So. I did a thing when I went to the GW New
Hobbyist Expo in Texas. I bought a
Thunderhawk. Yeah, needed that like
another bolter shell in the head. But I
have always wanted one, so I did it. To
lessen my feelings of guilt and shame, I made myself swear to finish the
Astraeus I got for Christmas first. So
herein lies my tale of building the model and how the new ForgeWorld kits are.
Overview
First off, let me
say this. This kit is a HUGE hunk of
Resin and the quality difference between now and just a few years ago is
amazing. Nothing was warped that had any
size to it. A couple of gun barrels, and
the main gun barrels needed a little straightening, but it was by no means like
it used to be. If you used to be
apprehensive about buying ForgeWorld big ticket items, don’t be anymore. This kit and the Thunderhawk are beautiful,
detailed and needed almost no re-working at all.
Next, assembly
gaps. Yes, there are gaps in the
finished product. You will have to
green-stuff or putty little joins here and there. This is a fact of life with these resin kits,
and I’ll not devolve into the merits of resin v plastic. These are fun models that need a bit more
hobby proficiency than the shake the box kits that GW makes. But half the joy is in the assembly, so it’s
kinda what I paid for at least.
The new manuals for
assembly are about 3257% better than the old photocopied crap instructions that
used to be in these kits. The new
manuals are full color, they show the parts very clearly. They also take care to overlay colors onto
the areas you should glue, and areas where resin will need to be removed to
make it look or fit right. There are
also notes and callouts where the assembly can be fiddly, or where something
needs to be done to make the final piece have movement or elevate properly.
So, the grade for
the kit overall is a solid A
Assembly notes.
I would suggest
magnetizing all the weapon options for the tank in a big way. It’s nice to have options and this is resin,
it’s easy to drill the holes and easier to mount the magnets. If you don’t have the magnets, I would
suggest either MagSavvy.com or the MagnetBaron.com.
I also magnetized
the sponsons into the side of the vehicle.
The fit is a little loose overall, and I did not want to glue the
sponsons in. The assembly itself has
‘ridges’ in the holes for the sponsons and the sponsons have splines that will
hold them in different elevations. They
are reasonably thick, but I preferred to put a magnet in there to hold it
better.
Turret weight
The turret is the
first thing you build and it needs a few tweaks, at least mine did. The weight of whole assembly is definitely
toward the rear, and the guns are not long enough for the moment of inertia to
equalize the weight. So, they tend to
slam down and always point up.
Since friction is
really cool, all I did was take some very thin plasticard (.10) and made 2
sleeves for the gun turret ‘holes’ to tighten it up and hold the guns in any
position I put them. See the picture.
Glue…
So, for most of the
large body assemblies, I used bamboo skewers as ‘pins’ (the ones I have are
nicely rounded and have a 3/32” diameter).
It was easy to drill with my Tamiya drill and then used 5 minute epoxy
to glue it all up. For almost all the
littler pieces I just used thick super glue.
Keep in mind that
you’ll need to ‘score’ the mating faces no matter which glue type you use. I just used an x-acto hobby knife to make
lines in the faces. It gives the glue
(or epoxy) an extra surface to bite into as it dries and sets.
All in all, assembly was really easy and
straightforward. I’d have to give it a
solid B+. The manual and the new, clean
lines without warpage made it a breeze and done in a couple of evenings.
Painting
I left off all the
repulsor plates, the engines and weapons.
These will be primed separately and be painted then applied. Hopefully, I’ll get to show you a painted
version soon.
So overall, the whole thing gets an A. It’s a great kit.
Cool! Might get one for myself now!
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