Victory 357 Hawk Ekranoplan

 I pulled this vehicle out of my stash as I was in the mood for something unusual. On site mentions it as the future that should have been. Another created a backstory for it: 

 In early 1929, Thomas T. Brown published an article in prestigious Science and Invention magazine. Article’s title was simple: How I Control Gravitation. However, the topic was anything but simple. Brown proved that using electrogravitics he could control gravity. 

 After few years the sector spun-off and become Gravity control propulsion research center. Soon large-scale tests proved that indeed gravity could be controlled. One of the experiment showed that a solid block of graphite with a mass of 500 kg doesn’t weigh the normal 4903 N but only 3236 N. Only 66% of original weight. 

Next phase was of course moving this new technology out of the laboratory in and into the field. Sparing no time a special vehicle, Victory 357 (Победа 357), was developed. It was basically an ekranoplan using three small jet engines for horizontal propulsion and an enormous 15,500 HP Kuznetsov NK-12 generator for powering electrogravitics elements. Generator provided enough electricity to reduce the weight of the vehicle from 160,000 N (16,315 kg) to 85.000 N (8.667 kg) making it a reasonably nimble ekranoplan with limited flying capabilities. 

The kit was made by AMP Models and is in 1:72 scale of detailed gray plastic. Having a quick look at the instructions gave me the first minus score to the kit - there's was just a few exploded views of where the parts basically go. I don't like that. 

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The first step, as is with most plane models is the cockpit. This is where I noticed another problem. The sprues are lettered but the parts are numbered on the instructions, but not on the sprues. No problem with some of the larger parts, but there's quite a few smaller parts that look similar. Oh boy! 

 This kit has a complete interior. There's the floor, the front and rear firewalls, a center control. There's two seats made made me smile in that they reminded me of chairs from a 1960's kitchen  :P There is also a very nice instrumentation panel. The details of the panel were a PE piece and I must admit it is the best looking panel I've ever seen. What I noticed pretty quickly was that pin "A" fitting into slot "B" is at a minimum. Most parts are just butt joined together. This leads to sometimes what happens is the part slides in the wet glue before it sets up.  Afterward I noticed the instrument panel was a little cockeyed. Dang! :(  Behind the pilot seats were two benches along each side. But being a nice interior I tried to give it the best paint job I could. 

 The next set was putting the interior into the body of the plane. This is where I noticed that all the careful painting was for nothing, when I noticed the size of the windows. 

When I went to close in the fuselage I came upon a BIG error. I don't know whether it's the kit or theme, but I couldn't get the two fuselage parts to meet. I tried several different ways for them to join but to no avail. I even started filing down the floor and firewalls... No good. 

 With the blood pressure rising, I ended up pulling the interior out. Not like you could really see in anyway. With the interior gone the fuselage went together with no effort. 

 The front grill was 2 pieces and was installed with little effort. I spent a bunch of time hopefully getting the seams to disappear. But with this sessions time running short I was threw on the pontoons and called it. check back for the finale. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

Romulan Chowder Class Finale

 In the mish-mash of January besides the Slave 2, I also worked on a number of other models - partially. But I did manage the finish the Romulan ship.

 The ship got a coat of green paint, and then I attempted to indicate the nacelles running my adding white to the vents and then a flou blue.  I wouldn't exactly call it a success, but not a failure either. It looks OK. 

The failure came when I tried to apply the big eagle decal to the back of the ship. The decal was either too old or I don't know what happened for after soaking, the decal just wouldn't come off the paper. In trying to get it off I ruined the image. So my only alternative left, with Ugh Models out of business, was to free hand image. so that's my first real attempt at anything more than simple free handing. Thanks for looking.  

 

 

Boba Fett's Slave 2

 January is a tough month. O always finish up my final kit for the previous year a few weeks ahead of the new year, and then it always takes a little bit to get me going again. 

This year I fiddled with a few things but got only 1 kit accomplished.  If was an early 3D print of Boba Fett's Slave 2 ship.  It came in just one piece - from Shapeways - I think, and had the distinctive grow lines on it. 

 

I had heard announcements that Shapeways was going under with the proliferation of home 3D printers. But while looking for dates for this post I discovered that they are in fact, still around.  

Slave 2,  was used by Fett about 10 ABY. It's first indirect mention was in the book Secrets of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire.  From a site:

Slave II was a MandalMotors Pursuer-class enforcement ship, a patrol craft, which was popular with the Mandalorian police units since it was tough and good at dealing with pirates, as well as having the cargo space for the usual police needs. Once Fett bought the ship, he immediately went about modifying it so it would hold all the "nasty surprises" that victims of his other ship experienced.  

 The model itself was just 1 part, and looks to be approx. 1/350 scale. Looking at the original was a gray or off white color.so in the end this was a simple kit to finished. A gave it a little wash to bring out details and I was done. Thanks for looking.

 

A look back at 2025

 Taking a look back and the models I've built, it's hardly my best year, but I'm pretty happy with it. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

The Mandalorian Razor Crest

 The Razor Crest from Bandai is a 1/144 scale kit with the highest detail I've seen in such a small(!) kit. From the site: 

The Razor Crest is the trusty transport and living quarters of the mysterious bounty hunter known as The Mandalorian.

Bandai have created a 1/144 scale plastic model kit of this already classic Star Wars ship. So if you are a fan of the show, have some glue, paint and an urge to build a model of Mando's spaceship, this Bandai kit may be what you are looking for.

These Bandai kits are small but have a good level of detail along with Bandai's build quality.

 This is a hard kit to talk about as it was built quite a while ago but then just sat there. I remember the engineering to be terrific and quite usual for Bandai.

 When I got back to the kit, it was ready for a primer coat, and then since I'll be applying a metallic - a gloss black coat. 

When that was dry, it got a coat of VMC silver. I let that dry overnight, and the next day I started weathering. It's pretty normal for Star wars not to be too concerned about continuity. So scuffs and mud you see in one scene doesn't mean they are still there in the next. So preserving the silver for a ship that got it's beatings I left the dirt to a minimum. 

 

 Next was the yellow-orange markings. There were decals for it, but sitting so long I have no idea where the box or decals went. So it was to give it a shot and just freehand it. From memory I knew it had two slanted lined, but there was other things next to/behind the doors.  Once again looking it up 100 different examples done 100 different ways. So I did my best. 

So the base would have a little something I found an image of his crest - a Mudhorn, printed that out and with matte medium stuck it to the base. With that I was calling another lil kit finished. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

The Gozanti Cruiser

No one can accuse me of timely building of my models. This little kit, from JPG Models,  was pulled from way deep in the stash. But it's now time to build. From the site: 

The Gozanti Cruiser, also known as the Gozanti-class armed transport or Gozanti-class shuttle, was a class of armored starships used by various factions. The Gozanti-class cruiser was a starship that could act as a freighter and cruiser. It could be modified to accommodate a twin laser turret in a dorsal mount and a heavy laser cannon on its ventral side. The Gozanti also had a loading elevator on the bottom near the nose and docking ports to the side near the cockpit section.[10] The ships had a hyper-drive and three engines.

This model is in 1/350th scale and has fairly clean resin casting.  It comes in 8 parts, and 3 (radar dishes) that look to be styrene. 

 It didn't take too long to clean up the mold lines and the remnants for the pour stubs. Building is straight forward and the main parts went together in less than an hour. Not included in the kit, but added was the wooden block and the clear styrene rod that will be the base. 

 Looking at the images searched for most were just a plain gray or dull metallic exterior. A few others had it looking like the red and white from the Clone Wars era. The image on the packaging is that plus a lot of weathering, which is the way I went. The block I just made flat black and I was done.  As I sort of expected was the little radar domes were all to easy to knock off, and 2 of them were lost to the carpet monster. I'll come up with a replacement. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

UGH! Romulan Chowder - class Cruiser

 Another kit from deep in the stash. This one is from Ugh Models which produced quality , not seen every day sci-fi vehicles from the Star Trek and other genres. Sadly they are no longer around. First signs of them were in 2013 and they seemed to be gone by 2118. If anyone has more specific info LMY

Anyway the kit is the 1000 scale Romulan Chowder - class Cruiser.  from the Star Fleet Museum site:

 

As UESN forces began their advance into Romulan territory in late 2158, the Romulans gradually abandoned any realistic hopes of resuming offensive action or achieving their war aim of conquering Vulcan. Instead, defense of Romulan space and Romulan worlds became paramount. For this reason, ship production began to shift from Cabbage-class cruisers to the purely defensive Chowder-class cruiser. Also known as "squids" or "Veronus" by UESN Intelligence, Chowder cruisers replaced the large hemispherical hull of Cabbage with a gently tapered cylindrical hull 30 m in diameter. A small wing atop the hull was tipped with two spindles that may have been auxiliary directional warp nacelles for increased maneuverability at warp speeds. A smaller version of the standard Romulan fusion power plant appeared to be used, but slightly slimmer warp nacelles were capable of propelling Chowder to a maximum observed speed of wf 3.2. Armament included a plasma cannon and six missile launchers.

 

 What drew my attention to it was the "Not A Saucer Shape, Not Seen Every Day" nature of the ship. The kit came in 5 parts, with a base and some decals.

 Clean up was quick and in no time to construction was complete. I added a wooden disc to beef up the base. 

 The base was painted black and I'm deciding what green to use. Images show if from a Deep Green to an almost gray Sage Green. But that's for next time. Thanks for looking.