My friend Lisa got me an N scale box car and “Cricket’s Saloon” by DPM (kit #511) for Christmas (and I love her for it). I wouldn’t have expected her to know the better quality kits from the lesser quality ones, and once again DPM has proven to be one of the worst (at least in N scale anyhow) that I usually avoid.
The plastic is extremely brittle and difficult to work, the castings are sloppy with excessive flash and, for whatever reason, DPM always seems to have trouble producing chimneys or cornice halves that match-up decently (3 out of the 4 chimney halves were badly shaped and didn’t meet-up at the edges, and if you file or sand them you lose brick texturing). They provide you with slanted edges with the excuse that “draft angles” are a necessary part of the molding process, yet there are plenty of better quality kits that certainly don’t.
What really killed me was this quote from the instruction sheet (I had to read it twice to ensure they really said this):
“If you want to make the building exactly square, sand both edges of the rear wall to remove about .02 inches in width. In the real world, few buildings are exactly square - you might decide to skip this step.”
Uhhh, if the builder who built my house in Minnesota told me, “few buildings are exactly square”, he wouldn’t be my builder! What an assanine statement! I spent about 30 min. sanding-down the rear wall’s edges to get the structure perfectly square, because without that effort, “Cricket’s Saloon” would’ve looked off-kilter from across the room let alone up close. Plus, who the heck can measure .02 inches on an N scale structure??
I got past all this and the kit is looking acceptible now (to be renamed “Lisa’s Lounge”), but DPM is a pretty sad excuse for Made In USA quality.
There’s one reason to buy DPM. Price. You get what you pay for. With DPM kits, you get four walls, the roof, window glass and not much else. At the price you pay for them, you can’t expect much more than that. DPM kits have a place on my layout as fillers on the back edge of the layout. They aren’t going to be showpieces and aren’t going to have a prominent place up front. If you want more quality, expect to pay a higher price.
I feel your pain with the DPM structures, I try and get them as close as possible when I assemble them. And I can be understand your feelings.
Real quick though, you said if your builder of your home ever stated that your home was not perfect in being square, he would not be your builder. I’ve built quite a few homes and allot of garages over the years. And if a builder can say a structure he built is perfect as far as being square in the home built market, he would be lying through his teeth. If a builder can get it within an inch from corner to corner, he is doing great. Expansion and settling will play a major factor in being square also.
I live in a 120 year old Victorian home which sits 13 inches off on one side of my large lot, in otherwords it was eye balled to be square with our brick street out in front. This showed up a few years ago on the GPS servey that was done. We have a room upstairs that is 7 inches wider from one end to the other, so it isn,t even close to being square. I have never measured the outside wall to see any difference in it, don’t want to either. I’m afraid of what I’ll find.
Last one I got (Front St. Building) had recessed doorways that where all completely warped and unusable. Since I got it for $12 with no S&H, I’m not complaining too much. I can make it work. If it weren’t for DPM, Smalltown and the like, my city would cost me 5 times more than I want to spend.
I’m not going to grumble about DPM kits. I like them. I don’t see a kit as a self-contained work of art. Instead, it’s a template, almost a blank canvas. For the price, you get a decent casting of 4 walls. After that, it’s up to you. Doing something with a DPM kit separates the men from the true modellers.
We’ve come to expect too much from kits. Sure, it’s nice to have all the little details in the box, but it’s even better to make your own scene. Search the web for some signs. Print some decals, and put them in the windows. Install lighting, and a second story with some figures inside, barely seen through the windows.
It’s my layout, not theirs. Every one of my DPM buildings is a unique structure, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Yeah, I’d like them to be square, too. But, it’s a DPM quirk I’ve learned to live with. I measure and re-cut the buildings. No big deal.
You spent a half hour sanding the edges? Did you use the method outlined on the DPM instruction sheet? That really speeds up the “squaring up” process immensely.
Since I’m in HO, I can’t speak for the N-scale kits. However, the DPM kits I’ve put together have been good quality kits. Yes, you have to sand some of the edges so that the walls are flat to one another but they do walk you through the process. And, because of the thickness of the walls, I’ve found the HO kits to be very sturdy.
I think the brick and window detailing on the newer kits is quite nice for the price. The only thing that I don’t care for with the older DPM kits are the window encasements. They’re too thick and bulky.
Lastly, besides purchasing a pair of calipers (which an inexpensive pair can be picked up for ~$20), if you want a quick and dirty method for measuring minute measurements, use a piece of paper. Most 8-1/2 x 11 paper is 3.5- to 4-mil (0.0035-0.004") thick. For calculating 20-mil (0.02"): Stack 5 - 6 sheets of paper on top of each other. Voila! 0.02"
there are compromises made in the design and tooling to keep the price down
with a moderate amt of average quality work very nice models can be constructed at a very reasonable cost. Yes, i too have had trouble with their recessed doorways, but when all factors are considered it comes down to where else can you get that many semi urban structures without breaking the bank?
I love DPM kits. They’re very affordable, and also very easy to work with. The designs are basic, so you can apply a lot of creativity to bashing them. I also really like the large windows on the first floor stoor fronts, which open up a lot of possibilities for interiors.
The sanding and squaring is not rocket science, and using some tape to make masks, you can even paint them in a hurry.
As for warped parts, DPM kits are packaged in a zip loc bag, and can easily be inspected before purchase. Take a moment and look the parts over before putting your money down.
Maybe we’ve become a little too accustomed to buying built up kits (at exhorbitant prices) and not building models ourselves. Take some time to develop some skills, and you’ll come to really appreciate DPM.
I just wish their new overlord at Woodland Scenics would create some new designs to add more variety to the line.
I model in HO as well as many previous posters. My only real problem with DPM kits are that they seem to take FOR-EV-ER to paint! It’s like 10-minute assembly then 10-day painting. I’ve assembled several of the 100-series kits and am looking forward to a few of the 200s as I believe they have separate window castings. That should make the painting go a lot easier… fire up the airbrush and have at it.
My layout is littered with DPM’s N scale kits. I love them. Sure you have to sand a little, but I mean gee whiz… For the price, you can’t really beat them.
A DPM factory (embellished with some additional detail):
A street with a mix of DPM, Atlas, and Walthers kits:
DPM stores round out my town in this construction scene:
As long as you use a good square edge on DPM kits, you shouldn’t have any trouble with them lining up well. But then, I suppose that’s a good rule for any model kit you’d make.
I’ve had a few DPM kits that I put together–don’t seem to have too much trouble with them.
I think though what with the quality of the higher priced kits out there comes the reflection that lower priced kits pull up the quality as well. It just seems to be the nature of the beast as it were, but to ask that there be a near 1:1 quality level when DPM sells for ~$20 vs any kit made by BTS or some such at a $60 level would be a bit much— then again, what if someone thought this possible? -----hhmmmnn—(chin stroking time) ----hhhmmn[:-,][:-^]
Yep - I sure did use the flat sanding sheet technique DPM suggested, and it was about 30 min. while watching Iowa hand South Carolina their lunch in the Outback Bowl. Maybe I was stopping too often to check the fit, and maybe the sandpaper was too fine a grit, but it did take that long.
Maybe you do get what you pay for, and I’m certainly not averse to doing some kitbashing and scratch detailing work to enhance a kit’s final result. But I’ve worked wi
All you young whippersnappers in the midwest and far west are way too spoiled. What do you want next - a level floor? I’d love to walk through your house with a square and a level. I’d bet a brass loco that I could find a corner out of square somewhere in your building.
Unless you’re in a frost free, earthquake free, bedrock stable environment, or you have an engineered 30 foot deep basement, odds are good your building is going to move after construction.
I’ve assembled a couple of DPM kits (in HO), and love them. Great price, and visual detail is good. Sanding edges took me 5 minutes, if, as noted, you follow their instructions. I also used a magnetic gluing jig that I’ve had for years from Micro Mark. This is a god send for setting up buildings - as the old saying goes, if you don’t start from a square edge…well…it’s kind of hard to end up there.
I’d honestly recommend this tool to anyone who models. Oh yeah, that’s a DPM freight depot in there.
Let’s keep this in scale, shall we? Yes, were you to wander my house with a square you would indeed find places where corners are not perfectly square. Those out-of-square cases would be a matter of inches, not several feet, they would surely be the result of settling, and were an exact replica of my house as it stands today were to be built, imperfections and all, those imperfections would not be clearly noitceable to the naked eye on an N scale layout.
This kit’s rear wall, if the sanding were skipped as mentioned in the instructions, would’ve caused the structure to appear so out-of-square (by roughly 2 ft. on either side) it would’ve looked ridiculous.
Now I feel compelled to ask the million dollar question -
why would you skip part of the instructions, and than complain about the outcome? [?] If you don’t like the kits, that is certainly your prerogative, but it seems odd to raise an issue with something that they have clearly corrected and defined as a step in their assembly process.[2c]
WIAR, I’ve always thought of DPM kits as great starting point to building a great model. You can slap one together in 10 minutes, an hour if you paint it or you can detail the heck out of it and make it a week or two long project, thats what I do. If you have a problem with building the kit then maybe you need to look at your own modeling skills before bad mouthing DPM. Same goes for the other posters that chipped in with negative comments. My very first DPM kit didn’t turn out the way I thought it would but after building a few and adding details like floors, funiture and people inside I must say they look incredible and I’m very proud of them. With a little practice and improved modeling skills you too can build a model you would be proud of.
