1/24 1A valkiuree build 2

[mslz22]

Mods, hope it's OK to start a build thread dedicated to the 2nd build, this will be functioning as a guide.

As promised in the other thread I have started work on a 2nd build, I will do my best to document all the stuff that I am doing. This will be a 1A, maybe a cannon fodder, not sure yet. It will have lit engines and cockpit. The first build was done in a hurry for WF, and while it is holding up just fine i am going to take some steps to make it a bit more durable. I will be making the 1a head available to those of you who want it for your builds. This build will be one way to put it together, if you are not lighting your build you may be able to ommit some of this. I also may be overengineering some stuff that you may not feel the need to do. So here we go....

First up after some basic clean up I attached the 2 wing covers to the upper fuselage by first glueing them in place and then drilling 2 3/32 brass pins into the upper fuselage. I then drilled 2 into the lower fuselage in an area that would meet the covers, held it together in proper alignment, and drilled into the covers. Once those were in place I was able to drill 4 more pin locations into the uppper/lower fuselage assembly. This will add a lot of strength to the build and will allow me to hold final glue up of these parts until the end.

In a bit of what may be overkill I also bolted on a bit of aluminum to the lower fuselage. This will also strengthen the body, but it will also give me a plate to bolt on parts like the arms. Just be sure it will not interfere with the other parts. You can see more of the pin locations in this pic too.

I will try to update this as i go along.

thanks

mike

Edited March 8, 2012 by mslz22

[mslz22]

In these pics you can see first that i use 2 pins in each arm to hold it together, because this may be a cannon fodder this step will help with the painting as i can paint these parts unassembled and then glue them together with only a small amount of glue thanks to the pins.

Here you can see me making use of that plate, I use 2 self tapping screws to secure the arm assembly. I will be able to take this apart for painting and any adjustments I need to make. Also I dry fit the whole thing to make sure the legs are not headed off in a wild direction.

[mslz22]

I clean and glue up the back half of the nose, I then put a self tapping screw thru the to the body. It needs to be countersunk or else you will not be able to get some of the cockpit detail parts in there. Again this may be overkill.....

[Benson13]

That is so damn awesome.

[mslz22]

Thanks, one more before heading out....1/16 fiber optic run thru the tailfins. I will cover the trench with Apoxy Scupt, less chance of cracking over time and it cures a very similar hardness to the resin, so blending will be easier. I will repeat this for the wing tips as well... I did not include clear tips for the tail lights in the kit but if you need them let me know.

thanks

mike

[EXO]

You can post as many build up as you want. Should be in the build and customizing section though. I know... All models are meant to be built. I don't make up the rules. I just enforce them.

I'll move it later if someone hasn't already.

[rnicho50]

Can't wait to see it lit!

[peter]

Awesome! Been waiting for another build thread!

[mslz22]

Some of todays progress. First up is to put a #8 bolt into the intakes. this is in an area that gets covered with the intake guards, but they still get a little countersunk. Once this was done i held it in place on the lower fuselage and marked it's coresponding hole for the bolt.

The next 2 pics show where I drilled holes to run power, these are both in areas that will not be seen when the valk it together.

[mslz22]

Up next was to start to get the legs aligned correctly. One of the issues with big kits it that even a small misalignment in the making of the pattern can throw things out of alignment in a dramatic way, a 1mm misalignment at one end could be a 3 or 4 mm problem when compounded by the length of something like the legs. It's usually difficult to detect in the making of the pattern because you can't glue everything together before molding and sometimes an issue will not show up until you get to building the model. I usually can anticipate where there might be an issue with some part and leave a little extra meat on parts just in case an issue pops up. The legs are such a part and i will get to that later on, but for now I will show you that i to check the alignment by making a center mark on the lower fuselage and temporarily attaching the arm assembly and centering that.

I start with the right side and get that aligned with the arms and the body. This one went fine. Once i have it in alignment I put a spot of glue onto the mid leg to inner lower leg connection, which i will pin later. I also drill a 5/32 hole from the lower fuselage to the mid leg in a hidden spot. Along with the intake bolt this give me 2 points of alignment and 2 points to secure the leg together.

I've also drilled holes for the wires that will run to the thrusters as well as drilling a 5/8 mounting hole in the mid leg, this will allow for mounting and main power wires.

[mslz22]

The issue with the left leg is that the inner lower leg is a little too close the the arm assembly, luckily it's fixed pretty easily with a few swipes of a rasp on the inner mid leg mounting peg, not the mid leg but the mounting peg. This will draw the leg away from the arm assembly and give you some room to get the alignment correct. The arm assembly and the legs fit very tight together and I knew that this was going to take a little time to get all together, but a little time now will make it all much easier later on.

After only a few hrs of work i have all the alignment pins, bolts, and wire openings all set. Now that i know the legs and arms are headed in the right direction and the upper and lower fuselage match up well it should start to get more fun from here.....at least after i get those fiber optic trenches filled....

Like i said, all this prep work here will make it much more enjoyable from here on it.

[Goodman Models]

Super job! Could you please explain more about the lighting? I'm planning on lighting up some of the 1/72 kits.

[MechTech]

I don't think there are any rules about building up your own kit here How many other people have built up several Valks in this thread over the years? It looks great! There must be like two pounds of resin in each kit! - MT

[mslz22]

I'll cover lighting some more when i get to the LED's and such. Right now my wife is away for a few days so I am not going to get much done between now and Monday on this but hope to be working on it more early next week.

thanks

mike

Super job! Could you please explain more about the lighting? I'm planning on lighting up some of the 1/72 kits.

[EXO]

Yup. No rules about building. In fact it's encouraged. Lol.

just make sure to take really nice pics at the end so we can post it on the main page. It'll look awesome with the lights. I can't wait to see it.

[Benson13]

What do you expect your total cost on this project will be?

[mslz22]

Do you mean supplies like the lights/paint etc or total cost to scratchbuild it?

thanks

mike

What do you expect your total cost on this project will be?

[Benson13]

Do you mean supplies like the lights/paint etc or total cost to scratchbuild it?

thanks

mike

Overall total cost of the materials.

[pfunk]

Wicked, following for sure,, cant wait for the dim shots with the lights!

[THOR]

so fresh so clean

[mslz22]

Back at this a little bit. I've jumped ahead here a bit but basically i cut the trenches to run the fiber optics, 3 each wing, and 1 each tail wing. Filling them in with apoxysculpt, a bit of a pain, harder than just doing bondo but apoxysculpt tends to be durable over time. The fiber optics will be trimmed once the paint is done and the clear parts will go over the "lens" You can make a nice little lens at the end of a fiberoptic by melting it a bit with a soldering iron.

Keeping everything built in a way that stuff could be painted unassembled was a bit tricky but pays off, especially with the cannon fodder. I picked Testors Model Master Africa mustard for the brown. I know it's not 100% cannon color but i don't like the CF on the "peach" spectrum, i perfer it to look a little tougher than that.

thanks

mike

[MechTech]

That looks great! I was wondering when you were going to get back to this. I don't think the mustard is too far off. It will be great to see this thing all lit up! - MT

[mslz22]

Thanks, the Africa mustard changes a bit after a wash/filter. I think it gets closer to DYRL than the TV colors. It's pretty close to the 1/60 Yamato toys r us CF, the V1 from years ago, that was one of my first 1/60's, I have such a great memory of coming home, opening it up and feeling the magic after so many years with no VF-1's, sometimes i think we take it for granted how many are available these days.

mike

[mslz22]

This looks much better in person, extreme close up shows every light leak and flaw, under normal conditions this looks pretty cool will still fix the light leaks around the frame. I have a single 3mm white LED in the clear part, anything bigger may blow out the instrument panel too much.

mike

[jipe]

Can't wait to see the final result !

[tundrayeti]

Mike that still looks AWESOME!!!

[MechTech]

You just need a picture of Kakizake getting blown up in the lower right hand corner That looks great! - MT

[mslz22]

Thanks guys, the dash is looking better now, used a sharpie pen to "draw" in the frame...keep it simple right...

Anyway, got the legs detailed up a bit, some preliminary weathering, decals on etc. This is where all that planning ahead paid off, legs bolted up to the bottom plate, no glue, no mess, solid connection. Got it mounted up to a temp stand, wires starting to pile up as the parts start to come together, just wait for the mess that the cockpit fiber optics will bring...top half painted up but not weathered yet, just temp popped on for pic.

thanks

mike

[Ghadrack]

Lookin good! Congrats on the productivity, man seems like you've been firing on all cylinders the past few months churning out kits, working on new stuff, and building!

I just got my PDkit from Vaderdarth's thread on the RPF at lunch today. Castings look pretty great, I almost feel obligated to get a Hyperdyne kit to put in it. She' so pretty I feel like it'd be criminal if she can't sing and dance. .

Edited July 10, 2012 by Ghadrack

[Capt Hungry]

Wow! That is so cool that the dash is fully lit. Looking forward to seeing the completed model.

[grapetang]

Cool build! That lit dash looks great!!!

[GMK]

Great work Mike!

Are these kits still available?

Greg

[Valkyrie]

The revival of this thread got me thinking how much I want to build mine... And as I told Mike when I bought mine, if I could choose any variation to build it as (including super/strike, etc), I would choose a normal VF-1J in Max's colors. But the kit only has an S head.

So that inspired me to start building this, out of laser-cut acrylic and Apoxie Sculpt putty

It still has a long way to go, but I think it's taking shape pretty well

[mslz22]

Ok, so here we go with some more progress, pic of the rats nest of fiber optics, led's and power wires for inside. I had to dremmel out just a little bit more space to get all this to fit. Got the wings and top all together, but wound up not feeling like the top and the bottom were really secured together.....

[mslz22]

So enter an anxiety inducing moment in the build, self tapping screws, counter sunk to go thru the top fuselage, bottom fuselage and even into the unseen parts of the legs. I knew this was a possibility, even though i was not happy about it, I knew it was the right thing to do to really secure the thing together....

A little apoxy sculpt and some wet sanding and the fuselage is back in order, pre painting all of this is still the way to go, one quick shot of primer and a little strategic painting should have this looking good in no time....then i can beat it up to make it look like the pilot of this CF does not quite get out of jams as easy as our heros.

And finally for today, 4 superbright LED's mounted all the way back on the foot, replaced the part that comes with the kit with a flat and diffused plexi plate. It gives the illusion of the engaged thrusters better than using the afterburner plate i included with the kit.