Some time ago I bought a HG RX-78-2 model to practice a few techniques on.
I wanted to have a look at a few techniques I have seen people working on, and the RX-78-2 is such an iconic suit I couldn’t resist!
Reading the various online posts and seeing peoples customisation’s I decided I wanted to try:
- Airbrushing
- Lighting
- Weathering
- Diorama
Now in hindsight I should probably have picked one of these and just done that. However, never being one to shy away from a modelling challenge I went for it.
The first thing I did was put the model together to get everything in place before starting to modify the model to fit the lighting into the helmet.
Unfortunately for me I decided to take apart one of the arms while half asleep. Half, asleep me convinced myself that the arm pulled apart .. let me spoil the surprise. The elbow joint does not pull apart unless you break 2 of the pieces.
This then left me in a quandary. My options seemed to be limited to:
- Buy a replacement for just the elbow pieces
- Model it as having the arm blown off (sort of intrigued to see how this would play out)
- Try and buy a replacement runner (only seems available in Japan)
- Cast myself some replacement parts
After doing this I foolishly convinced myself that casting my own pieces would be the “easiest” option. I think I should lay my cards on the table now. It really really wasn’t.
The first pieces I cast snapped. Now I have to say I think I didn’t mix the milliput for long enough. Today, after deciding to go back and try again, I took two pieces I had cast. One using super fine milliput, and one using brown stuff. After much filing I finally got it to go together. My completed re-assembled arm now looks like this:
As you can see there is still some cleanup needed (on both) and a fresh undercoat before a fresh paint. However the final result seems to work fairly well.
So looking back at this there are a few things I haven’t learnt. The first is to ensure I spend longer mixing the two part epoxy. That seems to make a massive difference. The second is to not rush while trying to file and cleanup the pieces. Finally I have learnt perseverance. I have broken many many many pieces while getting this back together. However, I am happy with the final result.
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