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Best 1/48 MER & TER out there?


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3 hours ago, shion said:

Aerobonus for both.

Like Brassin is a line in Eduard's products, also their Zoom and Big Sin ones too.

Aerobonus, Quickboost and Wheeliant are lines of products from Aires.

 

As for the reason Eduard MERs are too short and many other of their long thin things like missiles, its an inherent problem from their design and manufacturing process, which they're  aware of but don't seem to try to mitigate or compensate for longer or larger parts.

 

Let me explain.

Both the photoetch and resin parts are designed at the same time, in the computer they have the same measurements.

 

The manufacturing of the Photoetch, won't add any or very negligible difference in the measurements, the films used to transfer the designs don't shrink and the brass sheets won't shrink during or after manufacturing. So basically what you see on the computer designs is what you get with their photoetch parts.

 

Now here's comes where the discrepancy starts.

 

The problem is in the resin masters, molds and the cast pieces. From their tour videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryAlTDl5Q1Q

 

from their first master made with 3d printing they make many copies for backup and to use as masters for mass mold making and production, but as they explain in the video they're already 3 generations down, so the ones you get are already 4 generations of mold and resin castings down from their original masters.

Now what's the problem? Even if their first master would have the perfect to scale measurements, but as ironically explained in the video silicon molds and resin do shrink and it's further exacerbated that they're 4gens down the line. Let's take example numbers from stuff I've used, smooth-on silicons have a 0.1%-0.2% shrinkage at best. Their resins have from 0.5 to 1% shrinkage. Taking a worse case, 4 gens down the line the ones you get are shrunk by 5% from the original design. Also the video explains that the shrinkage varies from piece to piece, but usually the longer/larger pieces the shrinkage will be more noticeable when for example the fin pieces are quite a bit larger and doesn't fit  the recess or hole in a missile body that's shrunk quite a bit more than the smaller pieces. Another place where this is noticeable is when the photoetch parts don't match the size of the resin piece.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, Eli Raphael said:

Thanks for the explanation

So what company makes accurate MERs and TERs in 1/48?

 

The most accurate MER's available are those that come in the Revell A-6E kit, or the Academy F-4J. Stay away from both the Eduard and Aerobonus items.

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41 minutes ago, Dave Roof said:

 

The most accurate MER's available are those that come in the Revell A-6E kit, or the Academy F-4J. Stay away from both the Eduard and Aerobonus items.

How many come in each respective kit, can you say?

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9 hours ago, Inquisitor said:

Like Brassin is a line in Eduard's products, also their Zoom and Big Sin ones too.

Aerobonus, Quickboost and Wheeliant are lines of products from Aires.

 

As for the reason Eduard MERs are too short and many other of their long thin things like missiles, its an inherent problem from their design and manufacturing process, which they're  aware of but don't seem to try to mitigate or compensate for longer or larger parts.

 

Let me explain.

Both the photoetch and resin parts are designed at the same time, in the computer they have the same measurements.

 

The manufacturing of the Photoetch, won't add any or very negligible difference in the measurements, the films used to transfer the designs don't shrink and the brass sheets won't shrink during or after manufacturing. So basically what you see on the computer designs is what you get with their photoetch parts.

 

Now here's comes where the discrepancy starts.

 

The problem is in the resin masters, molds and the cast pieces. From their tour videos here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryAlTDl5Q1Q

 

from their first master made with 3d printing they make many copies for backup and to use as masters for mass mold making and production, but as they explain in the video they're already 3 generations down, so the ones you get are already 4 generations of mold and resin castings down from their original masters.

Now what's the problem? Even if their first master would have the perfect to scale measurements, but as ironically explained in the video silicon molds and resin do shrink and it's further exacerbated that they're 4gens down the line. Let's take example numbers from stuff I've used, smooth-on silicons have a 0.1%-0.2% shrinkage at best. Their resins have from 0.5 to 1% shrinkage. Taking a worse case, 4 gens down the line the ones you get are shrunk by 5% from the original design. Also the video explains that the shrinkage varies from piece to piece, but usually the longer/larger pieces the shrinkage will be more noticeable when for example the fin pieces are quite a bit larger and doesn't fit  the recess or hole in a missile body that's shrunk quite a bit more than the smaller pieces. Another place where this is noticeable is when the photoetch parts don't match the size of the resin piece.

 

 

You missed the point.

 

I'm answering the Topic title question:  Best 1/48 MER & TER out there? 

Answer: Aerobonus.

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2 hours ago, shion said:

You missed the point.

 

I'm answering the Topic title question:  Best 1/48 MER & TER out there? 

Answer: Aerobonus.

I worked on the real MER and TER for 5 years and can guarantee from first hand experience the Aerobonus items are not the best. 

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15 minutes ago, Dave Roof said:

I worked on the real MER and TER for 5 years and can guarantee from first hand experience the Aerobonus items are not the best. 

 

And I followed several builds where people used Hasegawa TERs and MERs differents versions, Academy ones, Eduard ones and Aerobonus ones.

And in the end, I considered the Aerobonus items are the best of  them, i.e the best ones people can used Out-of-Box.

 

Take a look at Crackerjazz A-7 build, where he used Hasegawa TER from the A-7 box: 

Maybe accurate in size, but lacking details.

He had to add some.

 

 

 

 

 

Take a look at Aigore A-6E build, where he used Eduard MER: 

 

Maybe inaccurate in size, but with lot of details.

 

 

I've got the Academy F-4: both TER and MER are crude, cruder than Hasegawa ones, less details.

So maybe accurate in size, but lacking more details than Hasegawa.

Same thing with the revell A-6 ones.

 

I've got the Aerobonus ones: More details than the Eduard.

 

Summary:

Details: Aerobonus > Eduard > Hasegawa > Academy and Revell

Size accuracy: Academy and Revell > Hasegawa, Eduard, Aerobonus.

 

Now, people must make a choice and needs to make some trade-offs.

 

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You're right.....you following model builds trumps my personal experience with the real item. My bad. Continue to use what makes you happy and have a great weekend.

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I'd like to point out one thing, after you detailed your MER/TER's, how much of that detail can you actually see once you load them?

 

Unless you are going to leave them empty, having the most detailed/accurate MER/TER is pointless IMO because 95% of that detail is going to be covered up by the weapon/store.

 

And I'm with Dave, putting hand to steel trumps following model builds/reading a book/surfing the interwebs any day.

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14 hours ago, shion said:

You missed the point.

 

I'm answering the Topic title question:  Best 1/48 MER & TER out there? 

Answer: Aerobonus.

Maybe I shouldn't have quoted you for you to take it personally. Because my answer was only 1% related to yours, to clarify that Aerobonus was part of Aires, since Eli was also confused about Eduard and Eduard Brassin.

 

As for the 99% in the rest of my post it wasn't directed at you. Was simply stating my opinion on why Eduard's piece was too small, nothing related to your own opinion about Aerobonus being the best. Or did I say anything against it or otherwise?

Edited by Inquisitor
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