New In-Box Review: Dunkleosteus

This is a newly released kit from Paleocraft Models. Its the Devonian terror Dunklosteus who swam the prehistoric waters 370-360 million years ago. This placoderm weighed in at a ton, and measured close to 20 ft. long, like a killer whale of his day. They died off at the transition betwen the Devonian and the Carboniferous and left no descendents. Fossils of this monster have been found in North America, Poland, Belgium and Morocco.

The Dunkleosteus kit measures in at 15.5 inches long which works out to about a 1:20th scale. The kit comes in 7 pieces: the body, the lower jaw and four fins. A resin coral reef and wooden bases completes the picture. As typical with any Paleocraft kit it is an excellent work of sculptor Sean Cooper. The model is in a cream color odorless resin, and shows absolutely no bubbles and only the minimum of seams. Cleanup should be completed in no time. The only down side I had to my kit was that despite Sean's excellent job of wrapping and packing the model for shipment the last 5cm of the tail was snapped off. Looking closely there was a huge bubble that formed in the resin in the area and as a matter of fact the whole tip was hollow. But it snapped off cleanly and it should be quick work to fill the bubble and pin the tail back on. Pics show the kit and the snapped off area.

Astronomy - Finding Uranus

Yeah, I like astronomy too, tho I haven't been doing much since my son was born. I was out the other night doing a sky tour for people at the NJAA Observatory and we looked at Uranus. In another forum there was guys having a hard time finding the planet so I made these maps.
The first map is a wide shot showing it's position.
The 2nd. is a closeup of where it is in the little asteriem.
The 3rd is where it will be in Nov. Good luck

A new build - Pioneer 1

Many times while building Rea space models, there just aren't enought kits produced out there. So what can you do? Make your own of course.

I was looking for something fairly simple to build and I decided upon Pioneeer 1.
On October 11, 1958 the Pioneer 1 Lunar Probe was launched on a Thor-Able rocket on a mission to fly by the moon. A programming error in the Pioneer 1 launch vehicle upper stage resulted in Pioneer 1 being given insufficient velocity to escape the Earth's gravitational field. Although Pionner 1 newer reached lunar orbit, it was not a complete failure. In fact it did reach an altitude of 113854 km above Earth (A record at that time) and provided data on the extent of the Earth's radiation belts. The vehicle reentered over the Pacific Ocean 2 days later.

New Ware has a kit of a Thor Able if you would like to build one. Also my friend Barry D. has an article on build on of the Thor Able family of rockets.

But anyway lets build. I started off by using the card model of it from Niels Paper Models as a template for building it in plastic. First thing I did was take the card model printout which was 1:6 scale and reduced it to the "standard" 1:24 scale. Thats makes for a small model, but I likie to have my models in the same scale. Then a quick trip to the hardware store for a few "For Sale" signs the source of the thin (0.010) plastic and I was ready to go. Here's some pics of the WIP. I'll have more as the build progresses. The black dot on the side will be the TV camera that was installed on the craft. I've yet to install a "lens."

New Kits

As I mentioned in my last post I have been on a buying spree as far as models are concerned. It started at the IPMA Nationals in Virginia Beach and it continues to present. But one sidebar here while I was looking to pack some models to take to the show I realized that I built only one model this year. So I made a resolution with myself that I could build one every two months at least! Lets see what happens.
But in any event, at the Nats, I was able to pick up an Anigrand A-12 Avenger 2 and an alien bust with pedestal.
Getting back home I had two boxes waiting for me. a previously ordered Star Wars Clone Battleship, and a 1:20th scale Rader Studios Apatosaur, and Brachylophosaurus . I also was able to buy for my birthday a kit I've wanted since seeing it on it's release a number of years ago - Paleocrafts' Tar Pit Scene. Many modelers remember the old Aurora line of Prehistoric scenes. Inthat collection was a Tarpit, pit a Wooley Rhino half submerged in the tar and a vulture waiting for it's demise. Well, someone commissioned tyerrific artist Sean Cooper to do an updated accurate model o f the scene. In it he has a stuck in the tar Colombian Mammoth and a dire Wolf and Sabertooth cat fighting over the victim. It also includes a base and tree. Once the commissioner got his sculpt he allowed Sean to kit the sculpt. Once sculpted Sean handed it over to Mike Evans at Alchemy Works to do the molding and casting.

On the sci-fi scene Fantastic Plastic has been knocking 'em dead with a number of star Wars kits (can you tell I'm a big SW geek?) including the TIE Bomber and the Escape Pod, which both arrived recently. FP also has a Sandcrawler that has just been released and I'll be picking that one up asap.

BTW, if you haven't already visited the Fantastic Plastric site. It is a must see. The owner and webmaster, Allen Ury, who is a fan of sci-fi and spacey looking x-planes and the like has a tremendous site. He's broken down his models not only into model type - x planes, real space, pop culture; but also further divides the models don't as to which time period you would have seen them (not which year the kit was released). Very cool. Grab a cup of coffee and take a look, you could quickly spend an entire evening enjoying the models.
Wish me luck on my resolution! ;-)

Gemini XII for exhibit

Hi all, Long time since I published anything here. I've been doing A LOT of buying but not too much building. But that changed last week when I needed to dfinish off a 1:24 Gemini capsule for a Buzz Aldrin exhibit at a local Observatory in NJ. It's supposed to represent the then recorded breaking EVA by Buzz. The figure of Buzz was taken from the Spacer Walkers kit by New Ware. Tomas at New Ware is a great guy, so there's no worries sending mony to the Czech republic. I felt kind of rushed doing this and didn't stop to take in progress pics. But here are a few of the images from the finished display.