MechTech

@derex3592 That came out superb! The lighting is just fantastic and helps bring it all home. The base is a great idea and also brings it up to another level. Congrats Derex on another great build! @peter The blotchiness was a nice touch to an otherwise boring surface. Really, no panel lines? That's cheap. Is that glitter I see in the photo!? - MT

That's some awesome work!!! That case is more of an equipment cabinet than a model ""box." Great execution of such a large project! - MT

@electric indigo Your FSS stories collection is looking great! I have to watch that anime again. I haven't seen it since the 80's! That paint color and finish on your model is great! @pengbuzz Those upgrades are sweet! You're collection now has a great place to "hang out" in. @peter That "Puttyprise" is a sad engineering job! Those seems are big enough for a scale figure to walk through; but you're making it look great! @CrossAir SUPERB finish on that 25! It's hard to believe looking at the before and after pictures how different it looks. Congrats on getting something that was so tough to paint and decal to hold up. ABS plastic is not fun to work with and can be tough to get paint to adhere to. I'm starting to get "a-head" on the twins. I added in a spot light for "low tech" use. It's a Gundam nozzle with a foil sticker (save the foil borders from your Gundam stickers) and a custom cut lens from what used to be a ships window to give it that circular pattern. There is STILL A LOT of painting and touch ups needed on these models (to include cleaning fibers from the rag used to wipe excess glue). Also save the optics from your old cameras and phones. For the top optics glass on the head, I took optics glass from an old camera and got that anti-laser coated look on so many military optics today. The bottom blue optics are cut spare clear pieces with a piece of acrylic mirror inside coated with a blue Sharpie. It has a nice reflection with light like laser designators have. Also new on the head are the spring cable conduits. They're already a bit weathered so they didn't need any "help". The decals are also finally picked out from my spares, so that will hopefully get done soon! Thanks for checking in! - MT

That's a cool idea! thanks for sharing! You can buy direct from Plastruc too! I haven't used their rods, but generic acrylic rods (bought by someone else in our club). Colored would look cool. Lighting it would look even better. Just use a USB power supply so you use it like a lamp and actually use it. - MT

Rock on Macross!!! That looks cool!!!

@peter Thank you! I WISH I could make anything! Thanks. I'm still working on the weathering and detailing of these two. Adding hoses and cables now. @Return To Kit Form Thank you for the backstory! I thought it looked different. Especially since there's nothing there to rust like that traditionally. The paint makes sense now! @derex3592 @peter Derex, a Canadian said your Texas roundel is awesome! Winner winner chicken dinner! - MT

@Salamander Thank you VERY MUCH for the drawings and the info! I noticed that too about their equipment. In fact, some of it is just plain contemporary equipment with a new paint job! - MT

@Return To Kit Form OK, we know what's on your mind🤣 Seriously though, the finish and weathering looks great! Is that supposed to be rust on the leading edge slats? - MT

@electric indigo Thank you again! Too bad that's all there is. But this is still a BIG help vs the movie (which does NOT line up with this in areas). Those engines look HUGE from that angle! A head-on shot / side view would have helped put everything into perspective. Looking at my A400, I think it can be done fairly easily - except for those honking engines. Talk about high-bypass turbofans! - MT

@electric indigo That's the one! Thank you!!! The drawing reveals a lot more details than the movie footage, like exhaust ducted / blown flaps for one. And its called a C-4, interesting. Do you happen to have any more drawings for more views? I think I can convert a 1/72 A400 into one of these. - MT

@Salamander Thank you! Yeah, I looked online at the books and thought it's not worth the cost, especially just for this project. I have other books such as Macross, VOTOMS and L-Gaim. I STILL only reference the Macross ones. The Patlabor video is just too short and with too little detail. It even looks like the Helldiver's shoulders fold towards the chest which is a new one on me. I've also learned to never trust video (especially pre-CGI days). There's always errors in it. - MT

@derex3592 Looking great Derex! That Texas roundel is a great idea and looks cool! Well, my two mecha are all washed up! Over the Krylon base coat I airbrushed a slightly darker Tamiya color only over the recessed and shadowed areas. Then I put a custom made burnt-sienna Tamiya wash over everything. The unwanted wash was wiped off with isopropyl. I still have some cleaning to do and then on to the highlights and decals with some weathering. The hoses and tubes are still needed too. I'll probably do them next so they get some weathering. Thanks for checking in. - MT

Thanks, Salamander! Unfortunately I don't have that book. - MT

That's awesome Anasazi! I saw how people are using facial recognition scanners on cellphones to do similar, but I'm sure yours is so much better. Can you share photos of your equipment? Or is that still pending legal review? - MT

That's looking great! I'm also glad to see another kit of this cool subject getting built. They're rarer than unicorns! - MT

Hey guys, Are there any lineart drawings out there of the Patlabor military cargo transport jet from the original movie? Or are there are any other versions from the TV series? (Which I haven't watched yet). Other than the opening sequence footage for the movie, I haven't seen a thing anywhere on the internet for it. I'm thinking of building it from another kit with a Helldiver being deployed out the back. Thank for for your help in advance! - MT

OK, before buying a tool (especially for $60-$100!), I try to make it myself. It saves money for important things like models. A couple of weeks ago I bought some cheap cutters from the local table-game hobby shop to support them (we have no real hobby shops here). They were a pair of "The Army Painter" cutters. They are not cutters, they pull the part up; the "blades" are so steep. I bought them knowing I'd grind them a new edge. So after all this talk on nippers, I thought this was a good opportunity to try a new type of edge. So before... You can see how much the blade sucks. And after a couple of hours on the bench grinder, a Dremmel, a sharpening stone, and a magnifying glass. They're not going to win any awards, but they work! Compared to regular cutters.... And because a blade cover has always been a good idea, a piece of rubber tubing. Yes, my family borrows my tools - they're so conveniently "there" I have to label the "no go" ones You can also see why the yellow handled ones need replacing. Was it worth the effort? YES! I still have $60 (somewhere) and a better pair of cutters. You can see how this style of blades works much better on a really tough subject (the parts are only 1/8" - 3mm long). So if you're on a budget and have a junky old pair of cutters, you can save some serious dough and make something better out of them. The downside, the blades aren't as tempered, but with a few strokes of a wet stone, they can be resharpened. Hopefully this helps someone save some dough! - MT

@Gabe Q Thanks for posting the links! The Modelling News was great with the close-ups of the cuts and cutters. @wm cheng I have a shop full of Micro Mark tools bought over the past 20+ years, they're great! I guess this is another tool I have to add from them now😧. @derex3592 You're probably right! They're all probably from the same Chinese factory line. Some of them have a rough tooled finish to them too - a signature of Chinese machining (Obviously Meng is in Shenzhen, China). After seeing close-ups of the nippers, I'm going to try and grind a pair of mine down. I usually sharpen them already. Time to get the bench grinder out and a glass of water! - MT

@pengbuzz AWESOME restoration work on those Transformers. Like Thom said, too bad you can't do anything about the awkward look of the toys, but in the 80's - they were da' bomb!!! That metal foil work is fantastic! Looks factory fresh! - MT

Thanks Derex for the link! I'm also seeing that they have them at beauty supply places too. I'll have to get one. @F18LEGIOSS The magnets are a great idea for that kit. It will actually make it work better than the stock design. - MT

@Thom That cockpit is looking fantastic! We had some people in the club build that kit and they love it. @peter Thanks for posting the gun photos for reference! That is a DIRTY muzzle! @derex3592 Thanks for posting the review video and info on the cutters. I can't believe some of them cost that much. I almost got the Citadel ones because they're at the local hobby shop, now I'm glad I didn't - it looks like they stink! All these years I've been using a knife sharpening wet stone and putting a new edge on my cheap cutters. It works, but this looks better. EVERYONE - Since we're talking about sprue-cutters, the most awesome tool I just saw this week to clean up after sprue-cutters is a glass file. I saw them online and ignored them because I have almost every single kind of file. Some that are decades old (like WWII). What difference can a glass file do? A guy in the club brought one to our meeting and let me try it out. I filed a piece of sprue and it came out shiny, like glass. It couldn't have had a more mirrored finish. The one he brought in was from USA Gundamstore, but it looks like they don't carry it anymore. So now I'm trying to find one. The random pattern works better than the lined patterned style. - MT

Thanks Electric Indigo! And speaking of the Battle Frames... I got some color on them now. There is still a lot of paint hoses, cables and hydraulic pistons to add, but at least they don't look like a patchwork quilt anymore. The right unit's gun barrel took the bluing compound (an acid) really well. The left unit didn't do a thing after the acid was brushed and even allowed to sit on it for a while. So obviously it's not just some steel, but an alloy. So I got a torch out and gave it a little color (maybe too much). It can be sanded back if overdone. That's the fun part about scrapping old electronics. You don't always know what you got. Speaking of which, an old drive belt from a printer (already cut up) was used to line the fingers and give them some grip. I cheated. They were hollow and needed filling. Forget the putty and add some grip instead! @electric indigo Those colors do look cool! Why do I feel like putting 80's music on all of a sudden? On a semi-related note, our local comic book store has the Bandai L-Gaim models. I'm tempted to get one. @CrossAir That paint is looking good! I hope it sticks down for you without getting scratched up too badly. - MT

Thanks for sharing your tips Electric Indigo! The Galctica looks like it could start cruising in space. - MT

This is "super duper cool!" Although in reality, light inside the cockpit from the shoulders would glare off the windshield. Still cool though. - MT

@derex3592 The Runabout is looking great! All those colors. They looked so blah in the series - or maybe its just my memory. @peter Thanks, Peter. The tape is just around the doorway. People like to stick stuff there and block it. The tape helps say "no." As far as looking like the Daedalus, they are both boxy looking! Maybe the ramp for destroids, errr, ah a turtle too. - MT