Kallisti Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) While I'm finishing off the paintwork on the Mosquito B Mk IV for the Mosquito GB, I thought I'd make a start on this recent mad purchase from Comet Miniatures. I was inspired by watching a Large Scale vacform build of a Minbari fighter on the LSP board recently and so the credit card got a kicking and a very simple package arrived about a week later. It was an unfancy carboard box that looked like this: Inside were lots of plastic bags with bits of resin in, plus some white metal bits, a PE fret and a decal sheet. Oh and a brass rod as well! The instruction erm "booklet" is remarkably skimpy but seems to contain all the instructions: So my hope is to make it look a bit like this: This should be fun! Edited March 21, 2013 by Kallisti 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albeback52 Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Looks interesting. What sort of scale is it. The "real" vessels are huge! (1700 meters long if I recall)?.My own personal "favourite" is the Minbari war cruiser. Manages to look beautiful, elegant and menacing all at once! Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 21, 2013 Author Share Posted March 21, 2013 They say the finished model is 18" long (38 cm) so that puts it at about 1:4500 scale Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norman Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Blimey !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyG Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 If this one turns out anything like the Starfury you did, then it's going to be a good one... Always liked the B5 ships, going to have to se what's left in next month's pay packet now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pyro-manic Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 Coooooooooooool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prowler0000 Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 I >still< say it looks like the Leonov from 2010......... Good luck on this one, Kallisti: looks straightforward enough, but some warp kits i been thru are hit (Nebula conversions, Jem H'adar fighter) & miss (1999 Eagle....>shudder!< ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raystorm Posted March 21, 2013 Share Posted March 21, 2013 You can really see in the CGI render how they were inspired by the design of the Leonov from 2010! I'd love to build one of these! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyP Posted March 22, 2013 Share Posted March 22, 2013 I built one of these, great kit, you'll need to work out how you plan to display it hehe painting generic panels is a PITA Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Laidlaw Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 Ooh! Looking forward to this one :-). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quarky Posted March 23, 2013 Share Posted March 23, 2013 Nice! Cracking, quite unusual model - looking forward to the build! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 23, 2013 Author Share Posted March 23, 2013 (edited) Nice to see some interest in this insane venture To begin: Bag #1 contains the parts for the rear portion including the engines. Since its resin, first thing first, give it a good wash in soapy water... Next is assembling the main box. This went together without too much trouble - well apart from the usual lots of cleaning up the resin joint surfaces. There seems to be a lot of "bobbling" in the castings, but there aren't that many bubbles - well in these components at least. This is the inside and the back plate which will hold the exhaust tubes and other sundry gear. Its a bit of a poor fit, but it will be fixable with careful use of dissolved putty when it need to be joined. Engine exhausts: These did have quite a few bubbles. You can see the filler on some of these that will be sanded off when dry. I drilled them out a bit deeper: I did contemplate lighting this thing, and that would have included the exhausts, but frankly I think for ONCE I'm going to build something "out of the box", and that includes motorising the rotating mid section. I did spend some time thinking about how this could be done, but then I realised the basic construction of this is going to be challenging enough... there comes a time when even I have to say ENOUGH!!! No bar-armour either!!! More engine detail - these pieces site between each vertical stack of exhausts. The castings on these were a bit ropey - there is lots of small detail in the casting but much of it was obscured by blobs of resin. I may return to these later to add some extra details. By the way, this is what the engines should look like when built: Auxiliary thrusters - again I drilled out the holes deeper than the castings: So that the main components of the engine section. There are some PE parts to add when its all assembled. I'm now thinking about painting this before it all goes together. The exhausts should be reddish at the base blending to blue towards the end so at least these will need painting before assembly. I'll need to think about it... ...and now I have to stop modelling as I have to go to Marseilles tomorrow for a business meeting on Monday - hope the weather is better in the South of France than it is in Blighty!!! Edited March 23, 2013 by Kallisti 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted April 4, 2013 Author Share Posted April 4, 2013 An update from the past week... First off the engine block has been extended with the rear central section. This needed a lot of filling in some very awkward places. The casting of the circular end piece was a nightmare to get a smooth finish, but perseverance paid off. Next I moved forward another stage and assembled the 6 solid chunks of resin that constitute the central rotating accommodation section. This fitted together remarkably well with just a bit of filler needed along the joints. The pieces have some very nice moulded detail, although along the ends there was a lot of bubbling in the resin that needed trimming. and finally for this update, here is how it looks together with the brass rod holding everything in line. The rotating section will revolve around the rod without much problem and its a tight enough fit in the rear section to hold things in place. The rod looks to be the right length to fit the front section on with out trimming. I've scrubbed the pieces for the front assembly and discovered that some of the panels for the square section are rather warped so will need some careful heat treatment to sort them out. As you can see I've put primer on some pieces and I'm currently in the process of painting the engine nozzels so will show those when they are done. At that point I can properly assemble the engine bay. I'm sourcing a nice wooden plinth to use as a stand, so will probably have to drill some holes into the bottom sides of the central segments to provide adequate support. Today's Koshism: Understanding is a three-edged sword. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prowler0000 Posted June 29, 2013 Share Posted June 29, 2013 Any progress on this one, Kal? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted June 29, 2013 Author Share Posted June 29, 2013 There is actually - a very small amount of progress but I've completed the paintwork on the engine exhausts: In the background you can also see the earlier pieces all fully primed. The other bit of progess which I havn't got roudn to photographing yet is the front module has been assebled, but one of the resin panes is warped at the front and the overall fit is poor so its undergoign a gtradula filling/sanding/filling process in between the other 3 projects I've been workign on lately 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cimmerian Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Very cool. I always used to think about this one on Comet Miniatures but always thought it was probably a terrible kit. I can see I was wrong and it actually looks quite tasty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted July 1, 2013 Share Posted July 1, 2013 Those engine exhausts look fab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 Just dug this out from the "on hold" stash, time to finish it I reckon! More to come... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockpopandchips Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 About time to i would say...... Looking forward to seeing more. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Rose Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 Wow i only just noticed the dates after your last comment Kallisti! Looks cool glad your bringing it back 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 So where it had got to last time around was as you see in the above photo, plus the front fuselage assembly had been put together, but one side was warped and even hot water didn't sort it out. In the end it had to be sanded back as one of the armour plates around the front covers this area so it had to be sanded flush.   The other side is fine and you can see how it should look.   The first job was to assemble the font which might look a little wonky but its the angle of the photo making it look like that!   In getting familiar with this build after all this time, I've separated out the parts into the various sub asemblies. There are 2 main components to this, the rear fuselage and engines, the central rotating life support unit and the forward nose. So here are the components for the engine section:    Then for the rest of the rear fuselage, there are some extra pieces to add. The flat rectangles with circles on are panels depicting the lifeboats and fit along the sides of the front and rear fuselage. The other two pieces appear to be some sort of shielding related to the engines.   Then there is the central rotating life support section   The PE frames will be added to the rectangular detail sections you can see on the 3rd panel from the left. These are some other pieces that are supposed to be used in this section. However I don't think that these are going to be used as the main structure seems to have already had them applied in the mold!   Next are all the various gun turrets that are liberally sprinkled over the ship. These all still have their mold pouring stubs on and look a mess but will clean up with a bit of effort.  So here is what it all looks like strung together along the brass tube that forms the backbone. You can see that I had sprayed primer on some sections I'd assembled back in 2013   Finally for this update, this will be the base. There are now 2 5mm diameter holes in the bottom of the front and rear fuselages and when it finally gets put together I'll align them on the base.   More to follow... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted May 28, 2017 Author Share Posted May 28, 2017 Well, it looks like my work on building up the front of the ship today has been a complete waste of time as I discovered when almost complete that I've been building it UPSIDE DOWN!!! The difference between the top and bottom wasn't much but enough to make a HUGE difference in the fit of the parts, plus some guide holes for some of the metal parts that will be added later for pipework and other details.  Whats even more annoying is I've drilled a hole for the stand in the WRONG SIDE! So now I have to fill that up and repair the damaged moulded pipework  Using Vital debonder, I've been able to take apart the superglued resin - its very messy and sticky but a good wash should sort it out. I only broke one piece which should go back together again without too much hasstle,..  Its very annoying as you can understand 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panzer Vor!!! Posted May 28, 2017 Share Posted May 28, 2017 Pop it back in the box and get a mojo restorer kit out buddy Come back to it  at a later date Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted May 29, 2017 Author Share Posted May 29, 2017 (edited)   I did that 4 years ago  This is me coming back to it lol Thankfully, it came apart reasonably well and after a good scrub and drying, it went back together again well enough.   There are some gaps which will be filled and sanded, basically because there is still some superglue residue that is preventing a perfectly clean joint.    and here is the hole I drilled earlier in the wrong side   but I have a cunning plan Baldrick, it involved an offcut of brass tube and some filler...   If that doesn't work, my fallback plan is to place the spare gun turret that comes with the two that are supposed to be on either side of the armour plates   If you can remember this photo from the start of the thread...   I haven't yet shown the plethora of white metal probes, aerials and general pointy bits that are supplied and will get added toward the  end of the build. Edited May 29, 2017 by Kallisti 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted May 29, 2017 Share Posted May 29, 2017 I'd forgotten this build, nice to see it back. All hail the general pointy bits BTW. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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