Making the 1/56 Renedra American Church Kit War Game Friendly

Years ago I picked up the Renedra American Church and Ramshackle Barn model kits, the barn I put together straight away but the church languished on a shelf. Last week I girded up my loins and decided to get the church sorted!

The Renedra Church...

Okay the kit itself is pretty basic and for me is pretty good value for money. When dry fitting the parts it looked like the steeple may have a few fit issues but most surprisingly and this is the reason for my post if assembled as per the instructions you can't take the roof off! How are you going to get your pesky Rebel infantry into this sucker easily???

The instructions...

Okay I had put a bit of thought into this during construction and came up with a pretty simple fix that requires only minimal 'surgery'.

Initially I assemble the walls, squared them up and securely taped them together...

...and glued the roof halves into one 'part', I filed a couple of pieces of the kit's sprue into triangular sections to reinforce the roof join...

At this point I was going to glue the steeple part directly to the roof top and then just rest them on my completed walls but as the fit of the steeple wasn't perfect as there were no fitting lugs this was going to be dodgy at the best, I reverted to a new plan and build the whole steeple on the roof. So one careful cut later (a tip if you try this - this 'surgery' would have been easier if done before assembling the walls!) I was set to go.

This is what I now had, the front of the steeple with the cross could now be fitted directly onto the rest of the steeple. When I glued this front panel to the rest I tacked it together first resting it in place on the roof so there'd be no gap to the base. Once I knew it fitted and was solid I completed gluing all the joins.

I now had three parts and I glued the steeple to the roof only adding glue where the front panel met the front edge of the roof section, this provided a strong join without getting glue on the roof tiles where the steeple sides meet it.

The result, a Renedra American Church with roof on...

...and roof off!

I hope this may help you if you decide to buy this very useful kit!