1/72 Resin Atmospheric Booster Launch Rail, just the rails... By W M Cheng September 25, 2007 – April 18, 2008 (Compiled from the www.MacrossWorld.com thread)
Hi all: Without this launch rail stand, my Atmospheric Booster has nothing to rest upon (that’s dangerous since whatever you model sits on for a long time has the chance of the paint wearing off or worst,
getting stuck to that surface and flaking off when you go to pick up the model - believe me I have it from personal experience that it’s something you don't want to happen to you). This thread will just deal with the amazing launch rail kit that the Captain has mastered for us - for the Vf-1S and the Atmospheric Booster I just couldn't afford the Captain's Launch vehicle (which by the way I would always gladly accept donations!!
) - does anyone here have it? Does anyone have pictures of it built? I'd love to see it finished.
(Atmospheric Booster Launch Vehicle created by John Moscato and finished by Sean Brannin on StarShip Modeller website) Anyways... on to this launch rail kit (it may be slow going since I can only sporadically find time here and there). I started the kit back in August, so I can back date the entries.
First off is to lay out all the parts and check them against the provided instructions to make sure that all the pieces are there. The molding is extremely crisp and of high quality. I spent the next hour basically scrubbing all the pieces under a tap with an old toothbrush and comet to make sure that all the release agents are cleaned off the resin. This is always an essential task for any resin kit - if there is any release agents present or left, when it comes time to painting, the paint will often bead up into little bubbles or worst yet, adhere to the thin coat of film (release agent) and then flake off when the release agent gets rubbed off. So a patience and a lot of scrubbing now saves a lot of headaches later on. I've tried all sorts of soaps, and "rub-free" cleansers that claim that you can soak it overnight and it dissolves the release agents automatically - none of that works as well as just comet and elbow grease! I've laid it out onto a paper towel to allow to dry overnight.
It would be really helpful to have a bunch of jeweller's files - they are pretty cheap, I just buy the cheapo made in China ones, you usually get about a dozen in a pack for $8 and they come in various profiles. Cheap is fine since you're only ever filing down plastics or resin so they don't wear down. But look for ones that have a variety of sections like flat, rectangles, flat with curved face, circular and the like, it’s really helpful when cutting openings or filing down excess pour stubs. I've spent the next little while filing down the extra resin stubs where the resin was poured into the molds. It’s a good idea to wear a breathing mask, since the file does produce really fine resin particles and I don't think it’s too healthy to breathe this stuff in. It’s a good idea to get rid of all the seam lines you can find now too.
Another tool that's very useful is a Pin Vise, basically a small drill bit on the end of what looks like an exacto blade handle. You twist it in your fingers to drill very tiny and precise holes. I'm just drilling out some extra resin for the pin of the stand to seat into. Make sure when you cut parts off sprue, that you leave a good chunk of resin still bonded to the part, you can file and sand it down to the actual part later, but resin is more brittle than styrene, so if you cut/trim too close to the part, you risk snapping or cracking a piece of the part away (and its a little more difficult to fill resin parts then with styrene). Of course, you dry fit all the parts so you get an understanding of where work has to go into clean-up (which there is very little on this kit) and how all the various pieces relate to each other so you can devise a painting plan - so you won't necessarily follow the order of the provided instructions explicitly because it may be easier to paint certain pieces separately and assemble them only after painting.
Ok, back to the problem at hand. One tragic flaw, I built my Valk with the gun pod in place! I didn't realize, but the launch rail is made to hold the Valk without a gun pod in place. In fact (now that I look closely at the line art) they were right... the Valks attached to the Atmospheric Boosters have no gun pods - ARGH! I can't really send my Valk up naked... so I decided to see what I can do to modify the launch rails to accept a Valk with the gun pod attached. You can see that essentially the main rail ends at where the underside of the Booster ends and connects to the rear of the folded arms in the Valk. It’s not too bad... I could go without the main rail and just use the structure and attach it that way - but I'd like to use everything the Captain has sculpted. So I decided to just notch back the main rail to accept the tail piece of the gun pod - not a lot of material that needs to be removed in the end.
Unfortunately the main rail cylindrical nubs didn't line up perfectly with the circular divots provided in the underside of the Booster. I thought it would click in like lego. But with the notch cut out of the main rail section - it seats the rear of the gun pod quite well and allows me to have the entire assembly turned right-side-up and see the launch rail /stand support the Valk with Booster! Now what concerns me is the forward arm with the holes in it. It needs to be dropped so that the little end grappling unit looks like its holding onto the gun pod instead of seating hard up against the Valkyrie itself. However, it seems a little separated from the main launch rail unit (I'll address this later...) - I could always "gak" it up to close up the gap.
Even though it’s a nice snug fit with the gun pod locking into the main rail's little notch, I don't want that as the sole means of support for the Valkyrie with Boosters (it’s quite a big chunk of resin in the end and very bottom heavy). So I will attempt to pin it. I realize that the kit provides for some very nice brass screws with hex ends to attach the main rails to the structure, but I found that the structure didn't quite exactly line up with the main rail circular nubs - plus having a screw through at so many attachment points (X10) would probably permanently attach my Valk & Booster to the rails. If any of the corresponding holes in the Booster was just a little bit off, then it would bind with the launch rails. So I just opted for only two pins at the top - combined with the notch for the gun pod tail and the weight of the Booster itself, I think it’s pretty safe for the two pins to hold up the Valk with Booster. Plus it so much easier to line up just two corresponding holes and makes it easily detachable so I can zoom it around the room! I used a pin-vise to drill the holes in the main rail first and used a thick paperclip (usually what I pin resin kits with, unless its real heavy duty, then I cut a piece of coat-hanger wire for that). Once they were located, I then pressed it with the launch rail against the underside of the Booster, the sharp pins digs into the resin and scratch my paint job locating them. As you can see, they locate themselves quite well right in the centre of the circular divots at one end (they start to go off a little towards the rear of the Booster - could be resin shrinkage). Then I use the same pin-vise and drill into the resin Atmospheric Booster for the corresponding holes. Of course I also drilled through to the structure part so the pin ties all three parts together, the structure, the main rail and the booster (which will be detachable). I use 5min Epoxy for the actual attachment - I always use 5min epoxy for anything that requires strength. Once the rail is attached, I glue this entire assembly to the main support again via 5min epoxy. The captain has engineered an ingenious way of pining everything through each other at this critical connection - but I chose to just use a strong glue and I'll re=drill through if necessary, it’s a bit easier in terms of lining everything up and the resin will break before the 5min epoxy gives (as long as you rough up the mating surfaces first and make sure that it was washed thoroughly so there is no remaining release agents).
After sleeping on it for a few days... (I guess the advantage of not having a solid stretch of time to work on this) - I thought up a much simpler solution to the forward arm being located to hold the gun
pod. Instead of setting the entire arm "down" a bit to allow for the added depth to the Valkyrie due to the gun pod now, why not just take some material away from the forward arm and notch the "hingelike thingy" to allow the gun pod fin to slip inside of it. This allows the forward arm to sit in its originally designed location (much closer to line art) and allows another glue attachment point to secure this arm in place. So after numerous test fittings, I measured and measured again and started to sand away the material I thought was in the way of the gun pod. It’s just a trial and error process - you keep taking a little away a bit at a time until you get there... it’s always better to take too little away then have to build it back up again... So of course the end tip grapple thingy also has to be modified, it’s pretty easy, just take a bit of the hinge part off.
Okay, where I left off, I pushed the pins enough into the underside of the Booster to scratch the paint - luckily they landed right in the middle of the circular indents - that's where I drilled the corresponding holes to receive the pins. I just used a pin-vise (much more accurate than a dremel they are too fast) with the appropriate bit (I didn't know which one, just started out small and reamed the hole with a larger bit until the pins fit in snug). You can see in the later pictures, the tailfins of the gun pod fits right into the slots I sanded out - it all
looks as though it was supposed to be that way! I just had to re-position the end claw piece so that it looks as though it’s supporting the gun pod.
So I flipped the whole thing around to check on stability. It’s really tight and snug - just the way I want it, since it’s going to be sitting on this launch rail 90% of the time. The gun pod modifications really lock the whole rail thing together. Its starting to come together - I can't wait to start painting this thing! I still need to assemble the entire thing and add a few greebles here and there. Now that it’s finally together, it has confirmed a sneaking suspicion of mine; it’s a little too tall and lean. I just wish it was a little lower or squatter - it seems as though the whole thing including the boosters could be 10-15% shorter and 10-15% wider IMHO it would convey the sense of weight more convincingly and be closer to the line art. (Just my 2 cents - but it does seem to match the Launch Vehicle produced - I wish that was 20% lower and fatter too).
Now to finally glue the main launch rail supports to the base section. The Captain had graciously included these tiny brass hex bolts (they're fantastic, I never knew they made them so small!) to attach the main support to the base. I am using them as location pins, but the actual strength will
come from 5 minute epoxy cement. The kit has divots where the holes for the brass bolts should be, I just followed them and used my pin vise to create the holes. The holes line up perfectly, but just in case (since I'm pretty paranoid with shrinkage and such) I drilled all the holes on the upper support piece first, fed the brass bolts through, and lined them up to see if they actually land on the divots on the base piece - and of course true to John's fastidious nature, they line up perfectly. However, I would always drill from the top down and proceed around just in case sometimes they don't line up properly due to some warp-age age or un uneven shrinkage in resin - remember resin garage kits aren't always as high quality as John's sculpts (I guess I'm old school and used to some pretty crappy resin offerings in the past) Once its properly located, I rough up the mating surfaces above and below and slather on some 5 minute epoxy cement and glue the two main sections together. That's it for now... (Oh, these last batches of photos are not colour correct, they are with my older Nikon990 and have a incandescent colour cast to them).
I last left off assembling and gluing the main structure together and I primed it a medium/dark grey to see if there were any flaws. Of course there were some, but I had to weigh whether anyone but me would see/notice them versus the time I have left to finish this sucker off. It would be nice to have enough free time to work on these things so that I don't ever have to make these decisions - but unfortunately unless I win a lottery or retire, that's just going to be my dream! I rooted through my leftover parts to look for some suitable "gak" to dress up the machinery underneath the Boosters, I wanted it to look more complicated with hoses and actuators and such that look like its connected umbilical to the Booster before launch. It’s just a black shaded area in the line art, so I'm free to make up something that looks cool out of what I have available. Landing gear stuff is always good (especially if you've built a few Valks with the gears up). I've used the main gears from the Bandai Yukikaze EX kit as well as some unidentified Gundam joint pieces on top of the great pieces that the Captain has provided with the kit. I decided to paint the launch rail in several shades of dark to medium grey so that it would blend into a carrier scene or look in place next to my ARMD Launch Arm. I airbrushed the smaller bits in Alcad Steel to get a darker contrasting metallic sheen to them. The idea is that the black oil wash will end up picking out the recessed areas and a light grey/silver dry brushing will hit all the highlights creating further depth from the shades of grey and metallic steel. Finally the bright silver will be painted to the hydraulic actuators (the actual part of the cylinders that move in and out) for contrast. The photos below also show a gloss clear coat applied (I used ModelMaster Acryl) so that the decals will lay down nicely without silvering or bubbles. This is an essential step since the final model is relatively dark and the final finish will be a military flat - both are typically bad news for the silvering of decals and their carrier film. So a good surface prep is important.
One of my favourite stages... the decaling! Again I dipped into my spare decal box as well as some very cool Wave Option decal sets that were specifically made for Macross a while back (unfortunately I don't believe they are sold anymore). The good thing about modeling for a long time is that you end up eventually amassing quite a collection of un-used decals. What’s also is good is that I used to rummage through the clearance bins at the local hobby shops for decals that they are trying to get rid off - mostly obscure aircraft, but what I look for is data stenciling which can be applied anywhere on anything. I mostly added white or grey low viz stenciling in areas that I find appropriate. If you look at a lot of aircraft photos, you get an idea of where stencils go, mostly to warn people of dangerous ports or areas or locate commonly used hatches and access ports. I just try to think of where people might want to label stuff on the launch rail to creatively get a pleasing placement of the decals with a few small hits of colour to bring some life to an otherwise dark and drab piece of military hardware. I tried to keep the pallet simple and in keeping with the VF-1S and booster by sticking to only reds and yellows as to my spot colours. I used a lot of MicroSET on the model first, and then laid the decals on top of the bubble of MicroSET. I then press down with a damp paper towel to press any air bubbles out. If I see any details that need to show through or any excess carrier film then I dab on some MicroSOL on top to let it soften and set properly. Just make sure you don't fool around with the decals once the MicroSOL is on. You can use as much MicroSET as you need (it doesn't seem to harm the decals, but it will make it very soft and easy to fold) - but MicroSOL is the powerful stuff, once you dab that on, don't touch it until it’s dry! I am especially careful with these decals since as I mentioned earlier, it’s a dark undersurface with a flat finish on top (that’s two strikes already!) so one has to be extra careful to not get any bubbles or silvering of carrier film. It was so hard to resist not putting a UN Spay Kite symbol on the launch rails - but I thought we had enough of that symbol on the booster and Valkyrie.
Oil wash time! varsol (mineral usually leave it decided to do a
As many of you already know, I use artist oil paints thinned down with low-odour spirits). I like this combination since it allows a long time to work with the wash. I to dry for a few hours before coming back to wipe it off with some paper towels. I straight black wash rather heavily so that whatever remained, it looked like heavy machine grease.
Once I wiped the excess black oil wash off (I had to retouch here and there sometimes since I might wipe too much off) and got it to the point where I liked it, I sprayed a flat clear coat to seal in the wash and blend in the finish of the decals to the finish of the surrounding paint. Also weathering with the dry brush technique always works best on a flat/matte finish.
I then airbrushed some thinned dark grey over the decals to knock their brightness down and blend it more into the overall colour of the structure. I also airbrushed a thin black over all the seams and joints to further enhance the differences between the seams and moving parts - kind of like a post shading which I believe adds life to the flatter areas of colour. It also shades the decals a bit so they look worn in and "spilled on". I also dark oil washed the smaller bits. I then did a dry-brush with some light grey to pick out all the highlights - I then went over with some dry-brushed silver to pick out the corners so they look like worn or chipped metal.
I finally paint the silver chrome onto the hydraulic cylinders - I found that the Tamiya Silver Marker the best most silver paintable paint that I've ever used (with the exception of Alcad Chrome Silver, but you need to prep the undersurface of that with gloss black and masking such small areas would be suicidal). So I usually take a small paintbrush and dab it on the paint marker to paint these small cylinders. But the high reflectivity really makes them stand out and believable. I finally get to piece all the "gak" and greeblies together. I took some Tamiya rust weathering kit and smudged it on some areas to give it a brown-rust tinge here and there. It’s been a while since I built a tank, but basically that was the finish I was after. I have to take a break for dinner; I will post some photos with the booster on later tonight...
Here are some snaps of it all together on my workbench. As usual, I'll wait for a nice sunny day and take some real decent pictures of it outside with a nice neutral background and I'll post it under a separate thread in the models section as with all my other buildups. Thanks for following along - aah... it only took two years to finish this. Can't say when I'll start the next one... maybe it will be just some small projects like the 1/144 scale Chara-Works Valkyries that can be done in a day or so. Come on! Let’s see everyone else's Launch Rail (and Vehicle if you've got one built! stop hoarding and start building - I need my fix too! ;-)
Happy modeling! (And wear a safety mask.)
