Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Thunderhawk build : pre work

Ok Jason came over and we were looking at the Thunderhawk before I start.

It is very large.... and has a lot of parts, I did not count yet but it has to be close to the same number as the Reaver. It looks to be a very....Interesting ( for lack of a better word) build.

When I ordered it I "forgot" to order the 6 Hellstrikes for it... I was going to scramble and beg/borrow/steal them from the new plastic Valk kit to avoid having to order 3 packs at like $40-50 , but as a nice gesture for dropping $600 plus (375gbp) They included them all for "Free"
;)

One can tell this kit is much "older" than the Reaver. Meaning that they molding techniques and the case are not that good. In fact I may have to build a "Jig" to straighten the main fuselage, which was bent long ways. The mold lines on the larger parts don't look bad, but there is a ton of Flash gates and Flash... so there will be an inordinate amount of sanding and Dremil work.
Also a Heavy duty high temp Hair dryer or heated paint strip gun will definitely be in my immediate buy list. Most of the parts are Way to big to fit even in a large pot of boiling water to make them malleable, so I'm going to have to heat them up to right/true them. Also found some areas that I'm going to definitely need magnets for ( Heavy bolters & Hellstrikes, front ramp, main gun...)

Another "Clue" as to how old this kit is , is that the Instructions amount to 3 double sided photo copied sheets. Not like the Step by step 22+ pages the Reaver came with. Hell I think the Tigershark A-X-01 came with a better instructions and it is 1/3 the size and 2/3'rds less in price.
There is no "visual" parts guide in front of the build, Just 5 pictures with what each sub section "should " look like when Finished. There are a couple Highlight blow up sections that point to "tricky areas".

These are some of the reasons I'm dreading this build. I think it may really test my Modeling know how and skills. It's been a while, but I'm up to the challenge compared to some of the really easy kits recently.

The Reaver was a domesticated Tiger that has been hand raised with your family compared to this. More to come ...

I will detail this far further than I did with the Reaver here on line.

No comments: