Revell/Moebius Colonial Viper mk II (TRS) - finished

[Sepp]

Ahoy!

My son and I are both great fans of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica series, so to get one of my Viper kits off the shelf I'm doing this as a present for him. Various extras will be used, as in the pic below - I'm not sure which engine set I'll use, and I might augment the cockpit set with one or two Airscale bezels. Ship, serial and squadron markings will be DIY decals and I might extend that to the various stencils as the kit's decals are notoriously fragile.

 

 

 

The kit has very few parts for a 1/32 subject as you can see and is, on first inspection, not without it's problems... but more of that later; if all goes well, it'll end up looking something like this:

 

 

 

Back soon(ish)!

 

Sepp

Edited August 15, 2020 by Sepp
Removed mention of the post being a placemark

[Sepp]

Right then - off we go...

 

Before committing scalpel to plastic, I mentioned above that the kit is not without it's problems. Whilst the various bits do actually fit together after a fashion, whoever cut the mould seems to have used a hacksaw, chisel and dressmaker's tape measure in doing so.  The gates are huge.

... and that ain't the smallest example, by far. Note, too that the spue tree is misaligned.. that's not two sprues in the pic!

 

Fit can, for the main part, be kindly described as "loose" warpage abounds and alignment pins are scarce.

Fortunately, I made myself a curry last night, so I popped the left fuselage half on top of the rice pan as it was steaming and after a few mins on a med/high heat, the plastic softened enough to coax back into reasonable shape.

 

At least the highly visible panel lines that run around the fuselage, and which are a major feature of the ship, line up reasonably well - this is a good thing, as the belly pan is also a loose fit; it can move around 1mm fore/aft, and is very vague in "yaw". Only one tab, no locating pins. The huge slot will receive the locating tab on the nose landing gear leg.

 

The fun and games contunue on the belly pan itself. If you study the pic below very, very carefully you might just be able to spot the very subtle stand locating slot...

and the superbly placed copyright mark.  Yes, let's put that on the outside - well done, everyone!  Modellers who suffer with consistantly producing mirror-finish paint jobs and struggle getting that elusive perfect orange peel effect need not worry with this kit. If you squint a bit you can also make out that the entire external surface has been treated to a fine, soft, textured finish. Lovely.

 

What surface detail there is, is quite soft - for example, the open bays on each side of the fuselage:

 

... and with that, I'd better start. 

 

First up, that stand slot.

Card backing, Vallejo putty and Mr. Surfacer 1000, and slot-b-gone. Copyright notice is also no more.

 

Cockpit tub built up and most of the surface detail scrubbed off ready for PE. The panel face wasn't a bad fit and just needed a smear of putty.  The rendition of the seat is pretty wooden. I may yet chop it out and replace it with a resin one - which reminds me, I need some belts, too.  I don't know why the rear wall of the tub is shaped as it is - it bears no resemblance at all to the shape of the fuselage inner surface. You could drive a truck through the gap. (Tub, walls and rear plate just dry fitted here).

 

The instructions would have you assemble the cockpit tub sides to the tray, but doing so would make pacing various decals difficult, and given the approximate fit of the parts so far, I decided to glue them to the fuselage halves, fill the gaps, and then sandwich the tray between them.

More woeful fit issues, mahoosive gaps and thoughtfully placed ejector pin marks to fill.  However... good news! Once attached, and with a small roll of Blutac behind it to brace it in position while it sets up, the joint between the cockpit wall and tray is impressively tight and disappears completely when the fuselage halves are joined.

 

With that, the sun is out, it's lunchtime and I have a cold beer to hand. 

 

More later,

 

Sepp

 

 

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Awesome project, Sepp! And uncanny timing, too, as I was just looking at the original series in iTunes (trying to decide if I'll buy it or not).

 

Kev

[Sepp]

29 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said:

Awesome project, Sepp! And uncanny timing, too, as I was just looking at the original series in iTunes (trying to decide if I'll buy it or not).

 

Kev

 

thanks, Kev!

 

I have to be honest, the original does very little for me, but I thought the re-imagined series was excellent... well, until the show runner changed; the new bod didn't believe in it or Caprica and they both withered and died. Admittedly, the studio fire that destroyed many of the BSG sets didn't help!

 

One of the things I particularly liked about BSG TRS is that the Cylons weren't just "the enemy" who had no point of view. After the show concluded, a DVD was released that shows many of the scenes from their perspective. I think it says a lot for the show's copyright holders that they not only permitted, but actively supported, a fan-driven spin off, Blood and Chrome, which was extremely well produced. Contrast that with certain other studios and their treatment of fans' use of copyright emblems, etc.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Sepp

[LSP_Kevin]

I was 12 years old when the original series came out, and loved it. I just couldn't get into the reboot, so have seen very little of it. I'm curious to check out my childhood version again to see if it warrants the nostalgia. It's that and Space 1999!

 

Looking forward to your build. I built both the original Monogram Viper and Raider kits as soon as they came out.

 

Kev

[Sepp]

2 minutes ago, LSP_Kevin said:

I was 12 years old when the original series came out, and loved it. I just couldn't get into the reboot, so have seen very little of it. I'm curious to check out my childhood version again to see if it warrants the nostalgia. It's that and Space 1999!

 

Looking forward to your build. I built both the original Monogram Viper and Raider kits as soon as they came out.

 

Kev

 

Ye, TRS is very much a Marmite thing. I'm a total geek for it, lol!

 

Enjoy the show

[Sepp]

Well, it's been a while since I posted an update, but I haven't sat around doing nothing... well, not all the time, anyway. Major sub-assemblies such as wings and landing gear are done but no pics here as they'll speak for themselves when their time comes. Suffice to say that the earlier 'poor fit and/or condition' theme continues throughout - as an example:

the wingtip cutout is supposed to have a nice, smooth edge. Note also that despite the clamp, the wing halves don't properly mate... some work required here.

 

However, moving on.

 

The engine inlets feature louvres that open for flight within a planet's atmosphere. The two side engines are reasonably rendered, but the top inlet is just a blank. Apologies for blurry pic!

 

So, I cut the blank faces off, glued them together and used overlapped pieces of styrene sheet to make louvre petals:

Roughly shaped, here - the piece will sit a little further back in the inlet throat than Moebius provided it, so there's some shape fettling to be done, but you get the idea.

 

Next up, the cockpit.  The ParaGrafix PE set really makes a difference but really showed up the fact that the kit's seat is nothing like the one used in the production Vipers (refer to pic in my first post to get a better idea just how bad it is), so it had to go. Green Strawberry to the rescue.

 

A highly recommended addition!

 

and after paint and decals, we have:

 

Paint is a 3:1 mix of Vallejo ModelAir Dark Gull Grey and Grey Blue, decals are a mix of kit, Airscale and ParaGrafix.  Some of the decals were really, really small.  Vallejo satin varnish over all that.

 

 

The PG decals are really grainy - next time I build one of these, I'll make my own DRADIS and radar displays.  I'm quite pleased how it came out - the volume knob on the left panel even has a radius marking on it.  Whoever it was who posted the tip about using the end of a cocktail stick to paint lights/buttons - thank you! It worked a treat

 

[Side note to purists: The studio Viper cockpits were blue oversprayed with a thin silver finish. I am wary of recreating that, as studio set paint finishes are often massaged to get a desired effect on camera. Canon is not necessarily canon!]

 

To further annoy the stitch counters, the ergonomics of the production cockpits made my eyes bleed so mine has a more traditional layout, with an attitude indicator top middle, ASI to the left and altimeter to the right of it. Other instruments more or less follow the main thrust of the studio design. My pilot might want to get their turn co-ordinator looked at though! 

 

Deciding what is correct and what is not is very difficult with these birds.  There are no less than six different cockpit layouts (with smaller Dradis vs. conventional altimeter on the upper panel, with radar vs. an artificial horizon on the lower left panel, and with/without lower right systems screen) used at one time or another, not counting the anomalous use of Mk VII cockpits in Mk IIs.  Continuity was not their thing, or maybe they were reflecting a lively mend and make do culture.... fortunately for me!

 

More shortly, but to avoid a single, huge post (and I because I need a coffee) that's all for now.

 

Back soon!

 

Sepp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Sepp

[Brett M]

Beautiful work on the cockpit, it looks great!

[The Madhatter]

I agree, that's one beautiful cockpit! Also some serious warping there. I don't ever remember mine being that bad. Still, you clearly have the skills to remedy it. I can't say I've ever used food cooking as a method of fix kit parts before. I'm pretty sure my wife would have something choice to say about it if I tried

Edited August 15, 2020 by The Madhatter

[Sepp]

Thanks for the kind words, both!

 

The one benefit of living on my own, is that rolling eyes are a thing of the past ...

[Sepp]

Long overdue (I only went for a coffee, and here we are, a fortnight later.... the service in this house is terrible) but herewith part the third:

 

I've actually made quite a bit of progress, just for some reason or another I've not got round to posting anything.  My main focus has been on what to do with the thrusters. They're only represented by black decals OOB, as you can see below

 

and frankly, that ain't good enough - but, like all good Cylons I have a plan.  More of that next time; for now, other progress.

First, the engine exhausts.  The kit part is very bland, and although the feathers are actually quite nice, I think this feature deserves some tarting up. There are a couple of options available.

 

Please note: neither of the next two pics are mine; the first is from StarShipModeller's build, on their own site, the second from Green Strawberry's trade site.

 

The first option is provided by ParaGrafix in the upgrade set that I used when working on the cockpit. It involves chopping the back face out of the kit part and inserting a PE replacement. It is an improvement, but leaves blooming great holes that lead to a large void. Sure, paint everything black and it (probably) wouldn't be seen, but I didn't like that idea, and it misses the fact that the Viper engines should have a cone in the middle of where that hole is.

 

The second option is to use Green Strawberry's resin replacements. They are (mainly) very much better than what the kit offers. This option requires major surgery, removing the kit's exhausts completely plus some of the adjoining body/engine parts:

 

So, out came the razor saw and a few mins later:

 

aaaand it was at THIS point, having removed the exhausts from their casting blocks, that I discovered that all three in my set were distinctly oval. Nice, round centres, the etch slots in perfectly and the aft end of the exhausts are circular, but all are noticably egg shaped at the end that has to mate with the body (also, there should be a slightly smaller diameter ring between the body edge and the burner/exhaust rim. This is present on the kit, but GS have you remove it. If you leave it in place, the exhausts are then too long).

 

Bum.  

 

So, out came my second kit from which I nicked various bits to get back to where I started.

 

And so, engines. Take two.

 

I decided I'd use the kit part, and add the GS etch in a completely incorrect but nevertheless (hopefully) visually interesting representation of what a Tylium-burning engine exhaust might look like.  I discovered that with gentle persuasion, two of the three GS etch parts could after a fashion be slotted into the kit exhaust. The first lies flat against the existing rear face, although the "teeth" slightly bend up slightly, as the gaps are slightly smaller on the kit part, than GS's offering. (Hopefully you can make this out in the centre can, below. Clot that I am, I'd added a black scrub before thinking of taking a picture, d'oh!)  The second part was then laid on top and gently pressed downwards to form a curved ring that almost meets the rear face and sits on the shoulders of the columns moulded into the kit part. All held in place with neat gloss varnish, as are the centre cones.

 

 

After paint (Vallejo ModelAir gunmetal and red/blue/smoke clear, all brushed on) and some satin varnish:

 

I quite like it. Your mileage may differ

 

Next up, thrust reversers. In what may someday be hailed as the worst photograph ever to appear on t'internet, you can see that the Viper II has extendable reverser panels located behind the main engine cutouts:

 

these are not represented on the kit (side note: I always wondered what the "beware of blast" stencils were referring to... I've watched the series many, many times and never noticed this detail before!) so out came the scribers - a nice simple job.  The size of the panel is a best guess... I just followed the edges of the cutout.  You can see the narrow ring I referred to earlier to the right of the reverser panel - GS have you remove this.

 

Finally, for this update, (and I admit, this is still ongoing... I haven't decided how far to go with it, yet) the fuselage panel "strakes".  In the pic below, if you look to the aft end of the open panel on the fuselage, you can see four diagonal bands that wrap around ... well, whatever it is:

 

The kit's representation of this is not very good at all.  For a start, there's only three of them, and they run right across the bay.

 

So I've started trying to gently coax something better out of the plastic: [top pic with OOB for comparison]

 

I'm still a long way from what you see on the studio Viper but as the two sides have to look the same and there's detail between the bands, I'm going to take this slowly and not get too enthusiastic.  At least there's now the correct number of them!

 

That's all for now - next time: thrusters, and an old lesson learned again.

 

Sepp

 

 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by Sepp

[bdthoresen]

How sweet it is!

[Sepp]

Hi again!  Better late than never...

 

Where was I? Oh yes, thrusters. The kit provides only decals (see items 27, 41 etc. in an earlier post) to respresent what is quite a major feature.  These are, clearly, not good enough for a 1/32 kit - but still better than the studio full-scale props, that omitted them entirely!  There are two types to be represented, first up: lift thrusters.

 

The simplest solution would be to use single lengths of brass tube, but these looked too plain, so by slotting together three of Albion's slide-fit tubes, I obtained what is, to me, a more interesting effect.

 

Three down, four to go.

 

The other type are the smaller RCS (reaction control system) steering thrusters. I was going to use Albion tube for these, too - but Jay came up with a much more elegant solution.  He builds his own PCs, and suggested using these:

and what do you know? They're perfect - 1.8mm diameter, exactly what I need!

 

 

Looking good... except for one tiny detail...  The lesson I mentioned earlier. "Measure twice, cut once", they say. Yes, quite - the hole for the centre lift thruster should be aft of the outboard ones.  Boo. 

 

(By the way: the glue in the pic above is UV cured using the supplied UV LED, and is my new best friend. It made mounting the pins and tubes a totally painless task.  Don't use it in daylight, though - I found that the ambient UV is enough to start it off).

 

Better:

 

I glued the centre thruster to one half of the fuselage before joining the fuselage halves.  Once everthing was assembled, I used a small file to shape the flat thruster faces to conform to the local fuselage shape.

 

If you ever build this kit, and go down this route, measure the tube lengths carefully, it's very tight in there!  (In the pic below, the fuselage is only held together; I eventually nipped the thin ends off the RCS pins to allow the nose intake plate to fit nicely - and later still, did the same to those in the tail which interfered with the centre engine insert).

 

With all the thruster tubes/pins in place and clearances to the undercarriage legs, engine inserts etc. checked, I was able to button the fuselage up and mount the engine cowling assemblies and wings.  Still have some touching up of the filler to do here and there, but suddenly I'm pretty much at the point of putting a grey primer coat on.

 

 

More soon(ish).

 

Sepp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[LSP_Kevin]

Great update!

 

Kev

[KUROK]

So say we all!!

 

I watched the original show in the late 70s as a kid and was a total convert Ron Moore’s new series. Love it. Also Blood and Chrome was awesome!!

 

good job on the kit. I have a copy but have not built up yet.