Brundledonk Posted March 14, 2018 Share Posted March 14, 2018 (edited) I got a 1/144 Real grade kit for Christmas and although it was a fun build it was a little on the small side for me, it did however spark an interest in these Bandai robot kits so I git this as its a bit bigger than the real grade ones. how it will turn out is anyone's guess but the only way I'm going to find out is by getting stuck in. I know nothing about the Universe these are from other than its from a Japanese cartoon that I haven't watched, but it's a box full of parts like any other kit so I'm hoping that provided I follow the pictures in the construction manual I will end up with a big robot at the end Im not going to take pics of all the sprues as there are a ton of them, it's a big box and its crammed full. there are some metal parts in there along with little bags full of screws, springs and what looks like LED lighting. One disappointment is the markings are stickers and not water slide decals. Edited March 14, 2018 by Brundledonk 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 14, 2018 Author Share Posted March 14, 2018 (edited) This is the little fella that is responsible for me getting this kit And with my hand to give a sense of scale Very nice but alas just a bit on the small side for me old mince pies these days as I make my way through this year toward my half century. Edited March 14, 2018 by Brundledonk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 14, 2018 Author Share Posted March 14, 2018 (edited) One thing that I am aware of with bandai kits is that some the material used doesn't play well with enamel and lacquer based paints. i remember seeing some starwars kits falling apart after a wash being applied ( yikes ! ) in the instructions Bandai helpfully print a map of all the sprues and also what material they are made of After a quick scan through the sprues it seems that the majority of the inner frame is abs, the outer armour is styrene and there are a smattering of poly vinyl bits that are used to hold it all together seeing as how I tend to use cellulose for the majority of my thinning needs, I felt it prudent to do a quick test to make sure nothing would dissolve or burst into flames 5 minutes after I started painting. I snipped off a bit of abs and poly vinyl from the edge of the sprue and had at them with some mr surfacer and a goodly dollop of lacquer thinner I left the parts sit a while after painting and when I went back to them nothing untoward had happened. the poly vinyl didn't melt but the primer flaked of easily with a rub of the finger. Im not planning to paint any of the parts made of this material and most of them will be hidden away from view once the model is finished but there are a few that will be in the path of paint and I wanted to make sure that nothing terrible would happen if they did get any paint on them. the primer stuck to the abs like a barmaid to a sailor on pay day so a win there, and I gave it a good bending and it didn't snap so the thinner doesn't appear to have weakened it although I was careful to lay in thin coats and not blast it with the airbrush. Edited March 14, 2018 by Brundledonk 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Vale Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 2 hours ago, Brundledonk said: One thing that I am aware of with bandai kits is that some the material used doesn't play well with enamel and lacquer based paints. After a lot of mucking around, I think it's *mostly* not the plastics but the style of construction. Because the kits are snap-together there are a lot of parts fitted by friction pegs. Pushing the parts together creates tiny stress cracks in the plastic (you can see it goes white) and enamel thinner and even superglue will get into these invisible cracks and cause them to propagate. The forces in the joint then break the pieces apart. There are a few which help avoid this: * Ease all the push-fit parts to a gentle press-fit (less force means fewer or no cracks.) * Solvent weld the friction pins (the glue melts the plastic so it either doesn't crack, or reforms after cracking?) * Paint and weather the parts before assembly (no stress cracks means the enamel doesn't penetrate.) NB: The "mostly" is because I think I've seen parts crack along flow lines with Bandai kits, but that's less common. With me it's happened with thin CA on a couple of different kits. I've fixed the problems and filled the cracks with more CA and haven't had further cracking. FWIW I haven't had any problem with lacquer paints at all, I used a lot of Alclad and decanted Tamiya paints on Bandai kits.HTH, Will 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 15, 2018 Author Share Posted March 15, 2018 Thanks for the advice Will, I have been worrying that the hot thinners would have a negative impact in the plastic but what you've said makes perfect sense and has put my mind at rest. im taking time to be careful and avoid painting any of the connection pins and sockets as I did a little bit of dry fitting and while the parts go together well they do require a bit of force to push them home. im going to paint this as I go along page by page in the instructions, it will take longer and mean a fair bit of back and forth with colours but there are just too many parts to try and keep track of if I prime and paint in one go and I'm certain I'd lose some Pete 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 15, 2018 Author Share Posted March 15, 2018 (edited) righty Ho then time to sling some paint about. All the parts for page 1 were snipped from the sprues, cleaned up and a lick of primer sprayed on gundam kebabs Main parts for the shoulder were sprayed gloss black and then with alclad aircraft aluminium These bits go behind the bit on the shoulder that has the Phillips screw head moulded in. Not much can be seen once fiited so I didn't bother to mask, I just want a different tone to show through so I went freehand hence the overspray. The raised bits around the edge were picked out with aluminium . Edited March 15, 2018 by Brundledonk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 15, 2018 Author Share Posted March 15, 2018 All put togeher and mostly hidden. It took a fair bit of pushing and pulling on my part to get it done and in the process a lot of the alclad rubbed off. In the pic above it looks like it's rubbed off back to black, but it hasn't removed it completely and depending on how the light catches it it's still very reflective and metalic 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 15, 2018 Author Share Posted March 15, 2018 (edited) I went back in with a brush and a drop of aluminium and gold to cover the worst bits and help to break things up a bit Not as much bling as I was planning but it looks OK in hand. Edited March 15, 2018 by Brundledonk 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 15, 2018 Author Share Posted March 15, 2018 (edited) So I'm binning the gloss black/reflective metal idea as its not going to be up to the handling this kit requires to put it together. parts for the next stage were sprayed steel over the primer amd details picked out in various metalic colours Same deal with the bits for the next stage Edited March 15, 2018 by Brundledonk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 15, 2018 Author Share Posted March 15, 2018 (edited) All put together And in with the aluminium on the raised bits type thing knee bone connected to the thigh bone ( elbow to shoulder in this case ) and page 1 is pretty much a done deal Edited March 15, 2018 by Brundledonk 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 15, 2018 Author Share Posted March 15, 2018 How much of this will remain visible once the armour goes on remains to be seen ( not a lot I'll wager ) but I have the option of leaving bits off so at least some will be on show. Pete 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ted Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 Excellent metal finishes, very cleanly done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Will Vale Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 Yeah that frame is looking really good. From what I've read this is supposed to be one of the best if not the best PG kit I've found that doing some sponge chipping is really helpful because it disguises the wear marks from assembling or posing. Especially if it's in the same kind of colour range as the plastic! Cheers, Will Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 17, 2018 Author Share Posted March 17, 2018 On 15 March 2018 at 9:29 PM, Ted said: Excellent metal finishes, very cleanly done. Thank you kindly Ted Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 17, 2018 Author Share Posted March 17, 2018 On 15 March 2018 at 10:16 PM, Will Vale said: Yeah that frame is looking really good. From what I've read this is supposed to be one of the best if not the best PG kit I've found that doing some sponge chipping is really helpful because it disguises the wear marks from assembling or posing. Especially if it's in the same kind of colour range as the plastic! Cheers, Will Cheers Will this is one of the earlier perfect grade Gundams I believe, I don't know what the newer ones are like but the frame on this is very well detailed. I just got a GP-01 perfect grade as well, hopefully it's a nice as this kit. The box it comes in is huge so I'm hoping there is a lot of nice stuff in there yes i I may need to add some weathering here and there in the frame as I think posing is going to rub away the finish at some of the joints. Ive got the assembly of the hands coming up, is it safe to paint those as I have the frame ? I think they are moulded in the same plastic the only difference I can see is that they are moulded as moving joints similar to the frame on the real grade. Pete 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 22, 2018 Author Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) Made a bit more progress on the Gundam so time for an update. The Devil makes work for idle hands and Bandai makes hands that are a devil to work with. They are moulded joints similar to how they were done on the real grade kit, but where they were one piece on that kit they are separate fingers here I was blown away with the dark magic that Bandai use to make moving joints that are moulded in one piece when I saw them on the real grade so these weren't so much of a suprise and as this is a much older kit the engineering used obviously isn't as advanced. You can see on this one how it's achieved and it's done by injecting two different materials on 2 sprues ( on the real grade it must be done the same way but it's on a single runner ) The devilish part is cleaning up the sprue attachment points there's a fair few on each digit and the material doesn't sand as nice as styrene The hands go together easily enough but it honestly took me an age to get to this stage due to the clean up. still not perfect but good enough for me Edited March 22, 2018 by Brundledonk 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 22, 2018 Author Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) With that bit done it was out with the Mr surfacer for a quick prime and then based with Alcald jet exhaust Then alclad aluminium as a top coat but instead of an even covering I tried my best to stay in the centres of the fingers to allow the darker base to show though to give a bit of shade Edited March 22, 2018 by Brundledonk 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 22, 2018 Author Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm building and painting this as I work through each stage of the instructions. in a regular kit I kind of go my own way and figure out parts that will be the same colour and work out out what subassemblies I can build and paint but there are just so many parts here that I don't think I could do it that way and not lose anything, also it would take more space than I can spare to mount up all the bits for spraying in one go. So I needed to paint a few of the coloured and armoured parts now. these bits go around the thrusters in the shoulder and need to be yellow so I primed White and then repsol orange I did did this as the yellow I have isn't deep enough on its own to look like the Gundam yellow and also although it doesn't show well in the picture there is a subtle orange tone that works nicely as a shade tone The armour parts for the arms are going to white and I did a bit of preshading to add some variation and although I'm not going to weather it to death I want it to show some signs of age and use. Edited March 22, 2018 by Brundledonk 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 22, 2018 Author Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) One problem with the way I'm going about this is I'm not entirely sure how much will be visible once it's in place. i spent a fair bit of time on 2 of these little bits for the forearm and hardly any of it can be seen. But I did them and took pics so I'm posting them lol Just these hoses are visible and only when the elbow is fully bent closed ( why do we do this to ourselves ? It's the same in cockpits. Tons of little details and mostly hidden forever once closed up in the fuselage lol) Edited March 22, 2018 by Brundledonk 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 22, 2018 Author Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) Everything snapped together and we've got a complete arm!, It's bigger than the whole of the real grade Gundam lol. hand for scale next stage is the legs and I've had a read though of the instructions and there is a lot to do and it all looks very complex. So I think I'll have a few stiff drinks tonight to steel myself for the journey into legdom. Will snap a few piccies as I go along and will be back once I've got something to show Pete Edited March 22, 2018 by Brundledonk 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hunter Rose Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 Really enjoying watching this come together, really nice paint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LotusArenco Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 Ooh! I am so tempted to get one of these. You’re not helping in the slightest…. Crack on mate, crack on. Mart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cimmerian Posted March 24, 2018 Share Posted March 24, 2018 I have one of these PG MkII's , I built it but never painted it as I was so daunted by it lol. Following with interest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockpopandchips Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 Thats looking very nice, i would build it the rest of the kit without putting the outer amour on so you see all the inner frame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brundledonk Posted March 28, 2018 Author Share Posted March 28, 2018 On 23 March 2018 at 8:17 AM, Hunter Rose said: Really enjoying watching this come together, really nice paint Thanks Hunter, I think I chose well with this kit and it should make a nice display piece one finished with a bit of luck Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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