, it seems to work well.  Gluing the walls together was easy and I didn’t have any issues with keeping the walls square during assembly.  They do have instructions for building a simple jig for gluing your walls if you find it necessary.

As with the roof on the Galt Trio kits I was excited to see a nicely detailed and textured roof included, not just a sheet of styrene.  The roof is intentionally molded a little large and they recommend sanding it to fit, I found it easier and faster to trim it with a sharp hobby knife.

Painting the structure was again, basically like a large DPM kit.  One thing to be mindful of is the fact that the resin that the kit is molded in is very porous.  It drinks paint like a sponge and if possible, I would recommend  spraying the walls versus painting by hand.  I actually learned to like this fact because it created some very realistic effects, especially the front wall section.

Overview

Despite the few flaws with the air bubbles in the window frames, the excess flashing and the cast in windows, I would say that Lunde Studios has another great kit for the urban modeler from the 1920′s to modern day.  It is a easy yet fun structure to build and it would fit for anyone in the beginner to expert skill levels, depending on how far you want to take it.