Building together: UGears Railway Platform

In today’s article, we will be talking about another exciting UGears 3D puzzle – Railway Platform! It may look simple at first glance, as it doesn’t feature rubber drives that are very common in other models, and are sometimes quite difficult to control. But don’t let this first impression fool you! Remember that each of UGears’ mechanical puzzles has its own charm, magic, and even secrets.

What are the key features of the Railway Platform 3D puzzle?

This set features 196 parts which indicate that it is of a medium difficulty level. Did the platform seem a bit plain, boring, and motionless? Then you would be pleased to find out you cannot be further away from the truth because this is a unique puzzle with a secret! It features a drawer where you can keep something special and personal, like notes, that you would like to keep away from the public eye. It will never occur to anyone that the platform harbors something like that, while you are going to be the only one that knows how to open it.

What is special about the Railway Platform model’s assembly?

Now let’s move on to the assembly process and working with the manual. As mentioned earlier, this set doesn’t provide for the use of rubber drives, but nonetheless, the mechanical construction is still rather complex. One of the key features of the set is that you will have to use the box cutter a lot while cutting out parts from plates and cutting off hinges in order to connect smaller parts together.

General rules for working with a box cutter

1. First, find a hard flat surface, a wooden plank, for example, which you will be comfortable working on with the box cutter;
2. The box cutter should be sharp enough. Replace the dull blade with the new one if needed;
3. If you need to trim the lintels, try not to damage the parts themselves: the lintels are thin, so make sure that you are not applying too much force;
4. To cut the axis, you need to put it on a previously mentioned flat and hard surface, then slightly rest the box cutter blade on the base behind the stick and moderately press on it. Now just gently pull the box cutter towards you so that the stick will roll a little bit under the blade. If it is not completely cut afterward, simply break it off or carefully cut through it completely;
5. Make sure that the blade of the box cutter does not bend over and that your fingers are always in a safe area behind it, and not in front of it.

The most exciting stage of the assembly process

On pages 10 through14 of the manual, you will learn about assembling the area of the platform that contains the secret drawer. Sure you might be wondering: how does it work? Then let’s skip ahead to page 28, which begins with an explanation of the principle of the hidden mechanisms. To fold the ‘Stop’ sign, you need to twist the right street light, but in order to open and close the drawer, you need to twist the left street light as well as use an additional secret key. And now you can access all your little secrets!