Sunday 13 December 2015

AC130H - Finished

Finished this one a coupld of weeks ago, but was waiting for a day with somewhat decent light to take the final pictures. I'm very happy with how it turned out. I have no space to put it though :-).
Hanging from the ceiling would be weird, with the loading ramp open and all, but once all the new closets are installed, this one will proudly sit on top of them.

Kit: AC130H Spectre II
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Esci
Price: around €12 (second-hand)
Number of parts: 202
Time spent: 38 hours
Project completion time: 7 months


Paint : (Vallejo)
  • Black primer
  • Pale grey blue (71.046) - Belly
  • Intermediate blue (71.005) - Overall colour
  • Interior green (71.010) - Cockpit
  • German grey (71.052) - "Black" details (I rarely use actua black anymore)
  • Details in flat yellow, scarlet red, olive drab, gun metal, ...

 Other products :
  • Alclad II klear kote (semi-matte)
  • Mig productions Abteiling 502 "starship filth" (overall sludge wash)
Findings or issues?
Overall fit isn't that great. Fitting the fuselage halves together was .... a challenge. The building instructions leave much to be desired. Some parts are never mentioned, but some steps later suddenly appear on the drawings.
  • E46 (the tips of the vulcan guns) isn't mentioned
  • H1-2-3 never mentioned
  • A22 (front door) never mentioned, but I'm thinking I should have used A21.
  • C34 should be E21
  • ...
Above issues can be remedied by paying extra attention and reading the instructions twice before you start, but there was also :
  • The positions for the 50mm cannon and 105mm Howitzer are swapped in the instructions but that would make no sense (and wouldn't fit properly)
  • There's no way you can fit C9 (staircase to cockpit) correctly
  • E35 (sensor unit) is way to small (at least 50%)
  • A29 (loading ramp) can be posed open, but the attachment points are too high
  • A30 (secondary part, aft of the loading bay doors) has no proper way to be positioned open/inside, thus blocking the view of the inside. (some extra styrene required)
  • The antenna wires that should run from the tail to the front, have no attachment points. You could scratch-built them, but I omitted them altogether.
I'm sure I'm forgetting things, but I don't want to sound ALL negative. Overall, I still enjoyed building it and it's a nice big(!) display piece.








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3 comments:

  1. Motorsport Modeller20 December 2015 at 03:39

    Looks flawless Jeroen very nicely done. How large is the wing span?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jeroen Vantroyen21 December 2015 at 10:03

      Not flawless (decal-issues, some seams left, ...) but that's the advantages of choosing the pictures you place online :-)
      Wingspan is 55.5 cm (22 inch), making it impossible to put anywhere.

      Delete
    2. Motorsport Modeller21 December 2015 at 21:26

      Very true how we can choose pics that show what we want to show...the beauty of digital as well take as many as you like.
      To me it still looks a great build and at 55.5 cm wide that is a mother of a model.

      Delete

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