Dan Griffin Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Hi all. I am looking at buying a thunderbird 5 kit. I have seen two i'm interested in, either the Aoshima one, or the IMAI one, has anyone on here built on, and is there any difference? looking online it seems the IMAI one is an older version of the Aoshima one? best regards Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dermo245 Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Haven't built either but I'd say @Kallisti (and others) will give you a good steer. You could also try www.Scalemates.com as they'll give you goodmdetails of release years for kits and whether they're new issues, re-tools, re-boxings etc. And there's also the great Sci-Fi review section here on Britmodeller of course! Whatever you choose to build, look forward to seeing it here and keen to build one myself at some stage. Cheers, Dermot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 I've never really been interested in a TB5 kit to be honest so haven't compared them. The old TB5 just bored me, it didn't do anything The new one however is quite adaptable and has a rotating habitat to create artificial 'gravity'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Lambess Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 Yep same tooling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Tomohawk Kid Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 (edited) Always loved TB5, dunno why just do. It isn't quite true that Imai and Aoshima TB5 kits are the same kit. When Aoshima acquired the moulds they replaced some of the sprues with newly tooled ones. From memory the parts replaced include a corrugated gravity ring (the original was smooth) they also moulded a finer more accurate radar mast/pylon as well as the other ariels, appendages and other assorted smaller detail parts as well. It also includes a discreet mechanism to allow TB5 rotate slowly if one buys the Mabuchi FA-130RA motor which cost about a £1. This is the version you need: Thomo. Edited March 25, 2018 by The Tomohawk Kid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Tomohawk Kid Posted March 25, 2018 Share Posted March 25, 2018 (edited) 4 minutes ago, The Tomohawk Kid said: DP Edited March 25, 2018 by The Tomohawk Kid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Lambess Posted April 10, 2018 Share Posted April 10, 2018 Funnily enough my Imai kit has the corrugated ring and finer aerials etc ....so it looks like IMAI corrected their own molds ( you're 100 % correct that earlier Imai editions had a smooth ring and clunky aerials tho....just been looking thro my book on thunderbirds kits . ) The shape of TB 3 in my Imai is very off....do you know if the Aoshima version fixed that ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Tomohawk Kid Posted April 13, 2018 Share Posted April 13, 2018 On 4/10/2018 at 05:43, Neil Lambess said: Funnily enough my Imai kit has the corrugated ring and finer aerials etc ....so it looks like IMAI corrected their own molds ( you're 100 % correct that earlier Imai editions had a smooth ring and clunky aerials tho....just been looking thro my book on thunderbirds kits . ) The shape of TB 3 in my Imai is very off....do you know if the Aoshima version fixed that ? No they did not fix the TB3 in the kit. I dug my kits out the other day, the Aoshima kit has five new sprues of the Imai kit. But still retains the blue glazing for some reason. Thomo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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