Gunpla 02: Let the games begin.

It's been several months since my Gundam RX-78 model arrived, but I somehow just haven't been able to find the time to start on it.  Part of the problem is that it's quite an intimidating array of parts and instructions, and I feel that it's not the sort of thing that you approach casually.  As such, I've been unable to find an adequate block of time that I can dedicate to the build.

However, at long last an opportunity offers itself.  Karli has planned a weekend away at Harrison Hot Springs with her two sisters and a cousin, and it occurs to me that this is the perfect time to make a start on assembly.  Feeling that I should make the most of it, I end up booking a vacation day for the Friday in order to give myself as much time as possible.

Friday morning arrives, and I bid a regretful farewell to my lovely partner - she's heading out directly from work, so I won't see her until Sunday afternoon.  I have breakfast, make a fresh cup of tea, and take a seat at the official workspace of hobbyists around the planet: the dining room table.

I have my tools ready on my cutting board:  hobby knife, files, scissor style eyebrow tweezers - some of the parts are VERY small - and what I think of as sprue* cutters, although there may be a more official name for them.  I'm a bit surprised to realize that I've owned the hobby knife since 1983 - that's a long run for an Olfa cutter.  I would rather work with an emery board than my selection of battered metal files, but sometimes you just end up using the tools at hand.

How hard can this be?

Opening the box for the first time, I'm a little intimidated by the number of parts involved in the assembly.  When I was in my early teens, I used to build Airfix 1/76 scale tank models, which max out at about 50 or 60 parts.  This model has over 400.

However, it's all done very logically: everything is labelled and numbered, with each sprue labelled by letter and/or number, each part individually numbered, and the instructions clearly indicating which parts are required from each sprue at every step.  It's a snap-together model, which means that at least I don't have to worry about all the problems related to using polystyrene glue.  On the other hand, I expect that there will be some complicated solutions to the problem of holding things together securely.

Bandai starts you off easy by having you assemble the Core Fighter, an integral escape/combat ship used by the Gundam pilot in emergencies.  It's a relatively simple stand-alone piece, and as such it makes a good introduction to the process.

My tea grows cold as I cut, file and assemble the tiny parts.  It's somewhat unnerving - it would be very very easy to break one of these little pieces of styrene.  

Some of the parts are connected to the sprues so that the removal cuts are quite obvious, and it's challenging to file a nub on a flat panel down so that it's invisible without damaging the surface of the piece. Usually you can rely on paint to cover the flaws in a model, but the whole reason for the multi-coloured spectrum of the Gundam sprues to to remove the need for painting, so it's important to do as neat a job as possible.

At one point I cut the wrong part off a sprue and panic a bit - I really really don't want to lose track of part numbers, that's my only line of defense against error with such a huge selection of parts. Fortunately it's a distinctive enough piece that I can recognize it when the time comes, and it's used in the same section of the model.  In a few minutes, it's snapped into place and I don't have to worry about losing track of it.

 

The final challenge is to connect the cockpit to the fuselage.  As initially suspected, there are some interesting solutions to the problem of glueless assembly, and this is one of them: a combination of pin and socket that allows the cockpit to rotate downward when it's pulled out of the fuselage (I think).  Fortunately, my choice of weapons makes it relatively straightforward to push the two parts together - I can't imagine how you'd do something like this without some kind of tool other than your fingers.

With the addition of a transparent undercarriage, the Core Fighter is finished. In some ways, I'm not impressed. I believe that the ship is articulated so that it can be folded up and placed inside the body of the model, but the hinges for the wings don't hold them in place very well.  (Subsequent online investigation reveals that I'm not the only person who is unimpressed by the wing attachment mechanism.)  I'm also disappointed by my own work on the model, the filing marks on the top of the cockpit are far too obvious for my tastes.  Nonetheless, it's complete, and I have a much better idea of how the process of Bandai snap-together modelling works - it's been a very useful warmup exercise.

The core fighter done, it's time for lunch.  One empty sprue, many more to go...

- Sid

* A brief explanation in case there's someone reading this who is unfamiliar with the process: 

Model parts are cast en masse using an injection molding process. The channels through which the molten polystyrene is injected into the mold are called sprues.  Generally model parts are cast in sets and left attached to the sprues, and as such it's necessary to cut the parts away from the sprues to assemble them.  Sprue cutters are a specialized modelling tool with flat angled blades that allow modellers to cleanly cut the sprues without damaging the parts, and with as little remaining plastic as possible left attached to the part itself.