Friday, April 13, 2012

Now Witness the Power of this Fully Armed umm... pile of... Valkyrie?


Some Assembly Required


     I've been spending some time on my first Valkyrie kit.  This isn't the easiest kit I've assembled, but it really isn't incredibly hard.  My concepts for magnetizing bits and making this vehicle a bit more "tricked out" have been foiled by the reality I encounter as I proceed with the actual model assembly.  What I mean is that my mind's eye concept of how the Valkyrie SHOULD go together and how it ACTUALLY does go together are quite often different.  I had this neat idea of magnetizing the side doors such that they would easily be set in either open or closed position and wouldn't be prone to change during handling of the model.  That was foiled by the fact that the side doors are only slightly larger than the doorway they cover.

     There's more than the doors that I've struggled with, but it's symptomatic of my problem: no experience with this model.  That's okay, as I have a second one of these waiting for me under my desk.  I don't know how that makes me feel, exactly.  I can certainly move faster in the assembly, but there's another problem...

Paint before Assembly


     Yup!  I'm going to have to prime and paint quite a bit of this model before I really can put this bad boy together.  The obvious culprits are the cockpit and crew compartment.  The cockpit isn't large, but it is certainly detailed.  The crew compartment, for the most part, should be pretty straight forward.  The door gunners and their heavy bolters might be a bit of an issue.

     Really, if they had just made the heavy bolters ONLY attach to the bulkhead (or wall), and NOT the bulkhead AND the deck (or floor) in the crew compartment, it would have been no problem.  Now I've got some extra steps to take.  Hopefully I don't do something out of order and screw the whole mess up.

Bunker Visit


     I'll likely be at the Bowie, MD Battle Bunker on Saturday.  I'll just be there to spectate, but looking forward to getting some hours in the atmosphere of some table top gamin'!  See you there!

2 comments:

Kevin Spyrle said...

I magnetized the my first Valkyrie's wings and flying stand. Both work ok but the wings fit well enough that no glue or magnets are required to keep them in place during normal use and the are easily removed for storage.

I had placed 4 set of magnets in the recepticle for the clear flight stand, and four more in the bottom hull. It isn't anymore stable than the other two.

Unknown said...

Thanks for the tips! Likely I'll magnetize the wing weapon mount points, the rear ramp, cockpit canopy, and possibly the front mounted senors so I can swap out the standard one for the Vendetta one when I wish.