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Greetings! Just completed, this is the resin and photo etch Space Station V kit from Fantastic Plastic. The WIP can be seen here: One of the many impressive designs featured in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, I believe this is the only kit in any scale of Space Station V currently available. It is easily one of the most challenging kits I have ever encountered. In general the kit is a well designed mixture of resin and photo etch, but perhaps overly complex in a few areas and lacking detail in some places. Unfortunately my kit suffered from some poorly formed resin parts which required scratch building of replacement parts. I added LED lighting to the docking bays in the hub sections which required carefully drilling holes to accommodate wiring and a brass tube. The station rim parts are solid resin and I could not think of a way to hollow them out for lighting. No stand is included in the kit, so I made a display base that will support the finished model on the brass tube with a 9 volt battery contained inside the base with a switch. The Orion is mounted on a length of music wire attached to the base. No decals included with the kit so I managed to find some very small spare Pan Am markings for the space clipper and a variety of other spare decals to detail the inside of both docking bays. Various small styrene bits and several small photo etch items from the spares bin were used to enhance the kit details The completed model measures about 8.5 inches in diameter and the scale is described as being either 1/1400, 1/2100 or 1/2800 depending upon the interpretation of the filming model and accordingly three scaled Orion space clippers are included. I decided upon the 1/1400 scale as that was the only Orion that was usable in my kit - the other two were very poorly formed and beyond repair. Many thanks for having a look. Questions and comments are always welcome. Bill

Fantastic Plastic Models is to release a 1/72nd Lockheed Martin SR-72 Darkstar (link) resin kit Source: https://www.facebook.com/FantasticPlasticModels/posts/pfbid02sxRZY5BfhKqJZwzXRhpf6PFeTbVouLVYxX58QgCtsFSu6WQpUrLXSitnFawXF4FVl 3D renders V.P.

Greetings! This is the resin and photo etch Space Station V kit from Fantastic Plastic. One of the many intriguing designs from 2001: A Space Odyssey, I waited decades for a styrene kit to come out and am still patiently waiting. Finally, after seeing the superb results that others have achieved with this kit, especially the excellent work of Dr. Hutchison, I decided to wait no longer and give this my best effort. Overall this model is a well designed mixture of resin and photo etch, but perhaps overly complex in a few areas and lacking detail in some places. Unfortunately my kit suffered from some poorly formed resin parts which required scratch building of replacement parts. Certainly this is one of the most challenging kits I have ever attempted. The scale of the kit is described as being either 1/1400, 1/2100 or 1/2800 depending upon the interpretation of the filming model and accordingly three scaled Orion space clippers are included. I decided upon the 1/1400 scale as that was the only Orion that was usable in my kit - the other two were very poorly formed and beyond repair. Most of the resin parts are finely detailed and well done with the exception of the spoke arms and one of hub parts that was missing a small section of detail along the edge. The main rim sections are curved slightly inward, but can be corrected after placing them in very hot water. All of the resin spoke arms were badly formed and twisted. There is also an odd surface texture to these parts. I quickly abandoned the kit spokes and scratch built replacements. I decided to add LED lighting to the docking bays in the hub sections. This required carefully drilling holes to accommodate wiring and a brass tube. The station rim parts are solid resin and I could not think of a way to hollow them out for lighting. No stand is included in the kit, so I made a display base that will support the finished model on the brass tube with a 9 volt battery contained inside the base with a switch. The Orion will be mounted on a thin wire attached to the base. Many thanks for having a look. Questions and comments are always welcome Bill The parts: Typical resin part from kit: Inside of hub part: Small clear red LEGO tile used to provide colour and light diffusion. This tile fits exactly into square space at rear of docking bay: Hub parts and lights. The LED lights have been attached to the tiles with epoxy:

This is the experimental lifting body flown during the late '60s, familiar to many (as the box art suggests) from the opening sequence of The Six Million Dollar Man. (Remarkably, Steve Austin left the B52 in an HL-10 and crashed in an M2-F2.) The kit doesn't have many parts, and those it has are relatively undetailed. The resin needed a lot of hot-dipping to straighten out various kinks, and a lot of filling and sanding to eliminate seams or improve fit, in particular at the join between upper and lower fuselage halves. The decal sheet was badly printed. I contacted Fantastic Plastic about this, but got no reply, so ended up scanning the sheet and rebuilding or replacing several decals using Experts-Choice decal paper. The paintwork is an experiment I very soon regretted. Other people appear to be able to use Alclad unsealed, but I'm not one of those people--the surface of my polished aluminium got distinctly unpolished and worn just with the very careful handling required to bed down the decals, and the different reflectivity of the decals is a bit of an offence to the eye from some angles. Altogether it was a dispiriting build, which very nearly ended up in the bin several times, and I never mustered the enthusiasm to begin a WiP thread. The highlight of the whole experience was the point at which I lost one of the control surface parts for a week, only to discover it in my trouser pocket while hunting for change for a parking meter. Old age doesn't come itself ... Here's what the real thing looked like: And here's what I produced. Some additional detail with styrene and brass rod. Paint is Alclad polished aluminium and matt white. Ejector seat straps are cannibalized from an Airwaves set, and the cockpit was detailed up a little using Airscale early Allied jet instrument decals. Either the kit undercarriage gear is too long, or I mistook part of the pour stub for part of the gear, so the model sits a little too high. This annoys me, but doesn't annoy me enough to make me want to revise it at present. It's a tail-sitter, of course, and I've made no effort to edit out the transparent rod I tucked under the engine bells for support. Thanks for looking, and well done for getting past the outpouring of negativity with which I started this post!

I just stumbled on this while I was looking for some detail pics of the exterior of the Roci. https://fantastic-plastic.com/rocinante---catalog1.html Scale: 1:144 Length: 12 inches (30.48 cm) Number of Pieces: 115 Pattern: Scott Lowther Casting: Mana Studios Decals: JBOT (Decals for both the Rocinante and MCRN Tachi) Original Box Art by Brad Fraunfelter That's about the same length as the 3D printed one from printedplanes, but quite a bit more expensive at $170, or a lot more by the time we've imported it & been hit with duty & charges