Part 2: The Build

CRACK!!! That is almost always a bad sound. However, this time it was a good noise. But I am getting ahead of myself. The story leading up to that sound goes back several weeks before. There I was … I started this build on one of our Friday evening gatherings. Because this was a simple kit, I wanted to do a true weekend build. I used super glue and followed the directions carefully. The kit went together in a matter of hours. On Saturday I was hit with the realization of why I particularly hate model airplanes. Like a plane, this outer-space fighter is very similar. As I started the process of sanding the joins, I also started destroying the fine raised panel lines along the fuselage spine and the nose join. After large amounts of super glue filler and sanding, I was satisfied with the result. Well, I was satisfied that the ugly join lines and resulting nose gaps were taken care of. I assembled the pilot figure and started painting him. The clear parts were dipped in Future and set to dry. This included the HUD or forward looking display. You usually saw this front screen right before the Viper fired and hit a Cylon raider. The cockpit was painted next and even though I can't remember the show, I went and painted the seat a dark brown to break up the black semi-gloss interior color. I ran into a slight dilemma. The instructions show that you apply the front screen decal on top of the clear part and then the clear part sits on top of the cockpit. During construction I DID notice this, but assumed Revell knew what they were doing. Trust me, after this CRACK; this is not the sequence to use. I attempted to apply the un-decaled clear part and realized that there was no way it was designed to sit on top of the cockpit. It covers too much of the front cockpit. I also realized there was no way I was going to get this part in right. I had resolved myself to the fact that it was just never going to be installed.

As fate would have it, I did not need to worry about it. A couple nights of non-model building went by and one early morning, I wasn't paying enough attention to what I was doing and while pouring some resin parts, the Viper nose section was balancing precariously close to the edge of my work bench and my elbow nudged it over the top. All I heard was CRACK!!! When I looked down, there sat the nose section, cleanly split in half. Wow, that made fixing the HUD an easy task. I immediately cut the decal off the sheet. I used future to attach the decal to the back side of the clear part and it worked like a charm and looks great. The downside was that I now had to re-glue and therefore re-sand the nose section again. I had NEVER seen something with so much super glue holding it together crack so cleanly. The figure was painted using the guide and I did the best I could on the face. I don't think it looks that bad but Shep Paine or Francois Verlinden could have made it look like Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict, or Richard Jefferson Jr. For those not in the BSG know, that would be CPT Apollo, LT Starbuck and LT Boomer. I masked off the canopy with tape and cut around the opening. I have always dreaded canopies, which is why I have so many un-built airplane model kits. Canopies absolutely frighten me. They cause me more grief than painting figures. I then tissue papered the cockpit area and sprayed on the Model Master Light ghost grey. After drying for a day, I masked off the nose area and fired the Light ghost grey mixed with a little flat black to finish that. The model was then coated with future and allowed to dry. Decal application started and nothing seemed to be working properly. The decals are very thick and seem not to react at all to Micro Sol or Set. The red spine decal did not even want to stick to the spine. Also, the left wing decal was able to be pulled off the wing after it had sat for a day. I did that after I realized that the decal was actually applied in the wrong area. The top elbow strips would not sit and when I looked at the box art, I realized that the demo model's decal was actually cut for the photo shoot. That tells me someone realized the decals didn't work well and they still included them in the kit. The gray stripe decals that wrap around the intakes did not want to sit down either. The left and right side decals don't even wrap around the intakes. Again, I looked at the box art kit and either they used different decals or the stripes are painted on as they wrap around the intakes completely. After the final decal was applied, the vehicle was given a thick wash of flat black. It was then cleaned up. The streaks that are visible were created with the cotton swab used to clean up the excess wash. I think the effect worked well. After this dried for about two days, I then applied the flat coat. I used Model Master Dullcote. I am not sure what happened but I had another problem. It appeared to go on fine and I didn't immediately notice any problems. However, the next morning when I went to work on it, I was shocked. In some places the Dullcote and turned milky white and in others, it seemed to have covered spottily. Again, I have no idea what I did wrong but this has never happened to me before. I had intended to use a green pad to damage the decals for a used look. When I applied the green pad over the first bumped decal it only got worse. The flat coat appears to have only sat on top of the clear coat and decals. The more I rubbed, the more the model was looking like a shedding snake. I have never had this happen before. In my defense, until recently, I have been using the spray cans of the Model Master Dullcote. I am not sure if this is the reason or if it is something I did wrong. Needless to say, I fixed some of the damage and decided I wasn't going to chance anymore errors. I applied the clear inserts for the exhaust. These look nice but do not really add any detail to the overall kit. The canopy was applied next and the design of this part is neat. I peeled of the masking tape and was very pleased to see that no paint had bled under the tape. This was actually my biggest fear of the kit and turned out to be the best and easiest part. The canopy has runners on the bottom that fit inside the fuselage which I am hoping make for a nice fit. I used MicroScale Crystal Clear to apply it. The completed model was attached to the base and low and behold, the base actually holds the ship. Overall this is a great kit. The kit was easily built in a day. The decaling and such, of course, takes longer. I did not realize how long it took me to finish it. Even with the decal issues, it could have been done in a couple of day's total. Thanks to Revell for not just reissuing it as it was and taking the effort to add the additional pieces that make this a much better kit. I would like to thank Revell for the review sample and IPMSUSA for a forum to review it.

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