Click on the numbers by each step to see a picture of that step.
John Hollis offers these tips to help you assemble your Cardboard Heroes Castles, and to help your assembled castles be sturdier and last longer. The hints about gluing and pressing apply to all the buildings!
1: Collect this stuff:
A. Wax paper
B. White glue
C. Large hardbound book
D. Heavy phone book
E. Paper towel (half of it moistened)
F. Scissors
G. Sharp knife
H. Pencil (soft lead if possible)
2: Punch out one of the small towers. Each small tower is a single piece.
3: You may find that the final assembly of the small tower is hard because the "tongue" fits so tightly. It won't hurt if you trim the piece very slightly with scissors. You can cut more off later, but you can't put it back on. Don't cut too much off! If you decide to do this after assembling the first small tower, you will want to trim the later ones before you do any gluing.
4: The entire shiny side of each piece has a protective coating. Some glues will adhere better if this coating is removed from the glue points. With a sharp knife, scrape the coating (off the shiny side only) of the white areas, as shown here. The glue will stick better this way.
5: Be sure to bend all the score lines before assembling!
6: One of the things we learned with this set was that the area around the crenelations needed bigger glue points. Apply glue to the crenelations shown, even outside the white areas (later sets will have larger white areas). Carefully line them up and hold them tightly with your finger for 30 seconds.
7: Now is a good time to clean your fingers and the tower with your moistened paper towel.
8: Glue tab "C" as shown. Fold as shown, and hold tight with your finger for 30 seconds.
9: Place the tower deep in the gutter between pages of a hardbound book. Use wax paper as shown so that no glue gets on your book's pages!
10: Place a heavy book on top of it and allow to dry. Drying time depends on your glue and the weather, but nobody was ever hurt by TOO MUCH drying time.
11: Remove from the book, assemble as shown, and darken the white edges with a soft lead pencil.
