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Soyuz Tim Peake


HP42

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Well it's arrived and I've started it. It's the worst moulding of a plastic kit I have ever seen. It makes Pegasus stuff look good. It's a nightmare of flash, poorly moulded parts and short-shot bits and general crapness. The main sprue trees are rough and what would ordinarily be a straight and smooth rod, they feel like I'm picking up a giant spidercrab's leg. The plastic doesn't like cement much either. I'm having to use cyno on the more stubborn parts. 

 

Is it unbuildable? No, but it's a putty queen and much sanding and filling is indeed needed. Fit and finish is blooming awful.

 

Considering this is a recent kit, I don't understand how a mould can be so badly produced. I don't expect modern Airfix levels of accuracy but surely if the mould is produced on modern CNC machinery, surely they would have got it better than this? 

 

That said, I'm enjoying the build and it'll look great when it's finished but jeeeze.... 🙄

 

 

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  • 1 month later...

Finished finally aside the decals. It looks great if you apply the 3ft test. It fought me all the way but the end result is very pleasing indeed. Would love to have a Vostock but I'll never build another Mach 2 kit if this is the quality to expect. How do I post pictures again? 

The decals are simply a Soviet Flag and a Union Jack, no stencil details at all. It does make me wonder if I could print my own decals and go for Tim Peake's machine. I think most of the differences are not visible at 1:72 scale and I can live with the odd change on lumps and bumps as the kit is very approximate anyway. It has you put these weird red barrel things on the boosters which I think are some form of hydraulic reservoir that is removed before flight anyway. 

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  • 2 months later...

Mach2 kits are what they are I am afraid. I built their Avro York at the beginning of lockdown 1 last year. It didn't turn out too badly and actually addressed most of the differences between the York and the 1980 Airfix  Lancaster it was based on. It did not just offer a new fuselage. The biggest issue was the fuselage halves that diverged further from each other from nose to tail. 

I can therefore see the sort of problem you could have with Didier's precision moulded rocket bodies, which are probably more difficult to align and maintain some degree of roundness. 

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  • 3 months later...
On 24/01/2021 at 21:22, HP42 said:

 

On 24/01/2021 at 21:22, HP42 said:

Considering this is a recent kit, I don't understand how a mould can be so badly produced. I don't expect modern Airfix levels of accuracy but surely if the mould is produced on modern CNC machinery, surely they would have got it better than this?

As far as I am aware, Mach 2 use relatively cheap resin moulds, rather than the very expensive metal tooling used by mainstream manufacturers such as Airfix.

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