This is my finished Bandai 1/72 Y-Wing (I say finished knowing full well I need to add an R2 unit)
These Bandai Star Wars kits are fantastic, easy to build and flawlessly detailed. I added an LED lighting set for the engines and cockpit.
Y-wing by Stu George, on Flickr
Y-wing by Stu George, on Flickr
Y-wing by Stu George, on Flickr
Y-wing by Stu George, on Flickr
Wow nice job. I like the weathering a lot. Need a pic in the dark to show of your lighting. I haven’t tried one of these but that sure is lot of detail. How big is the finished kit?
I was a passing aquaintance with George Lucas because believe it or not he hung out at my old LHS in San Rafael. He really loves models, and had a number of boat and car models hand built on commission that the Owner brokered for him.
That is a good looking model. Size
Now that would be a surprise to see him chatting up the owner behind the counter when you walk in!
Not very. The kit is 1/72 so I’d say it’s about the size of your standard 1/72 WW11 bomber.
If you can find one of these I highly recommend picking it up.
Actually, any of the Star Wars kits that Bandai makes are awesome. I did their 1/72 A-Wing for my son a year or so ago. They’re just great.
i made 1 of those back in the late 70’s with a solid fuel rocket engine. i got 2nd prize at a rocket meet in Toronto, Ontario at that time period. i think i still have it.
WW 11?? [*-)] Kidding…Great build [Y]
Well, Bandai decided they were going to make the best SW kits out there, and they had the financial muscle and engineering talent to pull it off. I give their corporate suits credit to be bold enough risk a high cost (Disney licensing) line of products they never did.
To be honest, the sci-fi stuff coming from the other companies look like molded soap bars by comparison.
I beg to differ. Fine Molds made Star Wars kits in the early 2000s. While their line wasn’t long, because only five Star Wars movies were out, they made a handful of high quality 1/72 scale kits along with a couple of 1/48 scale kits.
They made Luke’s X-Wing, Y-Wing, TIE fighter, TIE Interceptor, the very nice Jedi fighter Obi-Wan uses against Jengo Fett, two different Slave 1s: Jengo’s and Boba’s which comes with a white metal Han Solo frozen in Carbonite. And one of their finest ones, the 1/72 scale Millenium Falcon. All in 1/72 scale.
In 1/48 scale, they did the X-Wing and snowspeeder. I’ve got all of them but the 1/48 X-Wing and Falcon.
Revell of Germany also produced some very nice box scale kits. A lot of the smaller ones were sold in foil bags in the US. They were snap together, but highly detailed with most kits based on the TV series The Clone Wars. The Revell Republic Star Destroyer is a topnotch kit. It dwarfs the old MPC Star Destroyer.
Most of the original MPC (later AMT/Ertl) kits are forgettable. The Gungan sub and twin pack of droid fighters were really decent as was the Naboo fighter.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got over a dozen Bandai Star Wars kits. They are great model kits, but they are not the only ones that put out high quality Star Wars models. Revell’s Kylo Ren command shuttle is a very nice kit, but Revell’s scales are all over the place.
Rob,
OK I flat-out forgot about Fine Molds. Shame on me. But while they put good SW kits on the map, it was Bandai who turned the quality dial up when they scanned the props for maximum accuracy.
The soap bar comment was meant for the US-based companies. Heck, many of their kits are molded in a soft translucent plastic that looks like wax or soap. Granted I am over the moon that we can now have modern 2001, Space 1999, and ST kits.
Revell Germany’s oddball scale still eludes my understanding, and although they made OK kits, a lot were simplified to cater to less experienced builders.
Fine Mold’s Falcon (probably the best model of that ship ever) and the Slave 1s are superb models. In 1/72 scale, I don’t think Bandai has visited those two ships.
Yes, Bandai’s newer kits are better for the most part, they are not 20 years better than the Fine Molds kits. It’s not like everyone should ditch their Fine Molds X-Wing and Y-Wing and TIEs to buy the Bandai kits.
Towards the end of AMT/Ertl’s run of Star Wars kits, a handful were very good models, but were soft on detail since the final kits were based off of CGI versus actual scratch built model kits. Definitely not in the same category as Fine Molds, Bandai or even the “true” Revell of Germany Star Wars kits.
We are in a golden age of modeling. I can remember when we had three brands of plastic kits ,no model paints except model airplane dope, which plastic did not like, hobby shops did not import kits, there was NO aftermarket. I am now surprised but the number of brands of kits, and overwhelmed by the brands of paint. The molding is so crisp, fit is excellent, and what happened to flash? PE is so abundent.
You are so correct. When I was a teenager, all we had were the old AMT Star trek kits, then the MPC Star Wars kits, and when Monogram released the Battlestar Galactica kits, those were probably the best mainstream sci-fi kits from television and movies.
If you slide on over to Hobby Lobby on their bi-weekly 40% off sale, you can buy one of these awesome Star Wars kits for a song. I’d suggest Luke’s Red 5 X-Wing.
Well, It does take place a long time ago, yet somehow in the future…So who knows.
I have the Bandai Perfect Grade 1/72 Falcon, and every pipe, tube, vent, and thruster on it is molded as a highly-detailed separate part. Its definitely an excellent kit.
The Bandai Falcon is the most accurate kit of the type available. Note that it represents the 1977 Star Wars version, based on the 5 foot prop. The Fine Molds kit is based on the smaller 32" prop that was made for Empire Strikes Back, the one with the additional forward landing Gear boxes. There are proportional and lots of detail differences between the two.
Not going to go into the mandible toe-in debate, as it never bothered me.