Sex Machine Part One - This is Going to be Great!

Now dear readers before you lose your shit the topic of the this article is not about anyone's performance of the bedroom sport variety. After all this isn't the reader's letters section of Playboy!

Neither are we talking about this handsome devil:

By the way Dusk Till Dawn is a much under rated beer and pizza movie.

No, today we will be looking out the Hasegawa 1/48 VF-1 build that I have started after a brief survey conducted on our Facebook page as a sort of promotional gig to help expose the new website.

The Plan

I was pretty excited to start this build because while I have built a few of the 1/72 kits I haven't built the 1/48 version. In fact other that a brief look inside the box I didn't know much about it. Also it has been about two years since I finished a styrene kit (I have a bunch of resin studio builds on the bench at the moment) so I thought it might be refreshing to get back to the plastic stuff for a change. So I set off full of the anticipation we all experience at the start of a new build and armed with a basic plan

1) Build out of the box

2) Knock the basic construction out in a week or so and get on with a kick arse paint job

3) Profit

Things pretty much started to fall apart at point 1 because when I opened the box I decided to pinch the TV style cockpit parts and pilot from the VF-1J Max/Miria set so that i could build a TV version of Skull One.

The parts in step 1and 2 above represent a VF-1 Block 6 cockpit which was featured in the 1984 film Macross: Do You Remember Love?

The parts circled above are more accurate for a TV version Block 1 VF-1 and were taken from the VF-1J Super Valkyrie Max/Miriya w/RMS-1 kit. I believe these parts are also provided in the plain VF-1J fighter kit as well.

On top of the Movie/TV cockpit swap I also decided to use the Hasegawa photo etch set available for this kit (since it was in the box when I opened it) and add the RMS-1 missiles from the weapons set

The Build

I have build quite a few of the 1/72 VF-1s including a couple of the FAST pack equipped versions. Those kits are incredibly complex and in many ways delicate. I had thought that in 1/48 the build would be much more simple and in a few cases it is. But there is just no way around the nightmare that designing a plastic kit of a VF-1 with FAST pack is. The design is just that complicated considering that the thing is supposed to look like it can transform even if this kit doesn't.

In typical Hasegawa fashion parts are well molded with finely recessed panel lines and details. Parts fit well and I am using Tamiya Extra Thin cement for the first time. Although with close to 400 of the buggers (328 in the kit + PE + Missiles and pylons) there is a metric shitload of sub assemblies that need seams filled with Mr Surfacer 500 and sanded. In fact I am using with Goodman Models Super Sanding Blocks and they are doing a great job although I did have to make my own sanding sticks so that I could fill and sand the ejector pin marks in the feet thrusters.

At time of writing I am about 14 hours in and still have a long way to go before I can even start to think about primer and paint.

That said assembly is going well and there are no real traps to fall into. The pilot figure is a little weak and it would be great if there was an after market one available but it shouldn't matter too much once the canopy is all buttoned up. Really it is just a matter of putting the time in and doing the work.

This pilot is driving me nuts! It is the second paint job and I am still not convinced as it is a bit drab and the helmet blends into the rest of the cockpit. I will have to revisit it for a this time. Meh.

Re scribing panels lines across seam lines was fun - not!

Paint and Markings

When to project was announced I had planned on a bog standard VF-1S in the Yellow and Black Roy Focker scheme. But my sense of adventure won out and I have decided to do a VF-1A Cannon Fodder Brown Super with the below markings

Let the Sex Machine build continue!

- BT