I just purchased Sharkits Horten 18B amerikabomber kit, and Unicrafts German atomic bomb kit, I have never built an all resin kit, and was wandering if anyone could tell me of any diferences in building them from a vac, or injected kit? Also, has anyone built either of these kits, any insights would be apreciated?
thanks
jim
Hi There,
While I have not built the kits you specify, the following refers to the many I have built.
Moulding blocks generally have to be removed and the resulting surface smoothed to match the mateing edges. Some parts, usually in older kits, come sandwiched together on a plate of resin. These can be a swine to clean up sucessfully and often are simpler to scratchbuild or taken from otherkits.
The resin part once removed and cleaned is sometimes curved or bent. In most cases this can be straightend by immersing in water heated to the hotter side of warm. If possible I like to tape the part to a smooth and level block of wood placed in the steam of a boiling kettle and then immersed in cold water to set. Sometimes this operation has to be repeated, taping the object down again until straight.
The surface of some kits can be peppered with small airholes which can be filled in several ways- paint super glue etc. My favourite way is to use Squadron Green Stuff thinned with liquid cement and applied with a fine brush to the holes as this is genarally softer to the resin and sands away without losing detail. Panel lines are sometimes missing or unclear and can be scibed easy into most resins by your favourite method. Wandering lines can be filled using the paintbrush and green putty method and rescribed.
CA adhesives are the easiest way of joining resin a slow setting type for choice. An accelerator can be used, but I don`t as I prefer to have as much time to set the parts as accurately as possible. Also gap filling superglues are available, but again I tend to use normal CA and fill gaps by either dusting the applied glue by tapping a medium paint brush loaded with talc powder and finishing with the filler and brush method.
Looking at the above it would seem that I am suggesting that resin kits are a lot of work (and some are) but they offer you a far wider and eclectic choice than the main line manufacturers ever will.
My final recomendation would be to get “powered up” as much as possible. I have a Dremel drill which is invaluable in cutting unwanted moulding blocks away and grinding and finishing parts. I also have a small orbital sander bed which comes in useful at times, but these can be regarded as luxuries which only speed up your work and are not essential.
Be prepared to have landing gear trouble, as most resin kits are extemely heavy and will break their kit-supplied landing gear. It’s not hard to fix, all you have to do is drill a hole and insert a sewing needle inside the landing gear to stiffen it.
The 2 above replies are great advice and mirrors my own experience.
In addition to the above, I forgot to mention to sand/file super glue as soon as possible asw it eventually dries very hard and is therefore harder than the resin resulting in you sanding the resin away quicker than the glue. Also plaster of paris makes a quick setting soft filler that can be sealed with a coat of gloss varnish. For really fine gaps such as wing-fuselage joins try typewriter collecting fluid such as Tippex.
Basically just enjoy your models, like styrene kits you`ll learn as you go.
The idea of sewing needles is great, a new one for me as I generally use brass wire and rod, and on a really big kit, the stiffness of a needle is required.
Thank you all for the advice, I have read it all, and have stored it in the memory banks. I have used resin update sets before, and alot of the info has been learned through many mistakes, but this will be the first full resin kit i have built. The hot water or steam is one I didnt know about yet though.
I havnt seen this kit yet, but the “real” airplane (actually it was a flying wing) had big sponsons that stuck down and the wheels just protruded out from the bottom of those. Hopefully the gear thing will be non problem due to the design of the full size one.
once again,
thanks
jim