I don’t know about you, but it’s nice to sit down with a quick and easy build every once in a while. Unfortunately, I got myself into a pickle in that regards by not having any of those, until this Sundial Bridge model came in the mail this last weekend. I picked up this little model along with the two other “retired” models I didn’t yet have (the Kennedy Center and Pan Am China Clipper) with my model budget for the month. It seemed a good one to follow up some of the more difficult ones I’ve been building lately.

This single-sheet model is an interesting little bugger, much like it’s real-world counterpart. It’s quite quirky, fun to look at, and conceals a few surprises in the build process. I was able to complete it in just under half an hour (though all my build times I report skip the fact that I knoll the parts out ahead of time, so add a few minutes for that). I possibly could have done it faster, if I’d not gone and been myself – I made a simple and easy to avoid mistake.

What was that mistake, you ask? Well, as is common, it has to do with getting a part backwards (part 7). This time, it was when forming the curve on the back of the spur (the giant spikey-tower thing that holds the bridge up). I went and bent along all the edges with the engraved crease lines on the inside of the curve (outside of the model). Got it completely formed… and then realized my mistake when I started to think about how it would attach.

Putting aside my silly mistake, this model rests in the category of fairly easy models, but I wouldn’t start with it; it has at least one little curve-ball it will throw at you. And for once, this had nothing to do with my obsession with not twisting tabs that are visible (though that does make for some fun fingertip gymnastics with this model). No, the twist you won’t see coming is that the spur only has 3 sides, once of which has a weird uneven curve in it. This makes for a little bit of guess work, a little bit of convincing, and a dash of not-easy-to-align tabs. But it is entirely possible, and it can be done with folded tabs, though it takes a bit of patience. Also, don’t try to make the base of the spur perpendicular to the road of the bridge, it’s not supposed to be.

There are two other things I do want to mention about this model. First one is kind of a general warning for any model that has tension / support cables in it: be very careful with these. They are easy to bend out of alignment while handling, and it takes a lot of patience to straighten them back out. I used an Xacto Knife, inserted between wires and twisted, to gentle separate some of the support cables that had been mushed together during the build process. The second note is that I had a little frustration with securing the bridge to the base on the spur side. there’s a little bit of metal on the bottom of the railing (part 5) on the spur-side of the bridge/road that collides with the angled surface of the base. If I had seen it, beforehand, I might have tried to clip off the tiny corner with my flush cutters.

Still, it was a simple, fun-little build, and I’m glad to add it to my collection before it’s completely unavailable (I am trying for a “complete” set… eventually… and temporarily, since they’re always releasing new ones). Here’s the build video for this one… nice and short:

https://youtu.be/SOTTxA0Ui8o