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Mandalorian Razor Crest


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7 hours ago, Alan R said:

Is that in the latest Book of Boba Fett episode?

 

Yes, Djarin acquires a new ship in the episode.

 

I quite like the Naboo starfighter but I'm not sure yet about having one as Mando's new ride. It doesn't make much sense for a bounty hunter to have a tiny one-man fighter. Some of the mods to it are a bit much as well. The hot rod, carburetor-though-the-bonnet thing is a bit OTT. The natural metal finish is nice though. The script seems to half imply that he might be able to find a new Razor Crest at some point though, which would be nice.

 

 

Okay, so on to the rear hatch. I'll need to keep this one openable, and fortunately it looks a lot better that the side doors and is fine without modification, apart form one glaring issue, that being the copyright info moulded to the outside of the door.

 

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I won't blame Revell for this, as it was probably a requirement from Lucasfilm to have the copyright info somewhere visible. It is a bit of a pain to clean off though since it's on a panel with raised edges around it. That makes scraping or sanding a bit tricky. In the end, I removed the lettering as best as I could, then covered over the area with two strips of styrene. There are no raised panels there on the real ship, so this isn't accurate, but it looks better than traces of the lettering showing through after painting.

 

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The fit of the door in the fuselage is pretty good, but it won't stay closed on its own, so I've added a magnet to the rear of the door to keep it shut.

 

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The door hinge is trapped in place by the back end of the floor panel but, as I won't be fitting the full floor, I cut the rear section off so I could glue that in place to secure the door.

 

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To hold the other magnet that'll keep the door closed, I glued a length of square styrene tube into the rear of the fuselage. The tube had a section cut out in the middle into which the magnet was glued. I did think about adding some kind of tab to the outside of the door that I could use to pull it open, but it's easy enough to just get a fingernail under the edge of the door and lever it down. I'll only need to open it to switch the light on and off, or swap the batteries.

 

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I've also added the rear landing gear hump. This is built up from two side pieces and a lower panel, and the fit is pretty good so long as you spend a few minutes cleaning up the slightly flashy edges of the parts.

 

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The gear bays looked a little bare, so I've added a few bits and pieces to liven them up a bit.

 

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Up at the front of the fuselage, there are a couple of short slots engraved just ahead of the side doors. These should be deeper and wider to match the (digital) studio model so I've drilled and reamed them out. They're a bit messier than I'd like because I couldn't drill all the way through the plastic as they're located right where the side curves into the bottom of the fuselage, and the styrene is very thick there. Hopefully they should look okay once painted and with a wash in them.

 

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In other news, I've just finished clipping together the little Bandai RC. It's pretty nice, although somehow not quite as good as I was expecting. It doesn't have quite the crispness of detail that we saw on the Tantive and SSD, although some of that impression may be due to the swirly twirly silver plastic. Not sure what I'm going to do with this one yet, but I don't think I'll paint it as Mando's Razor Crest. I might hold off to see if he eventually gets another one, or just paint it in a different scheme - Slave 1 colours migh look nice on it?

 

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   Andy:cat:

 

 

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I bought 2 of these kits, plan on building one in flight and the other in a diorama setting. The Naboo Starfighter is a cool looking ship, it would look great in 1/72 scale. 

I can't imagine Mando without the RC, this new Hot Rod is just a new toy to help out Boba Fett. I am pretty sure a Star Wars version of  a barn find will turn up a another RC.

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Hi Andy.

 

I have read that the paint scheme will not be that of the Mando RC and that you wonder if the Slave I scheme would not suit the Razor Crest.
Well, it's hard to imagine the RC with any other scheme after seeing it for two seasons. However I could imagine it with a Star Wars style paint scheme, you know with a predominance of light grey. I think something similar to the schematic that B Wing or A Wing had would be nice.


But I'm sure, knowing you, that whatever you do will be an amazing paint job.

 

Andrés S.

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12 hours ago, Andy Moore said:

I removed the lettering as best as I could, then covered over the area with two strips of styrene. There are no raised panels there on the real ship, so this isn't accurate, but it looks better than traces of the lettering showing through after painting.

 

When I scrolled down to the first picture I thought: Damn, that's a pain. I'd probably just put some strip panels over that rather than try to clean it up. Then I scrolled a bit more...

 

This is a great build, Andy. I only got D+ over Christmas so Mando is all new to me. I'm already wanting to do this model though, so I'll belatedly tag along to see how it's done. :popcorn:

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5 hours ago, Lee Chambers said:

I bought 2 of these kits, plan on building one in flight and the other in a diorama setting. The Naboo Starfighter is a cool looking ship, it would look great in 1/72 scale. 

I can't imagine Mando without the RC, this new Hot Rod is just a new toy to help out Boba Fett. I am pretty sure a Star Wars version of  a barn find will turn up a another RC.

Yeah I agree, there was some definite open endedness to the discussion. And I totally agree it doesn't really fit a bounty hunter. Where is he going to put all those carbon freeze bodies ? Still I guess it's a good change for now. Can't wait to see a starfighter dogfight with some force use !!

 

Anyway, I like the OG RC colouring, silver is a cool and different look. Can't wait to see how Andy's looks once we get to the paint section !! Looking very nice so far Andy !! Am sure no one will notice the manual slots once the paint is on.

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Best episode of Boba Fett so far.  Maybe due to complete absence of one character?  Anyway Din Djarin apparently only needs something like  a bar fridge in the N-1 to carry proof of bounty!

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On 1/27/2022 at 12:58 PM, Andy Moore said:


In other news, I've just finished clipping together the little Bandai RC. It's pretty nice, although somehow not quite as good as I was expecting. It doesn't have quite the crispness of detail that we saw on the Tantive and SSD, although some of that impression may be due to the swirly twirly silver plastic.

 

I can confirm that the impression of a lack of crispness is in fact due to the swirly silver plastic -- I made silicone molds of the Bandai Razor Crest engine to use for scratch builds, and the castings are as sharp as you'd expect from Bandai (aside from my casting errors of course 😄). When you put a casting next to the original kit part you can see that it's due to how that particular plastic reflects the light (or due to its slight translucency at the edges, maybe?). There's a few photos in here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzAgmc

 

Edited by monsterpartyhat
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4 hours ago, monsterpartyhat said:

 

I can confirm that the impression of a lack of crispness is in fact due to the swirly silver plastic -- I made silicone molds of the Bandai Razor Crest engine to use for scratch builds, and the castings are as sharp as you'd expect from Bandai (aside from my casting errors of course 😄). When you put I put a casting next to the original kit part you can see that it's due to how that particular plastic reflects the light. There's a few photos in here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzAgmc

 

Nice attack shuttle/heavy fighter, don't suppose you're going to make kits and sell them ? I think you could because thats a good design. 

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22 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Nice attack shuttle/heavy fighter, don't suppose you're going to make kits and sell them ? I think you could because thats a good design. 

 

I don't want to de-rail Andy's beautiful Razor Crest build thread here, but...probably not. They're not printable, and the 3D plans I make are more like....guidelines. Takes a lot of manual tweaking to put them together. 

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On 28/01/2022 at 08:38, Andrés S. said:

I have read that the paint scheme will not be that of the Mando RC and that you wonder if the Slave I scheme would not suit the Razor Crest.
Well, it's hard to imagine the RC with any other scheme after seeing it for two seasons. However I could imagine it with a Star Wars style paint scheme, you know with a predominance of light grey. I think something similar to the schematic that B Wing or A Wing had would be nice.

 

Don't worry Andrés, this one will be in the regular Mando colours. The alternate scheme will just be for the little Bandai kit.

 

On 28/01/2022 at 10:33, SMD70 said:

I've been thinking for a while that a Millennium Falcon style paint job on a Razor Crest would look pretty good...

 

That's a pretty good idea, it would look good in a similar finish. I might knock up some colour roughs to test different schemes.

 

On 28/01/2022 at 15:49, monsterpartyhat said:

I can confirm that the impression of a lack of crispness is in fact due to the swirly silver plastic

 

Thanks for the confirmation Adam, that's good to know. It would have been strange for Bandai to lower their usual high moulding standards.

 

On 28/01/2022 at 20:11, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Nice attack shuttle/heavy fighter, don't suppose you're going to make kits and sell them ? I think you could because thats a good design. 

 

They are indeed fantastic designs - very Joe Johnston-y.

 

A little more work has happened on the Crest, and I've finally got the fuselage closed up. It's taken a while due to the rough finish, especially on the upper fuselage which I needed to clean up, as far as is possible, and that's taken quite a while to do. I don't want to be too harsh on the kit as, for the most part, it's made to a very high standard, but the surface finish on the two main fuselage parts is quite poor.

 

Most of the upper fuselage has a distinct pebbly texture which left unaltered would marr the natural metal finish. The photos below are close ups, and the lighting exaggerates the texture, but even under normal viewing conditions the effect is still noticeable. Fortunately the plastic sands very easily, but doing so is tricky due to all the raised details on the surface.

 

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In other places the texture and general soft moulding has almost obliterated some details. The angled line in the centre of the pic below should be a distinct edge of a raised panel, but instead it just blurs away. The little rectangular greeble below that panel edge has also lost a lot of definition.

 

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Other details, especially ones sunk into the surface, have jagged burrs on their edges that all need to be cleaned up.

 

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I've managed to get most of these issues dealt with now. The parts aren't prefect by any stretch, but they're a lot better than they were. With that done, I finally got some paint on the exterior of the model. Only around the windows for now, as I needed to get the insides of the frames painted before I could add the glazing. I could have left the glazing out until the whole ship was ready for paint, but putting it in now will at least keep any dust out of the cockpit in case I need to do any filling and sanding later. The frames were painted with Alclad Dark Aluminium over a dark grey base.

 

The front three glazing parts all dropped into place without problems, and were secured with a few drops of Gator Grip acrylic glue. The large centre panel and the four smaller panels were all a little too wide for the frames and needed around 0.5 mm sanding from their sides. After that they fitted fine.

 

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With the glazing sorted, I installed the cockpit in the lower fuselage and glued the upper fuselage in place. I mentioned earlier that I was going to add the two little red lights on the nose, and the two running lights under the engine nacelles, but in the end I decided not to bother. The lights are barely noticeable, and aren't on when the ship's on the ground anyway. Also, if I'd fitted the running lights to the nacelles I'd have needed to run the fiber optics from the engines into the fueslage, which would have meant fitting the engines at this stage. That would have made the ship rather cumbersome to hold, and I'd rather leave the engines separate for painting.

 

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I was a little concerned that the fit between the two large fuselage parts wouldn't be all that good. As it turned out though, it's just about perfect. There's just a tiny bit of filling needed on the stepped join just above the mounting points for the guns and just above the lower glazing panel, but otherwise it's all fine. The join line around the nose falls on a panel line and doesn't need any filling.

 

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At the rear, the join line also forms a panel line, and doesn't need any further attention. Given the size of these parts, I was quite surprised just how well they went together.

 

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So, with the fueslage buttoned up I moved onto the engines. Deciding to not add the running lights has removed one job, but there's still some work that needs doing on the parts before they can be assembled. Most of the work is related to the parts being round mouldings created with a two-part mould. As a result, Revell have had to square off any raised details that would otherwise have had an undercut. The most obvious ones are a ring of triangular fillets running around the centre of the nacelles. The ones near the top of the nacelle mouldings are fine, but the ones further down have been given vertical edges to allow the mould to retract. Luckily, the fillets are solid mouldings with no cavity on the inside, so it's a relatively easy job to slice away the excess plastic and give them the correct undercut (the left hand engine half in the photo below has already had the work done). There are also a few sink marks on all the engine sections that will need filling.

 

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At the rear of the nacelles, there's a grooved ring that's also suffered from the same issue at the lower edges. That's also an easy fix by re-engraving the grooves with a scribing tool. The re-worked area isn't a perfect match for the grooved further around the ring, but it's close enough (altered example on the right this time). I expect the likes of Green Strawberry will create an etched replacement for this ring in time. You'll also see a few other panels that will all need their lower edges cutting away for the reasons mentioned above.

 

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Lastly, there's a missing panel line that runs either side of the grooved ring on the outer side of the nacelle. Again, an easy fix with a scriber.

 

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Once all the work's done on the engines, they'll be a very easy fit to the fuselage. They drop down into a shallow recess on the upper wing stubs, and are held in place with two large posts.

 

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Even dry fitted, the join is seamless so they'll be very easy to fit after they're painted and weathered.

 

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Still lots of work to do, but the ship is finally starting to look like the Crest.

 

Andy:cat:

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Looking good Andy !!! Unfortunately a fair bit of prep work, but I'm sure once the paint goes on it'll all be worth it.

 

I happened upon this today. Norm from Tested unpacks his Hasbro crowd funded Razorcrest. If you'd like any more reference material or possible ideas ??

 

 

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4 hours ago, Portaler said:

Looking good Andy !!! Unfortunately a fair bit of prep work, but I'm sure once the paint goes on it'll all be worth it.

 

I happened upon this today. Norm from Tested unpacks his Hasbro crowd funded Razorcrest. If you'd like any more reference material or possible ideas ??

 

 

Holy hell that is outstanding! :analintruder:

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On 13/02/2022 at 14:55, Portaler said:

Norm from Tested unpacks his Hasbro crowd funded Razorcrest. If you'd like any more reference material or possible ideas ??

 

Yes, Hasbro have done an excellent job with their RC. It's got a really nice paint job for something factory finished.

 

Speaking of which, I've finally made a start on painting my RC, although just the engines for now. There were a few things I needed to finish before I fired up the airbrush though, starting with the fillet pieces that cover the undersides of the stub wings. These have a small lip running along their inner edge that needs to slip under the edge of the lower fuselage. The fillets are then aligned with pins that slot into holes in the upper wings.

 

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Trouble is the pins prevent the fillets from being angled enough to get the lip under the edge of the fuselage. These really should be fitted before the two fuselage sections are joined, but the instructions show them fitted afterwards.

 

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The only solution at this point is to cut the alignment pins off, as I've done on the bottom fillet in the photo below. If you leave a tiny stub when cutting the pins off there's enough to still secure the fillets in place. Once they're on, the fillets fit very well and don't need any filling, but if you're building the kit I'd advise ignoring the instructions and fitting the fillets to the upper fuselage before mounting that to the lower fuselage.

 

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Moving back to the engines, the two nozzles needed some modification to better match the studio model. On the digital model there are gaps between the petals at the base of the nozzle, but these have been moulded solid on the kit. Revell have at least added small recesses where the gaps should be, so it's a fairly simple job to cut down between the petals with a razor saw. The edges and ends of the slots were cleaned up with a sharp blade.

 

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Most of the undercuts and angled edges have been dealt with on the engine nacelles. There are still a few panels with sloping edges, but all the significant ones have been done. I've also added a few extra details here and there with styrene sheet. I've sanded down the rough texture on the plastic as much as is possible, but most areas have raised details that would be damaged or removed entirely by sanding, so I'll have to hope that the remaining texture will be lost under the weathering.

 

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This is how it looks with the engines dry fitted. Definitely starting to look Razor Cresty now.

 

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I've also added a few random greebles to the upper hull, partly to fill in some empty areas around the escape pod dock, and partly to sharpen up the detail where the mouldings are a bit soft.

 

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Everything's essentially ready for paint now, so I've made a start with the engines. These got a base coat of Gunze gloss black to act as a foundation for the metallic coat.

 

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I was a little unsure what paint to go with for the main finish, or at least the initial finish. The RC has quite a burnished sheen in places, but also has a heavy patina over the surface. A full chrome would be far too shiny, so in the end I used AK's xtreme metal polished aluminium, which is bright enough to give that burnished look without being a mirror-like finish. This will have more metallic shades added to accentuate the panels, but before that I'll leave the polished aluminium to fully cure for a few days then give it a clear coat to protect it.

 

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The rest of the ship will get the same treatment, but I'm quite low on both the gloss black and the aluminium, so I'll need to get an order in before getting anything else done.

 

Andy:cat:

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32 minutes ago, Andy Moore said:

 

Yes, watched it all the way through twice now😀

 

Andy:cat:

Just pinged to the top of your thread on this page and realised you know about the start fighter. Dang! I figured it would be one you would go for. 😇 I still have two episodes to go. Really enjoying it so far. Getting some nice chip ideas from Mr Fett’s armour. 😆😉

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