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H-Class Reinforced Pillbox Assembly Instructions

The following instruction are a pictorial guide to constructing this kit in its basic format, please note that to properly follow the instructions you should read through them fully before starting to assemble the kit. Also look out for sections with a - WARNING - on them - these highlight areas where mistakes are made and notify you to be careful and double check what you are doing!

Box Contents:

1: 5 Support Struts
2: 2 Wall pieces
3: 2 Small wall pieces
4: 2 back pieces
5: 2 ledge pieces
6: 1mm stencil sheet
7: 10mm foam blank
8: 2 5mm foam blanks
9: Styrene tread plate
10: 2 Black Cat control pads
11: Rubble
12: Concrete panels
13: 2 doors (interior & exterior)
14: H beams
15: Texture Paint
16: Konkrete Paste

Assembly:
Objective: Its always worth reminding ourselves what we are building:

Tips & Tools:
Please remember to use a fresh bladed knife to prevent rough edges forming when cutting styrofoam.
Use a proper styrofoam glue such as UHU Por or Deluxe Materials Foam-2-Foam.
Always check a few stages ahead in the instructions before completing a step.
Always "dry-fit" pieces before gluing to amke sure they fit neatly.

Starting out:
Assemble 3 wall sections as shown below using parts 1, 2 and 3

Notice that the INSIDE edge of the upright supports fit flush with the inside edges of the wall pieces on all three sections.

Assemble these three sections as shown below and then glue the thin back pieces (5) to the side wall sections as shown:

We now have 3 sections that we will join together - WARNING - please study the following picture carefully and note that the TOP section of the wall does NOT fit flush with the interior walls as have all previous sections. In this case you should align the two projecting low wall sections so that they match the walls on either side - this will mean that the top section is out of alignment with the interior wall - This is by design!

Now take one of the 5mm Foam sheets and place the above section on top of it like this:

Take a SOFT pencil and LIGHTLY draw a line on the bottom sheet around the inside of the walls. THis will leave you with a pattern like below which you then cut down to shape and size - WARNING - This bottom sheet needs to fit well as it gives the bunker a lot of its its strength; it is always better to slowly trim down, or sand down, the sheet until it fits snugly rather than cutting away too much.
Check that this bottom piece fits in neatly but do NOT glue it in place; you can also check that the opening at the back is small enough for the door to fit against - if the door piece can fit through the opening at the back then your walls are out of alignment. if this happens simply trim down the bottom sheet and squeeze the outer walls a shown below so that they fit snugly - there is plenty of flexibility in the walls to do this.

We will now fit the last two wall sections which are the front-top pieces. - WARNING - These pieces fit in at a slightly more acute angle than the wall pieces below them and WILL fit flush with the interior walls as you can see below:

Once the above is done flip the bunker upside down and place it on top of the other 5mm sheet as shown below. Once again draw a line on the sheet around the inside of the wall and then cut that shape out. The piece we are cutting out here will be what stops the roof of the bunker slipping around and does not need to be flush with the walls, indeed it needs to be a couple of millimetres smaller.

Next take the 10mm sheet and place it underneath the upside bunker. THis time we are going to mark the sheet on the OUTSIDE of the walls. Once again when this is done take the sheet and trim it down close to the line you have drawn but leaving a few millimetres spare as shown below - we will make this piece fit better later on.

Next take the above pieces and turn them upside down again. Then take the 5mm sheet that we cut out earlier and drop it inside the bunker walls as shown below:

Carefully remove the walls making sure that you don't move the bottom 2 sheets and then mark around the 5mm sheet as shown below. We can now glue the 5mm sheet onto the 10mm sheet where the 5mm sheet will now act to stop the roof sliding about. Put these pieces aside and we will go on now to finish making the floor.

We now need to cut the Styrene tread-plate to fit the floor of the bunker. This is easily done by laying the 5mm floor section we made earlier on on top of the styrene sheet and marking around it - WARNING - This simple stage is fraught with common mistakes. Make sure, and triple check, that you have the floor piece the right way around AND that your styrene is the right way around. To be sure place the floor section down and fit the wall around it so that you know it is the right way up. Remove the walls and place the styrene sheet on top of the 5mm sheet with the textured side facing upwards. Now turn both pieces over at the same time.
When you now mark out the shape to cut it will be correct. THe image below shows you a nice tight fitting result. Once again though do NOT glue the styrene or the bottom sheet in place.

Fitting the Doors

At this stage you now have to decide how you are going to fit your doors to the bunker. This is important as it will mean making some modifications to the work we have already done. The image below shows a finished model with the doors fitted in what i call an "Airlock" style.
Note that to do this you will need to cut thin edges from both sides of the rear wall where the door frame will fit and ALSO cut the flooring flush with the rear wall.

Another style is what I call "Reinforced" where you glue the two door faces back-to-back and fit both of them to the EXTERIOS of the back wall as shown below.

Note that in this style we don't need to change the flooring at all and we only trim out a small notch on the exterior of the back wall. The depth of the cut is dictated by the depth of the two doors as shown in the next image.

Note that any small gaps left either side of the doors can be filled later on using the Konkrete Paste supplied in the Kit. Any gaps between the door you can fill with either PVA (or a PVA & Talcum Powder mix) or use spackle, or "Model-Lite" filler. Also note that there is an Interior door and an Exterior door. The Exterior Door has large Rivets along its outer edge whilst the Interior Door is smooth, The Interior door is also slightly wider (by design).

When you fit the Interior Door so that it is flush against the flooring note that the bottom edge of the panels on the door sits on top of the floor. This projects the top of the door a couple of millimetres higher than the Exterior Door and you will need to carefully trim this down with a sharp knife.

Covering our Tracks:
We are going to now start adding detailing and covering over any unsightly seems. Where you have glued the wall sections together there are projecting edges and also sometimes small gaps as shown below:

Trim away the projecting edges using a sharp knife making sure that you cut flush with the exterior wall or support. The gaps and joins we will fill using the "Konkrete Paste": this is a specially made terrain paste - it isn't paint! - and you can ill gaps with it applying it with a toothpick, spatula or old paintbrush. There is plenty of it so don't feel the need to be stingy. it dries quickly and rock hard and is deliberately textured with quartz sand to produce NON-smooth seems; we want a slightly rough irregular join just as you would get slapping wet concrete into a join - like this:

Once this had dried we will then sand down all the sharp edges on both he exterior and interior of the wall sections. This helps us make the model look a lot less like a model!

Once we have nice smooth edges we can now go back to the roof. Trim down the roof until it is reasonably flush with the outer edges of the walls and then sand down any straight edges so that it fits lush and looks like this:

You have now essentially finished the bulk of the construction of the Pillbox. What is left now to do is to paint and detail the remaining interior panels, doors, control pads and to paint the pillbox itself. - WARNING - In this set of instruction we are NOT going to add damage to the bunker but if you want to add signs of missile and small-arms damage then NOW is the time to do it. Simple scrape out depressions in the foam wall, nick off edges and make small star shaped impression using the point of a knife.

This is also the point where you would add any detailing such as emblems. logos or numbering cut from the stencil sheet - we will not go into that in this set of instructions but you can find out how to use the stencil sheet in another set of instructions back on the Information Page.

Paint me up!
Painting of the bunker is very straightforward. Using the grey texture paint you simply paint directly onto the bunker; there is no need to apply any undercoat and the special texture paint we have included in the kit will grip the styrofoam without problem When painting the bunker paint all the areas a shown below but do not paint around the edge of the 5mm sheet under the roof as shown below:

The reason for this is best explained by showing you a finished model:


Until you have actually fitted your interior panels you will not know what bits to cut out of the 5mm sheet so that the roof fits snugly - if you paint over this area it isn't a disaster it just means that you will need to cut through the texture paint which will blunt a blade very quickly.
You can leave the bunker with just this painting on it but for a more realistic concrete look we recommend some very light dry-=brushing using a light grey and then an off-white. THis will create a very good concrete look,

You can now also paint up the styrene flooring and fix it to the bottom sheet - here is an image of one from another model:

Once dry you can now glue this in the interior of the walls (make sure you have finished painting the interior walls) - you should now have a much more rugged and stronger feeling bunker as this bottom panel gives a LOT of strength to the model.
You can also now paint up the interior panels, doors and control panels and glue them onto the walls - here is an example from a finished model:

Once you have finished the interior make sure the roof fits snugly and once you have finished any changes to the roof paint that up also. You have now finished the interior of the pillbox and can go onto the exterior.

Exterior Detailing:
Exterior detailing is VERY simple as most of the work is already done for you. The pack of "Konkrete Panels" is pre-coloured and pre-textured so you simply have to fit them to the walls and supports as you see fit. The "classic" arrangement is as shown below:

Note that the upper panel on the support goes a few millimetres above the top of the wall; this is by design and acts to keep the roof in place - WARNING - when fitting these upper panels make sure that the roof is IN PLACE: Put a good blob of Tacky-Glue on the support itself and then gently place the Panel by fitting the lower part in place and then lowering the panel down against the roof - DONT press down hard or you make break the panel (if you do it actually looks like good battle damage mind you - see later). Leave the Panel to dry and you can then remove the roof.

The lower panels on the wall all fit flush to the wall and simply glue them in place with tacky-glue or PVA. If you want ant o add Upper Panels take the two H-beam styrene pieces and trim then down to size, undercoat them and paint them up to the desired colour - then simply glue them to the upper section of wall as s shown above. The H-beams are sized to fit a single panel on its side - WARNING - you will need to trim the panel to fit neatly into the H-beam groove as shown below:

The Panels will now drop into the groove as shown below. You can glue these panels into place or leave them loose.

Weathering:
We wont go into lots of detail on weathering as it is very straightforward for this type of model - battle damage can be added earlier by roughing up the styrofoam walls and you can break the concrete panels or even gouge out blast damage and weapons damage as shown below:

Adding some black weathering powder to highlight blast marks will go a long way in terms of "realism" as will adding some rubble around the base - there is a small pack of pre-coloured blocks in the kit which you can use as rubble simply by smashing it up with a hammer and gluing it down on a base (if you use a base - the Pillbox does not require one).

Alternative Elements:
One popular alternative build is to make the walls appear as though they have been made from smaller pre-fabricated concrete blocks as shown in the image below. To replicate this simply cut all of the wall sections into 10mm lateral strips and then glue them back together - the result will give rough edges and make the walling look more modular:

Emblems, logos, numerals
Using the stencil sheet you can cut your own details to add to the roof or walls - the example below is of an Imperial Eagle from Warhammer 40K

Because this detailing is 3D, rather than just painted on, it looks far more effective and you can also add battle damage to it by disfiguring it with the point of a knife, adding shot blasts and small-weapons damage such as bullet holes..

And ... that's job done!

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