Hiya folks,
Just finished the kit an hour or so ago and wanted to share some of the goodness.
The build itself was very straightforward. I think I reversed the order of the cargo modules, but with a huge amount of sanding, it worked out.
Getting rid of the seam on the engine module was worse.
After I had the body assembled a few months ago, the other night I snapped the engine pod and its connector off so that I could insert a dowl down the entire length. I didn't want to risk lifetime stability or the chance of the pod popping off at an inconvenient time. Also, in doing a lot of sanding, I had to fully remove the panels on the cargo module tops. One thing I discovered in the final paint was that having all the panels as separate pieces would have been handy.
Cutting all the plastic up was easy once I got it going. Here's a handy template montage I put together for myself. This should print out at full size for ya.
A while ago at a train shop I came across brass mesh. Nice. I knew I could use it for something and that turned out to be this kit. Studying the pix of the original it is quickly apparent that the solar sails on the tail are a rectangular mesh. This stuff is square mesh, but close enough for me. My initial thought was to glue it over the resin, but then it occurred to me to replace the resin the panels. It worked, but not exactly as I'd wanted. My idea was to center the mesh inside the frame, but I wound up simply gluing it across the back side and calling it good enough.
I thought an adobe or terra cotta color would be good. I got Rustoleum Painter's Touch Satin Cinnamon #240283.
Wet, it looks too saturated. But sanding the surface down gets rid of that nicely. Over the course of the build I did my standard black, silver, white, black silver black final color. This was particularly well suited for this kit as in the original model pix it looks like they simply sanded away the uppercoat to reveal black underneath. I should have put many more black coats on as I sanded straight down to the resin in a few cases. I accented this technique with some black and silver Sharpie work, quickly smudging the ink into the paint before it dried. Mostly successful, but a little dodgy in some places. A second round down the line would be finessing this aspect.
The complete story and over a hundred pix over the course of the build is over here. Kit #66
http://www.twinlitworlds.com/modelwerx/index.html
Or access the page itself outside of the interface here:
http://www.twinlitworlds.com/modelwerx/html/kits/kit66_botanybay.html
Just finished the kit an hour or so ago and wanted to share some of the goodness.
The build itself was very straightforward. I think I reversed the order of the cargo modules, but with a huge amount of sanding, it worked out.
Getting rid of the seam on the engine module was worse.
After I had the body assembled a few months ago, the other night I snapped the engine pod and its connector off so that I could insert a dowl down the entire length. I didn't want to risk lifetime stability or the chance of the pod popping off at an inconvenient time. Also, in doing a lot of sanding, I had to fully remove the panels on the cargo module tops. One thing I discovered in the final paint was that having all the panels as separate pieces would have been handy.
Cutting all the plastic up was easy once I got it going. Here's a handy template montage I put together for myself. This should print out at full size for ya.
A while ago at a train shop I came across brass mesh. Nice. I knew I could use it for something and that turned out to be this kit. Studying the pix of the original it is quickly apparent that the solar sails on the tail are a rectangular mesh. This stuff is square mesh, but close enough for me. My initial thought was to glue it over the resin, but then it occurred to me to replace the resin the panels. It worked, but not exactly as I'd wanted. My idea was to center the mesh inside the frame, but I wound up simply gluing it across the back side and calling it good enough.
I thought an adobe or terra cotta color would be good. I got Rustoleum Painter's Touch Satin Cinnamon #240283.
Wet, it looks too saturated. But sanding the surface down gets rid of that nicely. Over the course of the build I did my standard black, silver, white, black silver black final color. This was particularly well suited for this kit as in the original model pix it looks like they simply sanded away the uppercoat to reveal black underneath. I should have put many more black coats on as I sanded straight down to the resin in a few cases. I accented this technique with some black and silver Sharpie work, quickly smudging the ink into the paint before it dried. Mostly successful, but a little dodgy in some places. A second round down the line would be finessing this aspect.
The complete story and over a hundred pix over the course of the build is over here. Kit #66
http://www.twinlitworlds.com/modelwerx/index.html
Or access the page itself outside of the interface here:
http://www.twinlitworlds.com/modelwerx/html/kits/kit66_botanybay.html
