Recently I tossed together a copy of the Masakari and wanted to make the community aware of a few snags I ran into. Just a reminder from a previous post...the original was never intended to be kitted. While I did re-engineer some parts, there were still some shortcomings. Also, there were some parts where I felt we had to strike a balance between casting ease and building ease.
1. The main issue...the main body is HEAVY! The caster tried to hollow cast this, but those big cut-ins around the cockpit made it very problematic. If I build another, I may bore out some hole from the bottom and then cover them with sheet styrene detail just to reduce the weight a bit.
2. I added pins to the knee area rather than the old flat mating surfaces. On my kit, the holes and pins are not lining up quite right so I had to do some tweaking there. I used a 5-minute 2-part epoxy on that joint and let the epoxy cure for a day or so before adding the body. That joint gave way (see #1) after a couple days. I cleaned the joint and used CA the second time and it seems to be holding.
3. The elbow is more of a ball and divot rather than ball and socket. I tried one arm with epoxy and one arm with CA...the Epoxy held better. In fact, I swift bump on the CA arm and it snapped off.
4. Pins were added to the ankle as they were with the knee and I had the same fit problems here. They lined up well enough on the master but are a tad off on the casting. No issues with buckling here.
5. The PPC barrels are not as snug as I would like, but nothing a little CA can't handle.
6. The tabs where the arms connect to the body need to be sanded down a bit...or drill out the hole in the upper arm a bit more.
In hindsight, if I had realized the body would weigh so much, I would have made the upper and lower leg one big piece...caster be damned. Overall, I am about 85% happy with this kit. I still think the Dervish has been the best engineered yet. Don't get me wrong, this thing builds into a badass mech...there are just always issues trying to take something never designed to be a model and make it into one.
On another note...the Thor is up in the casting queue. Start saving your pennies. The engineering on this one is close to the Dervish. Scott at Messy Desk made me a copy of the legs he used on his that I just HAD to modify to make them a bit more like the TRO version. This one should be available in late May/early June.
I also started cutting plastic on the Templar. Lacking any commissions, I decided to go ahead and do one that I have been wanting for a long time. This mech was my favorite ride in the PC game. Let's see if I can do it justice.
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