I started building the City Classics gas station this morning. A typical molded styrene kit with the 4 main walls that after squaring the edges with a long flat file they just butt glue together. On buildings that assemble this way I have always reinforced the joints with square or rectangular Evergreen styrene on the inside corners. Works just fine for adding strength but it never fails I'll be out of that size when I go to start the next scratch build or kit bash. Plus it cost $3 a package. Besides the usual scrap box of odds and ends parts I also have about a 3 pound box of plastic sprues left over from kits. I ended up cutting a couple of nice straight round sprues into the lengths that would fit the inner corners of the gas station and laid them in there with liquid plastic cement after the actual wall joints had cured. Even though they are round they still add 2 more bonding surfaces to each corner joint. Thick sprue works great where you have room and I used thinner sprue where a window was close to a corner so there would be room to add the window glass later on. For buildings that may get handled a lot or that are part of a module a little free insurance against having a joint pop apart isn't a bad idea.
I forgot to mention the round sprues also work really well to reinforce corner joints where the walls meet at sharper than 90 degrees. You don't have to shape anything at an angle to contact both pieces. Just lay them in and cement them.
I forgot to mention the round sprues also work really well to reinforce corner joints where the walls meet at sharper than 90 degrees. You don't have to shape anything at an angle to contact both pieces. Just lay them in and cement them.
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