Model Kit Builder » Resin Kit

Decals for a Porsche 908/3

Klaus Weitzel — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 20:09:12 +0000

For the Porsche 908 Resin Kit I bought some parts quite a while ago. The only decal set I found was sold via “Jens Scale Racing” and was made by BvH. The Sheet is for the Gulf coloured 908/3 which was raced by the Werksteam in 1970. There are decals for two cars, the Targa Florio and the 1000km Nürburgring. I will try to make it the Targa Florio Version, which I also have in 1/32 by Fly (upgraded with Slot.it parts).

Together with the decal sheet I also got me some Colour, the Werksfarbe “Gulf Blau” (Gulf blue), and a technic kit for building a car compliant to the DSC rules. These kits are good value for money and you get everything you need to build a chassis ready to compete (remember, I have 2 of them).

Porsche 908/3 Gulf Decals

Technik Kit by Jens Scale racing

no SW at FP anymore …

Klaus Weitzel — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:48:12 +0000

Sad news .. we gave Allen too much support by buying his cool Star Wars Kits. In his last newsletter he had to announce that:

On July 20, 2009, Fantastic Plastic received a “Cease & Desist” order from Lucas Film demanding the removal of all unlicensed products from our Website. In compliance, we have retired all “Star Wars”-related kits to the Virtual Museum Store “Hall of Fame.” We will no longer market or sell these or any other kits that fall under Lucas Film’s jurisdiction. If you have any questions about this situation, please feel free to write us at fantasticplast@aol.com.

original quote from the fantastic plastic newsletter July 2009 – do sign up!

I do encourage everyone who has had an interest in the Fantastic Plastic Kits to have a look at the other kits available. I especially like the current release “Bubble Fighter” in 1:48 scale but currently can not afford any more kits … the next post shows why.

T-47 Snowspeeder – assembly started

Klaus Weitzel — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:03:56 +0000

Over the course of the last few days I started the assembly of the Fantastic Plastic T-47 snowspeeder. I am about 75% through with it, here is the current result.

T47 Snowspeeder Partly assembled 1

T47 Snowspeeder Partly assembled 2

The cockpit, laserguns and the rear flaps are not actually fixed to the body yet. The cockpit and the pilots need to be painted before assembly because they are in need of some painted details, especially the pilots.

T47 Snowspeeder Partly assembled 3

Royal Naboo Cruiser by Fantastic Plastic

Klaus Weitzel — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:19:02 +0000

I wrote about this kit already when I was telling you about the foiling. A couple of weeks ago (yeah, told you, I was lazy!) it arrived and I am quite pleased with it. There will be a bit more work attached to this model, but I think it will be within acceptable reach.

Royal Naboo Cruiser Box Art

Royal Naboo Cruiser Parts

On the detailed images you can see, that the panel lines will need some scribing, especially if I want to finish the model in foil (which I plan to). I found a few bubble holes towards the outer edges of some of the parts, again nothing major I think.

Royal Naboo Cruiser Upper Body

Royal Naboo Cruiser Lower Body

Royal Naboo Cruiser Parts Bag

Royal Naboo Cruiser Base

Starting the prep work on the resin parts

Klaus Weitzel — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 09:27:00 +0000

On Saturday the “Fantastic Plastic T-47 Snowspeeder” arrived and I was so thrilled by it, that I had to do something right away. So I took out some 400 grit sandpaper and happily started sanding away on some of the pieces.

T-47 Add-On Parts

Parts Cleaned

The pictures above do show the work of about 4 hours and 1 sheet of sandpapers work … the biggest part of the work was the rear heat sink and the area where it attaches to. But that is no big deal, since the body preparation is an essential part of working with resin models. As you can imagine, it is difficult to match similar parts (there are a couple of “duplicate” parts) so that they are the same, once they are on the model.

When you are sanding those pieces, be sure to always compare them during the process and not to take of to much on one of them. Also be careful, that they are standing straight and not tilted, that wouldn’t look too good, would it? You can also see, that I am not completely finished yet with this work. There is more sanding to come.

Actually you could use a power tool like a dremel for this work, if you are confident in your abilities handling it. Although I am confident in my abilities, personally I prefer the manual work on this one, since I have more control. If it comes down to cleaning the inside of a slot-car body shell, you can be sure that I’ll use a power tool for the task. But then we are not talking about detail work for the slot-car bodies.

For this model here there is one area though, where you could use the power tool if you want to, that is the rear end of the snowspeeder, where the heat sink attaches to the body. But be careful, it is easier to remove material than it is to add!

T-47 Snowspeeder in 1:72 by Fantastic Plastic

Klaus Weitzel — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:45:43 +0000

Bought on E-Bay for a price you wouldn’t believe … anyway, this 1:72 scale kit by Fantastic Plastic is only a handful of a completed model, but can become a nice base for a little snow diorama. Fantastic Plastic has a page on their site dedicated to every model they produce, here is the 1:72 scale T47 Snowspeeder page.

Original Boxart of the T47 Snowspeeder

T-47 Box

The Model itself has been designed by Alfred Wong for Fantastic Plastic and is cast completely in resin. The 19 pieces of the kit come in very good casting quality and are worth every penny of the SRP. The main body is approximately 7 cm long and 6 cm wide. I could only find 1 small air hole in it, which by itself shows the quality of the casting. In terms of preparing the body there won’t be much to do. The rest of the parts do come with a bid (I call it minor!) residue attached to it. At the end you shouldn’t forget that we are talking about a resin kit in a small scale. I do have a large scale car kit which is far less detailed and still has lower quality than this gem here.

View of the T-47 from front right side

View of the T-47 from front left side

The box says, that you should have at least some modelling experience with model kits to build this one and I agree. Resin kits are due to the brittle material less easy to build than high volume plastic kits.

On the painting an decal side I expect a little challenge, but mainly due to the pilot and gunner in their seating position. If you have built and painted planes in this common scale, you should be ready for the challenge. The decals, even the small ones for the pilot helmets look nice and crisp and should be easy to apply. Part of the decals are the red stripes which prominently feature on the body of the aircraft, but you could opt to paint them instead.

T-47 Main Body Casting

T-47 Add-On Parts

Last, but not least, come the instructions. The are made of 2 parts, first the kit instructions and second the decal instructions. Both sets come with appropriate warnings about material and handling. The kit instructions are made up as a step by step guide with images of the build process identifying the parts. Since we are talking about 20 parts overall (the body plus the add-on parts it is fairly easy to identify the parts needed for each step. The decal instruction sheet comes in colour with a pictorial reference taken from the actual models used during the studio shots. Those images are in colour and make it easy to identify decal and positioning. Additionally it gives you some reference shots for colouring an weathering this little kit.

Detail - Pilots

Decals by JBOD

Kit-Data:
Scale: 1/72
Released in: 2008
Parts: Body plus 19 add-ons
Decals: fine print decal sheet by JBOT
Level of modelling: moderate to experienced

I am looking forward to build this little kit and to purchase other kits by Fantastic Plastic!

Thanks to Allen of Fantastic Plastic for the permission to use his images (the first three) and this great kit.

Porsche 908/3 Resin Kit

Klaus Weitzel — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 12:27:12 +0000

For quite some time now I was looking for a 1/24 scale Porsche 908/3 model. Finally I found a quite inexpensive resin slot car kit made by MNS. I got the kit of eBay for around €30,– including a driver figure.

Porsche 908/3 resin kit

Over all I am quite happy with the kit although the parts will need a lot of cleaning up since they have lots of excess material. Resin kits are definitely not for the beginner of the hobby!

For me this will be the first time ever to build a resin kit. I have mostly experience with plastik kits, some experience with white metal and paper kits. I pretty nice “how to” on building a resin slotcar kit can be found on this forum here. Some of the techniques explained here will be useful as well, since you might need to fill some areas where you have some holes (larger or smaller ones). Since I have some bubble holes in my kit, I will need to use them at least. I think in general you can say the more expensive a kit is the better is the cast quality and the easier assembly will be.