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Thunderbirds Mole finished


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THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO! Or at least this pod vehicle is finished - the IMAI/Aoshima 1/72 Mole. It's a relatively simple kit but is pretty accurate to the studio model - as far as I can see most of the discrepancies are down to it being modelled on the City of Fire Mole rather than the Pit of Peril version, so I went for the former.

I opted to deviate from the studio model colouring a bit - it should be almost a lemon yellow, but that's a colour which I really dislike so I opted for a warmer "rescue" yellow - in this case Tamiya's Camel Yellow from a rattle can. I ended up with a very glossy-looking brand new Mole, which was good for applying the decals, but I misted it with Dullcote before the weathering so that it'd stick. I've tried to keep the weathering similar in tone to the studio model, but add more detail (e.g. streaks rather than patches) to compensate for the smaller scale.

This was nice quick (two week) project, with the bonus that I can play with it now that it's built thanks to the two Mabuchi 130 motors driving the tracks and drill.

Onto the pictures:

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(click for bigger)

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And in action:

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And a couple of details to finish:

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There are more pictures on Flickr, and the build thread is here.

Thanks to everyone who had suggestions and comments, it's all been very helpful. I enjoyed the combination of easy build/more time for painting, I should try that again.

Cheers,

Will

Edited by Will Vale
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Wow, thanks very much for the kind comments!

Before anyone else get it in that is F.A.B.!!

Hehe - I can't believe I didn't think of that myself, especially after Kallisti's quote-tastic dropship thread.

Is that left handed threaded thing actually spinning in photo 5 ?

It is - the drill spins, the little tracks on the mole move, and the light flashes courtesy of a geared-down cam and a couple of strip of phosphor bronze. It's a nice mechanism which is sadly very noisy and could do with bearings. I added one to stabilise the drill, but if I'd had some top hat bearings of the right diameter I'd probably have tried to fit them to smooth things out.

I took a couple of movies of it working but I need to edit them together into something coherent and I didn't have time this weekend. I'll post it here when I do though.

Cheers,

Will

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Bloody Hell,This is Fantastic!,always thought it looked a bit "Light weight"in the T.V series,but you have given it some real weight.

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  • 2 months later...

Do like this, I do.

Can anyone identify the font used for the M O L E title? I know Gerry Anderson's lot were very keen on Eurostile but I'm damn sure it's not that.

Edited by pigsty
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That's a tricky one - it looks a lot like Railroad Gothic or Impact, but they don't have slope-sided Ms. It's possible that they inverted a W to get the M, but then the middle point would be missing. Not sure.

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No, nor catalogue, but to be fair they are American. I was thinking of something a bit more fundamental ...

I'm not an expert or anything, but that SPG (?) looks a bit more Cold War than World War...

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I'm not an expert or anything, but that SPG (?) looks a bit more Cold War than World War...

- is the right answer! It appears to be an M107, introduced in 1962. Still, a "tank" is a "tank" for all that ...

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