Really good article

Here is a great article I found while I was researching for background to add to my upcoming model building presentations at the Anime Central convention this coming May in Chicago.

Let me know what you think of it in the comments section.

Vatshu marches on

Here's a few more illustrations of the Vatshu project

Adding the inner shoulder joint.

This is the rather large gap between the parts caused by inserting the poly cap (notice that the parts are also misaligned, again because of the poly cap):



This is the two halves split apart and the dremel bit I used to open up the poly cap bracket just a bit (taking care to do so in such that the parts will align better too):

Then the halves fit much better, but now there's a problem in that this sub-assembly fits too tightly onto the top of the upper arm. This hole needs to be a nice clean circular one, not a ragged oval:

So here's a little clip of me rolling up a tiny snippet of sand paper to reshape the hole:

Inserting the tube into the hole to smooth it out:


At last, done with all the test-fitting and touch-ups:


So I can glue stuff together:

KOG Joker 3100 lower body

Just a very brief clip showing the waist/legs/feet of this IP kit.

why weight?

Vatshu leg early test fit

Saving Squidward

I used the resin kit pinning technique to fix a piece from one of my son's board games. In the video I mention a "pin vise" which is a very small hand held drill for precisely drilling tiny holes in stuff. An essential tool for installing short lengths of brass rod into the weight-bearing joints of resin kits.


here's a pic of the pinned together legs of a G-System enhanced recast Schpeltor resin kit, sorry its a bit fuzzy - old pic / old camera. The blue stuff around the ankle-armor is blue-tack

Skirt armor on the Vatshu

The front plates of skirt armor


A closer view of the detailed edge of those same plates (one is raw off the sprue)


The rounded armor for the sides of the skirt


Very small springs hold the skirting onto the waist unit (at least they will eventually)

More work on Vatshu

Working on one of the arms...

This is the wrist guard/armor, there are two of them since the mech has two arms that are just alike. On the left is one of them fresh off the sprue, on the right is after I cleaned it up and reshaped it a little with a needle file:

The "before" piece is one the right this time:

The underside, "before" on the left:

From the side, "before" on the left:

And here's the part test-fitted onto the arm: