Review by: Doug Booth

These two kits are the same sprues in different boxes with different decal sheets for the appropriate aircraft depicted. The box art is very well done and the molding of the parts is superb. The 1:144th version is a tremendous advance over the admittedly much more elderly 1:72nd offering from the 1960s by Hasegawa. The panel lines are recessed, accurately placed and subtly done. The fuselage interior halves have recessed pressings that are to be removed for the chosen subject. The clear tree carries turrets, windows and portholes for the bomber/reccon and the military transport version.

Here lies one of the few flaws in the kit. If you wish to build the civilian airline (H6K2-L)flying boats represented by the decal sheet, you must add 4 more portholes forward of those provided, on each side, the 2 below the engines slightly higher between the mainplane struts. For the military transport, the ports provided are correct (This version being designated H6K4.). The gun turrets fit well and require only armament made from hypodermic needle barrels with shaped plastic butts. Rigging was done with stretched sprue. The only parts requiring fabrication were the twin struts running between the horizontal stabilizers and the main braces (clearly shown on the box art) and the exhaust stub outlets. These latter were made from small pieces of Evergreen plastic tubing.

If I were to build more of this kit, I think that I would attempt to re-position the control surfaces. I’m hoping Trumpeter does further subjects along these lines, such as a Short “Sunderland”, Martin “Mariner” or even a Short “Singapore III”.

Pros: Molding well-engineered, smooth assembly, clean & flash-free. Interesting, slightly esoteric subject. Excellent-quality decals. Precise instructions.

Cons: Missing tail assembly bracing struts and exhaust stubs. (Relatively petty)

References: Profile # 233.
AEROPLANE, April 2004.
Koku – Fan ’75, # 10.
Air International, Vol. XXI, # 6.
Scale Modeler, Vol. V, # 8.

Maker: Bandai

Scale: 1/100

Cost: $28

Reviewed By: Adam Rehorn

Years ago I built the RXF-91 from Gundam Silhouette Formula 91. It was, at the time, a cool kit, with a lot of neat features such as a clear beam shield, full colour moulding and pretty decent poseability. I remember being very excited about it at the time. Thus, when I had the chance in 2005 to get my hands on the upgraded RXF-91 Kai kit, I took it!

Time, however, has not been kind to this kit. While there is a lot of detail for its age (1992), it is all moulded in. What would now be given as a slew of separate pieces is cast as a single piece, or worse, two halves! The part separation of this kit would be enough to send most inexperienced MS builders, or those used to the ease of newer HGUC kits, running.

The leg vents are a perfect example of the ‘non separation’ on the RXF-91 Kai. The yellow would be a separate piece today, but is moulded right in. Touching up was frequent and laborious, but not as bad as on the back-mounted VSBR (Variable Speed Beam Rifle) units! The main part of the cannon is in halves, and the strip down the middle, with the secondary barrel, verniers and access panel, is all one piece. It’s nicely moulded, but a really, really good exercise in hand-eye co-ordination to get it all painted and washed correctly.

The head and chest armour were just as bad for needing skill to ensure colour separation. There are a lot of different colours on the chest, and having white, blue and Virsago Black next to each other ensures that there will be lots of touching up to do.

There is some interesting build around on the RXF-91 Kai, too. While most subassemblies can be completed then attached, there are exceptions, all of which need a workaround. The knees suffer from being built around both top and bottom. However, by cutting the bottom out of the knee joints, they can be glued onto their support posts afterwards. This doesn’t affect poseability, since there is an anti-rotation keyway cut into the knee blocks anyway.

The VSBR’s end packs, the part on the angle in the picture, also have to be built around. To defeat this was a lot trickier. The attachment posts were cut off, and a new post was made from some filed down sprue. This was tapered at each end to fit into the original mounting holes. This forms a bar onto which the end packs can be put when done. A trough of the right size was then cut into the end packs so they’ll fit over the sprue ‘bar’. It turns out that when I did this, I was able to preserve the ability of the end packs to move; they rotate on the sprue bar without falling off!

The beam shield and saber are another interesting part of this kit. The shield is clear, but the saber is solid. On my old RXF, this was no big deal, and I painted the saber. However, I wanted them to match better. Thus, I cut the saber blade off the hilt, and using a pin vise, drilled a hole to accept a standard Master Grade beam saber blade. I roughed up the blade at the base with sandpaper, to make it appear ‘denser’.

The shield had to be modified so I could insert the ‘beam’ part after I was done the projector in the middle. In cutting the holes I needed, I accidentally cracked the lower portion of the shield. This was a disaster! Thankfully, my trusty old RXF was willing to give up its bottom half of the shield, and I got away with one I shouldn’t have. To make the shield more ‘beamy’, I sanded it until it was opaque with 120 grit. I then used progressively finer grades as I went towards the edge, ending with 12,000 grit. This makes the center foggier than the edges, and gives the impression of ‘concentrated’ energy near the projector. It also allowed me to sand out the injection marks in the shield, which were very noticeable. Because the shield was so brittle, great care had to be taken in performing this sanding task. However, patience paid off!

The RXF-91 Kai is a cool looking kit of a virtually unknown MS from the early 1990s. This was a time of great transition in Bandai’s model design philosophy. This kit is somewhere between earlier, more ‘modeller-oriented’ kits that required a lot of work, and later, more ‘layman-oriented’ kits that focused on easier assembly. One thing is for sure; it’s not a Master Grade and it takes a ton of work. The facts that it’s white and needs to be handled a lot don’t make things any easier.

Maker: Bandai

Scale 1/144

Type: High Grade

Cost: approx. $15.00

Reviewed by Adam Rehorn.

If there’s one thing Bandai knows how to do, it’s sell more model kits by simply recolouring them. Whereas it seems strange to a lot of Western Modellers to market another version of a model based entirely on its paint scheme, this makes sense in the Asian market. Bandai makes its models so that the builder can, theoretically, assemble them without painting and get a fairly good approximation of the mech in question. Thus, whereas we in the West would simply buy two of the same kit and paint them differently, in Asia it makes sense to market two or more kits that are identical, just differently coloured.

To that end, the 1/144 Gouf Ignited has been issued in at least three different paint schemes. This is the third incarnation, the gold coloured machine of Rudolf Wittgenstein from the Seed sidestory “Gundam Seed Frame Astrays”. There’s no difference between this kit and the previous two except for the decals and the stand. I don’t think all versions of the Gouf Ignited come with it.

The Kit

The Gouf is a nice, simple Bandai HG 1/144 kit. It is unremarkable in this day and age, which says a lot about what mech modellers have come to take for granted. Even 5 years ago, a kit this simple yet nice would have been something to write home about. It’s very refined, and despite being the third iteration of the kit, there’s no mould deterioration visible anywhere.

It has excellent part separation and fairly good colour separation. There’s almost no buildaround the parts largely fit very well. The level of detail is nice, if not a bit sparse, but then again too much would overwhelm this kit anyway. One nice feature is the flight pack, which can be built in either open or closed mode, and technically, if done right, can be converted between modes when completed.

The kit comes moulded in a swirly goldish-yellow, brown, white, grey and blackish colour, with clear pink beam saber blades. There are a few dry transfers for some of the white scalloping, and a sheet of foil decals, which, as usual, are pretty much useless.

Building and Finishing

There are not a lot of parts compared to some recent Kotobukiya offerings in the same scale, but this can be a godsend; the Gouf finishes off quite quickly and easily, and is a nice kit to build if you’re in a rut. Construction is straightforward, and there are no really nasty surprises anywhere. Only the shoulders are a pain in the backside, as there’s some buildaround in there.

To really get the gold colour right, I’d need to paint the entire thing chrome, and then use yellow tinted future on it to get the depth I wanted. However, this is both hard to do and not necessarily amenable to touching up, so I chose a different route. To get as close to the chromy-gold colour as possible, I tried Vallejo paints. They make a nice yellow gold colour that should be perfect.

The problem is that it doesn’t cover worth a pinch of you-know-what. I ended up mixing the Vallejo with a Testors Model Master Acrylic-based yellow I had lying around. This made the yellow goldish, and added metallic flake to it. The brown is Roof Brown and is a Testors train colour. It is lightened just a tad with some MM Flat White.

I did the inner surfaces in MM Gunship Grey, as usual. I used an oil black wash on all the engines, actuators and other grimy parts, including the hands, in order to get a used look on them.

The final finish was done using Delta Ceramcoat Indoor/Outdoor Satin Varnish. This, when thinned with Alcohol and airbrushed, puts down a very smooth, satin finish, exactly half way between gloss and dead-flat. I was very impressed. This was the first time that I’d used this stuff (I’d used the flat on a few aircraft kits) and I’ll definitely recommend it to anyone. It was trouble free, with only one minor point to remember; KEEP IT THIN! It took awhile to build up a nice finish, but it was time well spent.

The stand was airbrushed in Tamiya Flat Black and then satin coated like the mech. The stand is a simple affair, but it does make the Gouf Ignited look like it’s flying, and it elevates it above the other kits in the display surrounding it.

Conclusions:

This is a very nice kit, albeit one that is not all that challenging. It is an excellent kit for someone not all that familiar with mech building, and provides a fun time for those looking for something different to build.