RB-79K BALL

BANDAI 1/144 LM RB-79K BALL

>08TH MS TEAM OVA<

DESCRIPTION I have always had a special spot in my heart for the Ball. The lowly cannon fodder of the EFSF. In the Gundam 0079 series, several great space battles show the Balls getting the snot kicked out of them. One scene even goes as far as showing a Dom "knocking one out of the park" with a Hyper Bazooka! This model is the Bandai LM (Limited Model) 1/144th RB-79K Ball used in the beginning of 08th Team. Shiro Armada uses it to take on the upgraded MS-06-7 Zaku with surprising results. KIT REVIEW Limited Model means just that. Limited. All parts are molded one color, orange. There are 15 parts on two sprue trees. Panel lines, while present, are inconsistent, heavy on some parts and light on others. Parts are molded with solid think walls. Surprisingly, there are few sink marks in the parts. Assembly is very straight forward and can go together with out glue. Even if you took the time to smooth out trim tabs, the entire thing could be built in under an hour and you would have a nice orange chunk of plastic on your desk. ARMS Molded one piece. Even for a 1/144 kit, these things are poor. Ball end slips into hole in torso. Injector pin marks and tooling misalignment require cleanup. See images below for close-ups of kit arms. TORSO Not really a torso, but for this review, close enough. Molded three pieces, front, back, top. The front and back split the entire middle which runs through a lot of molded in detail, vernier nozzles, view ports. This will require a lot of sanding and fixing up. The top part has fairly heavy panel lines and molded in vernier nozzles that are little more than lumps. Head lamp rack is molded one piece. Towing line pulley is molded one piece. The rocket propelled harpoon is absent. THRUSTERS Molded solid one piece with decent detail compared with the rest of the kit. Three nozzles for the kit. ARMAMENT Guns are molded one piece with no detail for the barrel. The baffles are molded solid. The RADAR dish is molded solid with minimal detail. It looks too large compared to reference images. The housing is two pieces with minimal detail. It also looks over sized for scale. DECALS A small sheet of water slide decals are provided. Warning, caution, etc. CHANGES First round is to update the poor arms. See images below for steps. View Ports have been filed out and will be replaced with MP Lenses. Molded in verniers will be replaced with Wave bits. I plan on upgrading the guns and RADAR assembly. The model is finally finished. It took along time to get the new images uploaded. After the primer coat, the model was painted with a white enamle base coat. The orange was applied and the white really helped the color. Diluted black enamel paint was then used to post-shade the panel lines. The first time I have ever attempted this. The front window was first painted silver enamel, a light coat of deep blue was used for the color, and finally black was airbrused around the edges for depth. Three coats of Future Floor Polish were used to enhance the depth of the window. The whole thing was clear coated, and decals from Wave were used to dress up the kit. The whole thing was then sealed with Matt clear. I applied a selective wash to pick out details. Finally, Black Pastels were used to dress up the kit. I am really happy with the results

CloseUp of the wench and harpoon. The harpoon was scratch built from styrene sheet and rod and alum. tube. The cable coil is Wave A Spring. The whole assembly is removable for painting. At this point, the arms are complete. RADAR assembly. The main housing is made of Bondo Polyester Putty. The rest of the frame is made of sryrene sheet and tube. The kit dish was static. A simple styrene rod and tube was used to make a hinge. Close-up of muzzle. The muzzle is molded solid in the LM kit. First the I.D. was drilled out with a progression of drill bits in a pin vise. When the wall was thin enough in the area of the baffles, sharp hobby knives were used to open up and square off the openings. Needle files were then use to clean up the baffles. The sight has no detail and will be replaced. Close-up of the front and Lamp assembly. Rear view. All molded in vernier thrusters have been removed and replaced with Wave bits. Some of the smaller details were sanded off and replaced with .005 styrene strips. The kit lamp assembly is molded as one piece. Styrene rod and sheet was used to create a more accurate lamp frame. The top vernier array was a rather crude molding. The molded in thrusters were removed and styrene and Wave nozzles were used to replace the kit nozzle lumps. The kit wench is molded as one piece. Styrene was used to replicate the wench frame. Overview Top is kit arm. Bottom is modified kit arm. It was fairly easy to cut out the parts for the mechanical joints. Copper wire was used for pivot points. This shows a break out on all the parts. While the lower arm actuator doesn't move, the top jaw pivots. Wave Option bits were used to dress up the hinge points. Close up of the upper jaws. This looks a lot better than the kit supplied part. The kit claws were cut out of the kit plastic and sanded to shape. Styrene was added for rubber blocks for the jaws. A set of calipers were used to measure the kit details. I laid out all the dimensions in a CAD program adjusting for material thickness. This also allowed me to have accurate center points for holes. I used a spray adhesive to laminate the printout on to 0.04" styrene. Pivot holes were drilled with a pin vise, then all parts were cut and sanded. BACK TO GALLERY