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1/72 Millenium Falcon


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Hi again all,

Well here is my next project that I have been working away at fever pitch since finishing the Viper.

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So far so good, all the greeblies are fitted to the back and am about to move onto the sides. Straight OOB again apart from a few little corrections. She has been constructed in top and bottom so that I can pull her apart to paint and join the tow halves after painting.

I have been watching this Japanese modeler and have taken his mods to heart on my Falcon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JR84jmxwL0

Looking forward to finishing it off to the painting point!

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More to come!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quick update..

Side walls done.

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Cockpit done with the outerspace outfitters cockpit sheets.

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I have painted the engine with Dark anodic gray, then washed with black. Hard to see sorry....

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I decided that I would connect the two halves together after breaking a couple of little grebles by pulling them apart.

I have marked out the battle damage, gota get the chuck for my dremel before attacking it.. thats next :)

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More to come

Edited by nimrod77
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Oh, 200$. Can it do jump to the hyperspace :roll:

Yeah, these kits are stupid expensive. I know Lucas licenses are not cheap and all that, but seriously. What's even more insulting is the almost $100 for the 1:144 scale one. All Fine Molds kits are rediculusly priced and really they don't strike me as worth it. I picked up the 1:72 X-wing for about $25 (it was a stash sale) and really, that's all that kit is worth.

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Yeah, these kits are stupid expensive. I know Lucas licenses are not cheap and all that, but seriously. What's even more insulting is the almost $100 for the 1:144 scale one. All Fine Molds kits are rediculusly priced and really they don't strike me as worth it. I picked up the 1:72 X-wing for about $25 (it was a stash sale) and really, that's all that kit is worth.

Considering how the yen to dollar rate is right now, I can understand the $200 price tag. But even when the kit was brand new in 2005, it was about $160. I was on the fence about whether or not to get one, but I knew FineMolds could pull off a good job and the test shots showed how good it was. Besides, any kit that has over 800 PIECES is not going to be cheap by any stretch of the imagination. I had it sitting in storage for a few years before building it as I didn't want to risk wrecking an expensive kit. But when I finally started working on it, the value of the money spent came out as things fit together VERY well and it looked like the Falcon. I built mine essentially OOB and when I was done with the paintwork, I ended up with something that almost looked like a smaller version of the studio model from ESB. The seperate parts had a look about them that an AMT or Revell kit didn't have and with the sidewalls being the proper height, the model looked a lot better than anything that came before.

http://s92.photobucket.com/albums/l31/JMCh...Molds%20Falcon/

While I balk at the price of Trumpeter kits pushing triple digits, I was extremely satisfied with my purchase of the FMMF as it felt like what a kit should be. Plus, even if you try to accurize an MPC kit, it is not an easy path, or an inexpensive one either if you use resin sidewalls.

BTW, where do you get a price of about $100 for the 1/144 Falcon? I remember when I got mine it was about $50-60 ish from Starship Modeler, NOT $100. All things considered, given its size and parts count, a $50 price tag is not unreasonable for a 1/144 Millennium Falcon I think when one compares it with something of similar complexity and size, such as say a Tu-95 Bear Bomber (which Trumpeter does). Granted I got mine before the yen rate went up as well, but I don't think its price increased by THAT much.

BTW, nice work so far Nimrod. I waited until after paint (and basic weathering) before I did my battle damage work since a bit of it involved chipping the paint anyway. A .005 tipped black artist's pen also works well for the tiny black scrape marks you see on portions of the studio model (such as on parts of the bottom. As for a chuck for the Dremel bits, masking tape works well enough to increase the size of the bit enough for a chuck to use and I had to do that with my Dremel cordless tool. My normal Dremel could accomodate the bits, but it spun too fast to work well for the bottom gashes and the "soldering iron" marks near the radar dish.

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Yeah, these kits are stupid expensive. I know Lucas licenses are not cheap and all that, but seriously. What's even more insulting is the almost $100 for the 1:144 scale one. All Fine Molds kits are rediculusly priced and really they don't strike me as worth it. I picked up the 1:72 X-wing for about $25 (it was a stash sale) and really, that's all that kit is worth.

Wow! $100.00 USD for the 1/144 Falcon? I didn't know it jumped in price that much. When I bought mine last year (April) I paid about 3800 yen plus shipping...probably about $55.00 total. That's a better return on my investment than some of my mutual funds!!!!!

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BTW, where do you get a price of about $100 for the 1/144 Falcon? I remember when I got mine it was about $50-60 ish from Starship Modeler, NOT $100. All things considered, given its size and parts count, a $50 price tag is not unreasonable for a 1/144 Millennium Falcon I think when one compares it with something of similar complexity and size, such as say a Tu-95 Bear Bomber (which Trumpeter does). Granted I got mine before the yen rate went up as well, but I don't think its price increased by THAT much.

Burnaby Hobbies Burnaby, BC. Imperial Hobbies Richmond BC. Both sell the 1:144 kit for ~$89. In fact, any LHS I've seen it in is sitting in the mid to late 80s range. After taxes that's $102.

Edited by RiderFan
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Well, the big thing to keep in mind about FineMolds is they are licensed for the Japanese market only while Revell has the North American market. As such, a hobby shop that gets them will be getting them from a third party distributor who is essentially charging the Japanese retail price as wholesale, so the shop will then mark the price up accordingly. So what started out as a $50 kit becomes a $100 kit and that is why it is "stupid" expensive. Only places I get FM kits from are either HLJ.com or Starshipmodeler.com (which has an arragement with HLJ for lower prices since SSM's webmaster does the accounting software for HLJ). Sounds like Spruebrothers is getting FM kits as well, but I don't know what their mainland Japan source is for them.

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Yeah, these kits are stupid expensive. I know Lucas licenses are not cheap and all that, but seriously. What's even more insulting is the almost $100 for the 1:144 scale one. All Fine Molds kits are rediculusly priced and really they don't strike me as worth it. I picked up the 1:72 X-wing for about $25 (it was a stash sale) and really, that's all that kit is worth.

I would admit that "stupid expensive" or just plain "expensive" is subjective and based on opinion. Where Fine Molds kits are concerned, the prices of these kits fall in line with what should be expected, even if not what is desired. First, you have to consider the retail price in Japan, and that is printed right on the side of the box. So next time you're at your LHS, and they actually happen to have some FM SW kits (most do not), consider that price printed as part of the box art. It will look like 3400 or 4300 or 2800, etc. That's in yen, and you used to get a rough estimate of the dollar conversion by dropping the two last digits/zeros, so 3400 becomes something like 34 dollars. Now 34 is more like 40 dollars. And certainly the 4700 yen price of the 144th MF does not convert to $100.

As someone stated, US hobby shops pretty much have to get these kits like we do and then charge their mark up on top of that. So if I can get it for $60 including shipping, they get it for close to that, then tack on a surcharge, and many shops feel just fine tacking on more than a normal percentage because of the rarity factor. There is (or was just last week) someone in the US who had the 48th scale X-wing on evilbay for $189, on "sale" from the original price of $199. The kit retails in Japan for 4700 yen. While the 72nd scale MF was on hiatus, they were often listed or sold for $600 or more.

But none of that should be used for discussing the prices because you can (in the US and most countries) get these straight from Lucky in China or any one of several online shops based in Japan (there's more than just HLJ), and even starshipmodeler.com in the US has prices very close to retail and worth considering as shipping is less of a pain.

Now is it worth it. The licensing fee aside (whatever it may be), the X-wing lists for 2400 yen (even though HLJ has it on sale for 2040) and that is under 30 dollars. It is a very good kit, very detailed, and quite accurate kit. (Accuracy is, of course, a whole discussion in itself, but we can at least say FM kits are not grossly inaccurate in the way so many other SW kits have been. And there's that rumor that Lucas' peeps artificially manipulate or control the level of accuracy to make the kits specifically inaccurate in certain ways.) Compare that retail price to an airplane model that is roughly the same sized and that was first produced fairly recently (i.e. not in the 70s or 80s or maybe even the 90s). A 48th scale Tamiya A6M5 retails for 3400 yen (but commands nearly $60 at many LHS, and I think the US retail price is $50). I use the 48th scale kit as that plane in that scale is similar in size to the 72nd scale X-wing. It's not exactly a fair comparison as that particular model is considered one of the best (or the best, depending on whom you ask) aircraft kit of any subject in 48th scale. The Hasegawa Spitfire Mark IVc in 48th retails for 2400. I could go on with examples, but the prices of FM SW stuff is pretty much in line with other comparable recent, high quality, Japanese kits of other subjects by other manufacturers. I did this same cost comparison about a year ago and came to the conclusion that I couldn't even really see the effect of the licensing fee in the price of the kits. And one other huge factor is the market. Not only is it limited to the Japanese market (making it harder and more expensive to get it elsewhere) but the subject itself--sci fi--doesn't do nearly as much business as most other areas of modeling (and the Zeke and Spitfire examples above are incredibly popular and "safe" subjects).

The real problem with the FM SW pricing is that it's just so hard to find a "deal" on them. The retail price is fine, really (although I too wish they came free in boxes of cereal), but we're so used to finding deals. I do a lot of modeling in modern jets, and maybe 75% of my stash consists of that. When I buy those kits, my goal is to never pay more than half of retail, even when shipping, if applicable, is factored in. I snipe on evilbay, shop the tables at local events, and we have several swap meets here in So Cal every year. I'm very opportunistic. This makes me think that the Tamiya 48th scale Vipers should be $40 instead of $60 because I've never paid more than $40. Never paid more than $100 for the Tamiya 32nd scale Vipers (I have 3 in the stash). Those retail at over $200. By the same logic, I want to think I should find the $200 72nd scale MF for under $100, but it doesn't work that way. So compared to that $100 Viper, the $200 MF is "stupid expensive", but compared to a $200 Viper (at retail), the FM MF is priced about right. If it's a little expensive by comparison, it's not "stupid expensive."

BTW, for the record, I have three 72nd scale MFs in my stash. The first was bought when they first came out through SSM, and the price, including shipping, was under $200. The second was bought during the imfamous half-off sale through Target.com/amazon.com, where the MF was $140 shipped (not half off of retail, but half off of very close to retail). The third was bought by the one LHS that I know of So Cal that regularly stocks FM stuff and prices it very close to retail--don't know how they do it, though. I went in there during their Thanksgiving Day sale of 2009 (yes, after the MF was taken off the market and already extremely scarce) and they had 33% of everything. The MF was priced at $200, but 33%f off brought it down do $135 or so, and couldn't pass that up--especially seeing them at $600 on evilbay.

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