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! 

Edit: while there are no part numbers on the sprues, they do include a diagram of all the sprues and the corresponding numbers. -  

 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.