TIE Me Up, TIE Me Down...Bandai 1/72 TIE Fighters

[wbill76]

As a fun little diversion in-between projects, I'm going to spend a little time putting together the lovely new 1/72 Bandai TIE fighter kits that have recently come out. I'll be building them at the same time but will make a distinction between the standard TIE Fighter and the TIE Advanced x1 where appropriate!



These kits don't have a whole lot of parts to them and are meant to be snap-together as well, so assembly shouldn't take long from what I've seen and read of others who've taken these on. The real fun will be in the painting and weathering treatments of course! I'm not going to do anything fancy with them beyond just enjoying something a little different.

[JimD]

Neat. I'm following. I plan to build a couple of these new Bandai kits when I get the change, so this will be fun to watch.

[TRM]

Another cool bench session for you Bill!! Looking forward to seeing you play a bit! LOL...Don't make me break out my X-wing I picked up in Columbus last month!

[JimD]

Aug 21, 2015 15:37:36 GMT -5 TRM said:

Another cool bench session for you Bill!! Looking forward to seeing you play a bit! LOL...Don't make me break out my X-wing I picked up in Columbus last month!

You know you wanna

[TRM]

LOL...but it ain't gonna be pretty if I did Jimmy!!

[John Everett]

No having fun allowed! This is a hobby, and by definition should only be deadly serious!

On a less serious note, at our last show here in Colorado there was a guy who had done one of these with the solar panels covered in a material called FunkyFilm. It gave a neat 3D holographic effect to the wing panels.

[wbill76]

Jimmy, there's been a lot of interest in the Bandai stuff with it being no accident I'm sure in connection to the upcoming Episode VII!

Todd, I'm sure you could find a corner on your bench...if you were truly motivated that is! Glad to have you along for the ride.

John, I know...what was I possibly thinking? That sounds like it would be pretty cool to see with a 3D effect on the wings.

[wbill76]

The first 3 steps of these kits are virtually identical, so I worked on them side-by-side at the same time as a result. I should note that even though these are 'press together' kits that don't require glue, I'm still gluing all the parts together as I go to both ensure I don't have any seams and that everything stays together permanently over the long haul.

First up was getting the little 'pod' cockpits ready. The Advanced kit includes a Vader figure while the Fighter has a standard pilot. It's a nice touch I thought that they provide both sitting and standing figures depending on how you wanted to use/display them. I went with the sitting figures for both as they will be 'in flight' on their stands. The Vader figure is a tighter fit into the seat because of his cape but otherwise everything's identical.



After a quick dose of airbrushed RLM 66 for the interior of the pod, the pilots and control columns were added and installed into the rear of the pods.



The pod halves were joined together, I found it easiest to align them at the top first and then slowly press together at the middle and then bottoms to get it to go together smoothly. Liquid glue was added around the seams and additional finger pressure and rubber bands used to make sure it was solid. Virtually all of the pod will disappear inside the hull as it nests inside the hull halves when finally installed.



The hull halves are also designed to press together using multiple points including some on the pod...and this really is a snap together moment as you have to apply a good deal of pressure/force to get everything to sit as tight as it should and not leave any gaps. I used some rubber bands and liquid glue along the seams to make sure it all closed up properly. The Advanced hull went together a little smoother than that of the Fighter but that's largely due to their different designs I think than anything else.



Next up will be working a bit on the clear parts for the front and top before moving on to the wings.

[Leon]

WOW....Off to a good start Bill!

[TRM]

looky here...you just started the thread and a couple hours later, you're almost done!! That's the spirit!!

[wbill76]

Thanks Leon!

Todd, considering the kits consist of about 30-40 parts each total, it's not a lot to get them pulled together!

[TRM]

LOL....very true!! Less part combined than the running gear on the L/70!!

[JimD]

Aug 21, 2015 19:48:34 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Todd, considering the kits consist of about 30-40 parts each total, it's not a lot to get them pulled together!

So few pieces even Todd may be able to finish it

Looks great, Bill. Nice little holdover...I wonder why they made them in 1/72...the X Wing is 1/48 no? I'd have preferred that with these.

[TRM]

[k1w1]

Looking good so far. Interested to see how it goes together. I brought a 6 inch Bandai Stormtrooper a couple of weeks ago which I think may also snap together. Have not had anything to do with Bandai kits until now.

[wbill76]

Aug 21, 2015 21:27:24 GMT -5 JimD said:

Aug 21, 2015 19:48:34 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Todd, considering the kits consist of about 30-40 parts each total, it's not a lot to get them pulled together!

So few pieces even Todd may be able to finish it

Looks great, Bill. Nice little holdover...I wonder why they made them in 1/72...the X Wing is 1/48 no? I'd have preferred that with these.

I think they have it out in 2 different scales perhaps? This site has a review of the 1/72 offering that's designed to match up with the TIEs. www.gunjap.net/site/?p=220636

[wbill76]

Aug 22, 2015 11:00:34 GMT -5 k1w1 said:

Looking good so far. Interested to see how it goes together. I brought a 6 inch Bandai Stormtrooper a couple of weeks ago which I think may also snap together. Have not had anything to do with Bandai kits until now.

This is my first time with Bandai kits as well. So far I'm very impressed with the quality of the molding, the engineering/fit, and level of detail. They put a lot of thought into how the parts go together and everything so far at least has fit perfectly together.

[dupes]

Awwww heck...tuning in! Haven't gotten a shipment of Bandai kits from HLJ yet - interested to see how they compare to the Fine Molds offerings.

[wbill76]

Glad to have you along Dupes! Figured you'd get drawn into this one sooner or later.

Most of the effort today went into the Advanced kit as it required a little more effort vs. the simpler design of the standard TIE fighter. I got the rear portion of the hull together without any real issues but did have to shave down the large round peg that mounts into the rear of the crew pod. For whatever reason it hadn't molded cleanly and had some extra plastic that had to be removed and sanded back to shape to fit the opening as designed.



I also cleaned up the clear canopy parts for both kits. I brushed some Future acrylic floor polish on their surfaces and set them off to the side so they could dry thoroughly before handling further. As you can see they have a lot of nice molded-on detail to them. The kit also includes gray styrene options that don't have any clear parts to them, I'm guessing that's just to provide a more 'kid-friendly' aspect to the kits.



The Advanced hull was fully assembled and both fighters received their top domes since those are going to be painted to match the hull colors. I also did some dry-brushing with some Model Master Light Gray to bring out the details on the front of the cockpit bay.



Rounding out the day's session, I spent some time on the Advanced's wings. Bandai took an interesting approach for these. The wing's are a composite of ABS for the black solar panel areas and regular gray styrene for the rest. Except for the interior plates that include the hull mounts, the wings are all one part. That's going to make painting and detailing them a little more fun as the ABS portions are slightly raised above the styrene as a result of the composite molding that was used to create them. It does create a neat pattern to the panels though. There were also several small ejector marks on the inside of the wing's perimeter edges that had to be dealt with but they weren't very deep or large.



The standard Fighter's wings are all regular styrene although the solar panels are molded in black, so they only went the ABS route with the Advanced. I checked the Testors site and all of the enamel paints that I plan to use are supposed to be OK for use on ABS plastic, so hopefully I don't get any surprises down the road!

[TRM]

You have to expect a few bumps along the way! Looks like you overcame some already! Looking great Bill! Moving right along!!

[John Everett]

"Let him go! Stay on the leader!"

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOFgFAcGHQc

[Leon]

WOW!!!!!!! You really have this build in hyper drive Bill.Both fighters are looking great.

[wbill76]

Not too bumpy Todd, just part of the usual drill with any kit of course!

John, nothing like the original for good reference material.

Leon, not much left before the next round of painting will start. The Fighter's wings are a multi-part effort but that's all that's really left to tackle. This is just a placeholder project while I wait for the USS Texas stuff to come in, so far it's working out just right!

[S e r z h--Rest In Peace]

Bill - as always an interesting building, nice to look at. I suggested the subject

[wbill76]

Now there's an interesting dio idea Serzh!

[wbill76]

More progress to report, this time on the standard Fighter's wings. I have to say I'm impressed with Bandai's approach to these, the parts fit and engineering are outstanding and the ejector pins are all positioned on surfaces that aren't visible. Other than a few that were slightly raised vs. sunken that I sanded down to be sure they didn't cause any interference, the clean-up of the parts here is minimal. Each wing panel is molded in black and the perimeter edges are all separate parts that fit together along with the 'spider' centerpieces to create the full wing. Careful use of liquid glue and applied pressure did the trick. Some small clamps were helpful in getting all the edge join parts to glue together seamlessly and that was that!



There's always some tedious task to be done in every build, on these it's the canopy masking. I used regular blue painter's tape and burnished it down with a toothpick, then carefully cut out each window pane's mask with a sharp #11 blade. Due to the friction fit, I didn't want to run the risk of paint interference later on so I went ahead and installed them in place. I'm also not going to follow the instruction illustrations and paint the frames a darker gray from the rest of the exterior hull...instead they will all get the same gray treatment. Keeps life simpler that way. For the hatch tops, I masked the small window openings there with some poster blue tack putty. The windows are small and narrow and trying the masking tape approach was more challenging due to the relatively shallow frames on this part.



Next up will be spraying some flat black primer and getting ready to paint the exteriors. The wings are being kept separate deliberately to make the painting job easier.

[Leon]

Nice work on the masking Bill!

[JimD]

Coming along nicely. Painting and weathering will be a fun departure from the norm. However, I've seen more than one mention of issues with enamels damaging the plastic...I know the discussion came up before and you thought it may be because folks weren't gluing pieces. Curios to see how that works out.

[wbill76]

Thanks Leon! The kit provides some dark gray decals (as well as stickers if you want to go even simpler) but I figured the masking is the better way to go. We'll see if I was right!

Aug 25, 2015 11:03:23 GMT -5 JimD said:

Coming along nicely. Painting and weathering will be a fun departure from the norm. However, I've seen more than one mention of issues with enamels damaging the plastic...I know the discussion came up before and you thought it may be because folks weren't gluing pieces. Curios to see how that works out.

It's interesting to see the different interpretations out there of how these should be painted. Ranges the whole spectrum from a very light gray to a darker bluish-gray (think panzer gray type of finish) with the weathering to go with it. Who knew space was such a dirty environment? I'm going to go the lighter gray route using some of my RLM 02 stock since it's a) already on hand, b) weathers up nicely, and c) it's gray!

The issues about the plastic seem to be from people using aggressive solvents or highly thinned mixes for things and relying solely on the press-together nature of the kits for assembly. Thinner gets inside, sits, and eats away or weakens the joints and stuff just falls apart from the inside. I don't know if people have had any superficial issues with enamel paint alone attacking the plastic...but I guess I'll find out soon enough! The only thing that has me slightly worried is the ABS material in the Advanced's wings, but I'm taking Testors at their word that their enamels are ok for use on ABS. As a precaution, I'm going to run a small test on the left over ABS stuff on the sprues and if it reacts ok, I should be good.

So far there haven't been any issues with the stuff I painted in the interior of the cockpits (it was all regular styrene) for example and that was all airbrushed enamels.

[wbill76]

My test with the spare ABS sprue was largely successful. I tested different colors and washes that I keep on hand to see how it would react to different ratios of thinner/paint applications and they all passed beautifully with just one exception. For whatever reason, the AMMO filter/washes wouldn't 'grab' onto it and hold and the pigment would just rub right off. I'm guessing whatever they use as a thinner/carrier agent just doesn't bond or bite into the ABS in the same way that the Testors enamel-based stuff does, so that's something to file away for the future at least. The Testors stuff however after sitting overnight so it could cure was rock solid with no rubbing, no melting of the plastic, etc. That's as good a green light as any for me to proceed with the usual airbrush and weathering treatments for the ABS stuff, full steam ahead!