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Replicas Unlimited 22" Resin Space:1999 Eagle Transporter


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So lets try again with a resin kit...

I bought this one as an Xmas present to myself earlier this year, not knowing that a couple of months later an injection molded kit of a 22" (ie 1:48 scale) Eagle transporter would be announced by Round 2 for the end of 2015! So, my thinking is if I don't build this NOW, I'll never get round to building it and if I try to re-sell it, I won't get anything like what I paid for it when there is (in theory) a better IM kit available for less!

Here we go then

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This was a very well received kit within the Space :1999 community and builds up into a good representation. There are several AM additions that can be added, including aluminium turned engine bells for the main engines and the vertical thrusters and other extra components available. However these tend to be extremely expensive and this kit cost enough as it is. I reckon I can do a decent enough job with some Alcad paint on the engine bells...

Progress so far has been to spend an evening at the sink with a washing up bowl of soapy water giving everything a good wash...

Edited by Kallisti
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Does look like a very nice kit. I share your pain with a newer cheaper/better/easier/whatever kit coming out after shelling out a load of hard-earned as I had exactly the same issue many times. I do what your doing and just build it anyway.

My brother-in-law has been scratchbuilding a 44" Eagle on and off for about the last 10 years and it does look very impressive but too big for me!

Hope it builds well.

Steve

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That will certainly fill the workbench and probably less frustrating than joining hundreds of tread links together!!!!

From the photos the moulding looks first class.

Am a bit of a closet 1999 fans so will follow with interest. :popcorn:

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Well sadly I had already joined about 50 track links together on the other build before I gaVe up lol that was one of the easier parts of that build! This one is no less complicated - well apart from the fact that I'm more familiar with the subject and the kit actually has some instructions (unlike the other one!)

Started building tonight - first thing was joining the wto halves of the "beak" together - that was entertining! Lost of filler now applied to the joint which will be sanded tomorrow. Also trying to work out how I'll handle the cockpit internals...

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I almost bought this kit last year (glad I didn't) so will be watching closely.

Graham

Same here :-)

:popcorn:

Rene

Edit: The resin parts look way better than I would have expected. Had I seen these parts before I would have bought this kit and not hesistated.

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Building begins... first the "beak". This went together reasonably well. Holes for the windows were cut and transparent acrylic sheet put in place to make windows.

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The holes that accept the "metal" sensor disks were opened up to allow them to be slotted in easily later. These will be painted with Alcad. The holes have since been masked over for later... This is the inside:

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I've painted the inside that has a chance of being seen using Tamiya Desert Yellow. Next, I've resized a picture of the back wall and printed it out to attach to the inside rear bulkhead.

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Next I've fished a couple of 1:48 scale pilots out of the spares box and given their flight suits a coat of orange and yellow helmets to match the space suits used in Space:1999

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Have just seen your Thunderbird entries in the Sci-Fi G/B and am very impressed with your work so will now keep an eye on this buld to see how you do it. As you can see on this G/B imyself, have no time for Scifi my self.;)

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So here we go again with some more progress. First the pilots were finished and attached to the back panel of the cockpit

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This was then sealed up to the rest of the beak. Some filling was required, Mr Surfacer 500 was up for the job...

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The rear frame is just held onto the beak via the brackets. These were later drilled out and pins will be used to attach the beak to the frame

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I didn't light the cockpit - I do that type of thing regularly but to be honest I didn't feel like doing it for this one, so in order to see in you need to look rather cloely :)

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This has gone on hold for a week or so while I try to finish the big Thunderbird 2... however there are problems on that front - see my other thread for the updates on that... sigh...

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Hi Andrew

this looks like another really great big build which I am going to look forward to following alongside your T2. I remember you mentioning this eagle kit when I met you at Arborfield earlier this year and I have been hoping to see it up on the forum soon.

Don't shy away from that studio size Millenium Falcon you showed me the plans for either - I'll help you build the coffee table to display it in if you like....

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  • 2 months later...

Can I ask the Mods to move this thread into the SciFi Work in Progress forum please?

3 Months pass by and a few things get built and I'm ready to have another crack at this and see how much progress I can make on it this time!

Casting your minds back up the thread we left it witht he "beak" having been assembled. Well this had been primed and further work done on it:

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The rear frame you can see here is attached to the beak by 4 wires through holes drilled in the brackets that are supposed to support it - the idea is that these would be explosive bolts to allow the beak to be separated from the rest of the vehicle in an emergency, hence the air-lock door. This frame needed a lot of work done on it as it had a lot of the casting block still attached to the back side - ie the side facing us in the above photo.

You can see the wires and brackets in the next pic

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Next the spine was assembled from the two halves

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The joint in the middle has been strengthened by copper rods inserted into drilled holes. This spine is non-load bearing when the modle is complete so it doesn't need to be string, just straight! The reason it is not load bearing is shown in the next photo

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This shows the main pod, now assembled fromt he tow halves, This was done earlier in the summer before I stopped work before, but hadn't got round to documenting it. The front and rear vehicle corridors are glued to the pod and strengthened with internal screws

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So this is the load-bearing mechanism that holds the whole model together. What this means is that the pod cannot be removed from the vehicle - its firmly fixed in place. The casting detail on these pieces is quite extraordinary

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You can see where the shoulder pods will later be fixed. I've closed up the underside of the pod but as you saw from the earlier pic I haven't yet glued the bottom of the corridor sections in yet

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I'm probably going to start with the paint on this section as it will be easier to do before the cages get put on the corridor sections. These have been dry fitted, along with the beak and its looking mighty fine!

The next major hurdle is the engine section... this is quite complex and the instructions don't help much! Fortunately I've got a bunch of photos take of the original 44" Eagles as well as other people's builds of these kits from various Smallspace shows over the last few years such as this one

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plus of course the thousands of photos on the net! I'd quite like to get this model finished before the injection moulded one comes out from Round 2...

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Hi Andrew

Good to see this back on the bench. Its nice the see the Eagle's body work / shell without that contained superstructure that is on the MPC/Airfix kit which blocks everything out.

I'll set you a wager - lets see who gets there first. My Liberator or your Eagle!

I hope you have good day at Bovington tomorrow

John

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Some more progress to report on, first off work has begun on the engine section

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Here you see the basic structure of the engine section, with the holes that have been drilled to provide strengthening pins to attach to the rear cages. Assembling the engines is a complex and tricky business as this being a resin kit, things don't have very positive attachment points and lots of pieces need fettling to fit.

Next you see where I've drilled the holes for the pins for the front cages and their attachment to the beak

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Finally, you might have noticed the plans on the table under the resin - this is the engine sheet of a set of large A1 sheets that I sourced from Daniel Prud'homme a couple of years ago which are the best blueprints based on the 44" Eagle used in the studio. I'm using these alongside the instructions and they are perfect :)

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I think I may have a major problem on my hands with this build. I've been trying to get any sort of primer to adhere to the resin of the engine bells, but wasn't having any luck. The resin has all been washed in soapy water, then I gave the engine bells a wash with IPA just to be sure. Then tried Tamiya Primer. This appeared to go on okay but there were a couple of uneven spots so I then tried some fine sanding, at which point the paint just flaked away from the resin.

So after a suggesting from Chris Trice on a Facebook page, I stripped the paint off and gave them all a good wash with cellulose thinners. This appeared to make a difference as the surface didn't feel quite so "soapy" as before, so once they'd dried I gave them a thin coat of Alcad gloss black primer and this was the result

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Sigh...

Anyway some time ago I'd managed to get the gloss black primer to stick to the inserts that go into the cockpit beak. These are supposed to be "metal" so you can see here things were looking promising...

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However a few minutes later...

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Sigh...

I'm not sure I can make this work - how on earth do I get paint to stick to this damn thing?

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