AK Interactive Cut-Outs

Transcript*

Intro

As a quick aside, this is not the only thing in AK’s care package. Just a couple more items in that package. So, expect a couple more AK videos, not in a row, but sometime very soon. Onto the review. Now, this is a Wire bound book. Very nice to hold, very aesthetically pleasing, and the cover itself, to be honest with you, is quite nice, very unique, and it also sums up what this book is all about because this is all about dioramas.

Book Flip Through

Specifically scales 1/35th, 1/48, and 1/72nd. Uh, and as the cover suggests, these contain well, first of all, let’s let’s show there’s the intro, the idea for this, and you can already tell a lot of diorama related items and products and tools that you can use, but we’ll get to that later. Then here are the images. You can already tell, right? Whoa. Whoa. So yeah, these are used to cut out a specific sign or signage, a specific box, a specific crate, whatever the thing might be you want for your diorama. Odds are it’s in this book. Um, reminiscent of one of those sort of books that’s been popping up a lot recently where it’s like supposed to be the all-in-one survival book.

It’s called the book or something like that. Um, but this one is a survival book for dioramas because it has this brown compilation or I guess stack not compilation of brown papers full of Yeah, these are papers. So, you have to cut out right there’s like dotted lines and then these are actually uh your you know the folding sort of sequence. you uh ever do origami? Uh very similar idea, not quite origami, but you get the picture. And they correspond by scale. So this one 1/35th, this one 1/48. There is a size difference, right? So this one Danish army m right pertaining to scales.

And if we can find that, it will be here in the very back after the brown papers. Right? Look at that. So, you’re supposed to cut it and put it onto the brown paper and then fold it. Wow. Historical posters, right? Oh, there’s a lot of historical posters, guys. We are feasting. I love dioramas. Uh so if you have a brick wall at home with a corresponding scale, this is easily easily attainable when it comes to making propaganda posters for example. And you can tear these up, put it on the brown cardboard sheets that are included and paste it onto your wall. No need to print your own because these are 4K high definition.

No stretch, no pixilation printouts. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And there’s a lot of historical posters. Then we also have Highway Signs if you want to recreate what is it called? The Thunder Run. The infamous Thunder Run, I think. Uh where it’s just a column of M1 Abrams uh Striker, what what was it? The um the Bradley’s in Iraq when they invaded. Uh yeah, you can do it and by scale, so it’s perfect. And of course, flags. Lots and lots of flags. Shout out Canada. Wow. Maps. Oh, wow. Yeah. Carpets is crazy. Okay. Yeah, that’s it. Not a lot. That’s a lot. This is thick. This is 202 pages of straight heat. Bangers after bangers after bangers. Yes. 202 pages of content. So, how do they work, Paul? Well, it’s easy. Don’t sweat it.

How To Use The Book? Materials Needed

Really? I mean, I already alluded to it. You fold and cut before folding, of course. But let’s run over the checklist of items that you’d need to make this thing work in the first place. But if you’ve been doing the hobby for even a little bit, you probably have most, if not all these items. The first thing you’d need is incredibly obvious in hindsight the moment I mention it, but a cutting mat. Yes, please protect the surface you’re working on because ultimately this is still a bunch of paper and probably the best way to work on it is by ripping it off the wired back uh book.

Hence why they did it as a wire back uh and not a hardbound copy. So you can rip it off. But because you’re going to do that, you’re going to be working on essentially bare tables. So, please, please, please, please have some sort of cutting mat, especially the self-healing ones like from Excel, uh, because they are very nice. Please respect your mom’s furniture. She will send you to the shadow realm, otherwise. All right? And I don’t want you to be sent to the shadow realm. Okay? The second thing you’d need is some sort of cutting equipment. Most commonly, a lot of people go towards the common pair of scissors. All of you should have something like this in your house. a pair of scissors. Right?

So, if you do move on to the next section, but before you do, uh, if you’re interested, I do have a couple suggestions. Namely, Tamiya’s HG Tweezer Grip Scissors. Tweezer Grip Scissors. Say that five times fast. And the mini curve scissors, right? Uh, 151 and 157. These are nicer, I would say, for the task because they are smaller and more precise, whereas this is kind of a big brute in comparison. Um because if you take a look at the boxes you have to fold, look at that. They’re tiny. They’re tiny. And that’s the scissors. Even the 1/35th scale versions of it are quite small. So to be honest with you, um maybe hold off on the normal kitchen scissors that you’re about to use and use something more precise like these two. But there is another alternative of course and that is the humble hobby knife.

This is uh Excel’s 15001 hobby knife. Uh probably their most popular product or one of anyway. Uh contains an 11 blade and it is near uh scalpel level of sharp. This is definitely more precise than any of the three scissors I’ve shown off, but they are more dangerous. Um, I would recommend if you are under the age of 18 to have a responsible adult do this part for you if you opt for a more precise knife. Uh, because this is dangerous. And to be honest with you, if you’re not confident and you’re a grown adult, have someone who’s more confident than you and is also an adult. [laughter] There’s no shame in help or asking for help. Um, knives are just incredibly dangerous. Uh, and a hobby knife is no exception. They’re basically scalpel surgery level uh sharp. They’re incredibly sharp. The third and final product you’d probably need is the PVA glue. The humble PVA glue. Of course, it’s an AK product, so they’re recommending the Wolverine PVA glue. Though I don’t blame them.

They’re actually quite nice. But it is sold out in our store because that’s how effective they are and popular. At least compared with its counterpart. The counterpart being Elmer’s. Elmer’s is still in stock because it is often underestimated. People go towards Wolverine first before they buy the Elmer’s. It’s underestimated because you’ve used it in the first grade. So, you associate it with like kitty products. Um, but guys, PVA in general and of course specifically Elmer’s is quite effective. That being said, um, there is something to be said about one of these products. Typically ones that look like roll on deodorant. Um those ones because I don’t know if you remember from grade school whenever you’re using PVA or Elmer’s specifically, right?

Uh whenever you put a little too much than intended, the paper gets soaked, water logged, and it is basically unusable. They kind of just rip. Uh so if you’re afraid of that eventuality, grab yourself a PVA glue stick. It should solve all your problems. Uh, and in my opinion, that’s probably the way to go. Um, because you’re going to be putting them flush against something like this, something this tiny. And to be honest with you, if you put a little bit too much uh of a dot, right, beyond a dot, then you’ve already kind of soaked and ruined the box you’re about to fold. So, let’s avoid that eventuality. Let’s just use a roll-on PVA glue or a PVA glue stick.

Building a Road Sign

I’ve only ever talked about the brown sheets and the materials you need to use them. Um, but really guys, the brown sheets and any cutouts using them are a small section of this cutout book because you only use them for crates and boxes. That’s about it. Um, the rest of the book, you saw them, propaganda posters, maps, flags, those don’t need to be put into a shape of a box. So, you can use any surface so long as it provides stability to the propaganda post or the highway signage you’re using. Um, and with that being said, the surface doesn’t matter. Balsa, foam, cardboard, the little presentation papers you have from high school, use anything. And for today’s demo, we will be using Plastruct, which is a styrene sheet, and Evergreen, which is a styrene sheet.

So, this is Evergreen 225, and this is Plastruct 90406. And we’ll be using them not necessarily in conjunction, but at the same time. But keep in mind, of course, as your surfaces change, your adhesive will probably also change. So, for today, I’ll be using CA. just a much easier time to use CA than Elmer’s on top of styrene. Just my opinion. I know some people use Elmer’s sometimes, but it might rip. Thankfully, AK knows what they’re doing because what they did was they put all the highway signs onto a very thick card stock, what you would use on calling cards. So, they need to be uh rigid because highway signs in real life are made of metal and are completely rigid. So, you need something to translate well on camera and in person. So, card stock it is. Well done, AK. If you don’t want to remove the page, just do it like this, right? And then just cut it.

Cutting Out Signs

Make sure you have a cutting mat underneath so you don’t ruin your mom’s table, please. And thank you. So, you saw me cut out the signs here using Excel’s heavy duty plastic snap blade knife. This thing, it’s pretty cool. Pretty heavy duty, uh, as the name implies, of course. And then I’m using Tamiya’s 74123 side cutter. One of their most popular ones to trim the sides. After all, this is still card stock. So, there’ll be like these little sort of white uh paper sticking out from where you cut it out and ripped it off. It’s just inevitable. It’s going to happen, especially if you’re cutting from the middle of the page like I was without ruining the rest of the page. It’s bound to happen. Now, the best course of action is to probably and preemptively cut all of them uh with a dedicated cutter or a scissor. Uh, but that’s not what I did.

Assembly

I want to preserve the book as much as possible. For this demo, I’ll be using BSI’s 111. This is their extra thick glue, but really it’s just normal thickness if you use a lot of super glue. So, yeah, be using that and I’ll be sticking it on to the ridges here. Be very careful with super glue and CA. Hard to remove. Yeah. Just glaze it on and put the sign. Oh, I almost got myself there.

Final Product

Bam. Oh, wow. That looks good. Really good on camera. Uh this is proper 1/35th scale as well. I did a little bit of research like 5 minutes worth. Uh and according to people who’ve done this previously, your their signages were about 14.3 or uh 14.3 cm or about 5 1/2 in off the ground, which it is. Yeah, roughly. Um so yeah, this is great. Uh obviously, this is not conducive to the actual Iraq uh directions and distance. I just picked these three signages because I thought they looked good. Um, and but yeah, this is really, really good. And don’t worry, it will fit any 1/35th scale tank.

An Abrams and a T-55 uh is about 8 to 9 cm tall when fully built. Uh maybe 10 if you have the the the turret uh properly set up, the secondary turret. Uh but otherwise, yeah, this is really really good. Good. And there’s also this many sign right here. We have similar signages here in Toronto approaching Pearson Airport. So, it’ be roughly right here when you’re driving. And it says this much distance to Basra airport. Perfect. I can’t believe AK has done this all in one concise package. No need for any graphics design talent or powerful printers. It’s all in one book. So, what do you guys think? Ah, it’s not bad, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, what scale would you end up using the most in the cutouts book? 1/35th, 1/48, or 1/72nd? Regardless, let us know in the comments section down below. Your preferred scale.

Conclusion

And the cutouts book is now available on pre-order on our website. Links in the description down below. It releases Q2 of 2026, and we do ship them out the day we receive them, unless it’s like Sunday. We don’t work on Sundays. Yeah, we run Chick-fil-A hours here. But regardless, thank you guys so much for watching. My name is Paul and down below, not just the items, but our also like our real time inventory as well, just our general website, sunwardhobbies.ca. Also down below is the links to all our social media pages. We’re active on all of them. And finally, please like and subscribe the video. Um, we’re trying to hit 20K before the end of year and we’re at I think 14.5 now, which is awesome. So maybe we make it. Who knows? So yeah, bye guys. Till next time.

About the Author:

Paul Catindig As someone who’s been building model kits since he was 8 years old, Paul is very knowledgeable and adept at model kit building! When he’s not building or painting kits, he spends his free time cooking, playing video games with friends, or at a restaurant patio somewhere. Hopes to make his very own movie one day.

*Video by Paul Catindig
Video Edited by Daniela Castellano
Transcript generated by youtube
Edited by Angelo Castellano