u/zippe6

This was a quick and easy build. A screwdriver and snips, both of which came with the kit are all you need.

Nice change of pace, no glue, no paint, no sanding, just a quick 2 star difficulty build.

Bu the result outsrtipped the effort, its a sharp looking model and the motion and lights are something to see.

Because I have to customise, I glued a single gear to one wing, left my mark.

Pretty funny, the water sounds from my aquarium in the background made the atmosphere for the video.

Looks like it wont take long at all. Hassle free build so far and pretty cool looking.

After a disappointing experience with my first mystery box I did what any sane person would do, I bought a second, more expensive one.

I hit the jackpot! Got grandfathers antique store. Didn't know an antique store was the perfect nook for me, but i absolutely loved this build. Everything went together like clockwork. The eclectic clutter was perfect for me and I got to cram some of my own stuff in there. I fearlessly colored the edges with my wife out of town and may have committed some atrocities, but it would add to the charm. Best news is that a SINGLE coat of white edging looks very antique.

The battery cover is silly but all the lights were well thought out and went in without too much difficulty. The sign out front was for an Italian restaurant and the oval above it a florist, not sure what that was about but it pushed me to rebrand to PaPas, which is what my granddaughters call me.

Finally, there was a cartoony girl for the center that I replaced with a doggo.

Absolutely will build another Cutebee if I like the theme.

Not for the faint hearted. Very fragile, the scroll work seemed to be everywhere I needed leverage to push in a tab. Several breaks and glue. Not a biggie and probably not a problem if you don't have thick old sausage fingers like I do.

Very thirsty wood, soaked up a lot from my paint pens. I was very scared of the curved roof parts so I put them between paper towels and soaked them in hot water for a couple minutes. It either worked or I was worried for nothing as the pieces went in ok.

Quick build, very quick if you don't fuss with the colors like I do. Nice piece when I finished though.

Didn't see much of this brand(HowCat) around, so I wanted to shine a light on them.
Considering it's the same kind of parts as booknooks, I thought maybe it would interest some people here.
It's just as fun to build as a booknook, takes a bit more time but the exact same tools.

What is Dead may never Die

....except for masts, may they die a thousand times.

A friend of one of my long term friends is going through chemo right now. He was struggling with the isolation needed for chemo and his activity level being reduced to next to nothing. My friend knew about my passion for wooden models and shared this hobby with him and bought him his first kit. He just finished that kit, the Eiffel Tower. He reports that this has been a lifesaver and is just what he needed.

My friend was planning on buying him another kit but I'm going to gift him one from my build queue that can continue his momentum. I can replace it anytime and I'm full of joy in sharing my hobby in a way that helps someone.

This hobby's given a lot of people more than just something to do with their hands, focus, a sense of progress, something to look forward to finishing. For him right now, that matters in a way most builds don't have to carry. I like to refer to building as active meditation. Mindfulness has an amazing effect on your body.

Wishing him strength through treatment. Proud to be part of a community that gets passed along like this.

These are such fun one night builds, very inexpensive at Walmart, but I enjoy them.

Six weeks on and off, 600+ pieces, and I finally got it to the finish line.

I colored all the edges and changed up some of the colors. I didn’t like either the shiny gold or black cannons, so I used a bronze marker on all of them. The little seahorses on the sides disappeared because they were black, so I did them in gold. I also used several shades of brown on the deck details to give it more of a classic model ship feel.

The anchors and chains are jewelry charms, as are the seahorses on the sides of my custom sign. The lifeboat was something I found for a couple bucks on a boat modeling site and built separately.

Overall, this was a very satisfying build. The amount of black edge coloring I did was extreme — I burned through an entire acrylic marker — but it was worth it.

I could do more rigging, but it was tough with all the little detail pieces. I kept knocking things off and having to glue them back on.

Now to decide what my next big project is!

Bathroom in a cigar box.

This is my third of these and won't be my last. Not even sure what to call them but they are fun. No brand name on this one but tge first on I got was on moyustore.

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It may be time to tackle a big one

It was an adventure at times. Not forgiving of mistakes, the pieces do not come back apart. I guess it will hold together well, and I got to use my little rubber mallet.

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I painted and made signs for it to get a nicer display model, think it worked well.

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Splintery wood but this has been out of production for a while, I should have found a way to hydrate.

Hey Reddit! Was doing some digital spring cleaning today and stumbled upon an old model I engineered for laser cutting — the iconic Willys MB Jeep. I actually cut a few kits and assembled one back then to test the tolerances (it's about 16cm long, 50 parts total, engineered strictly for 3mm plywood).

Every part features smart micro-tabs, so no lost small pieces falling into the honeycomb bed during the process. Everything fits together perfectly with zero glue required for the main body chassis.

Since it took a ton of test cuts to get the zero-glue tolerances right, I've made the clean DXF, SVG, and vector PDF layout files available as a paid project (~$12), complete with the step-by-step PDF manual straight from the CAD model.

Note: Sorry for the confusion earlier, guys! English is not my native language, so I used AI to help with the text, but it completely misrepresented my message and made it sound like a freebie. Lessons learned, I'll write it myself next time. Appreciate the honest feedback! 🛠️

A giant wooden car model from a Brazilian boat model company, Nauticurso. I couldn't resist tge challenge

Looks very red now but there's yellow and white and green coming. I like the build so far but its missing its rubber bands. No complaints, it's a discontinued kit I got on ebay. But, I literally have no runner bands in the house so I had to order a big misc bag from Amazon to make sure I get suitable ones.

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So now, gotta pause.

Looks like a good one, I was disappointed with the lower price mystery box, but Im excited for this one. Looks like lots of detail, and an interesting theme. Will see how it goes together.